Mileage and Subsistence Rates - What should you pay?

Written by Marie | March 14, 2018

Overview

The Revenue guidelines for the mileage and subsistence rates were updated on 1^st of April 2017.

You can pay your employee’s expenses when they travel on business journeys. You can also pay subsistence if employees are working away from their normal place of work. You can repay your employees when they use their private cars, motorcycles or bicycles for business purposes.

A common mistake that sole traders make is to claim mileage and subsistence using Civil Service Rates. They can only claim for the actual expenses they incur so if you are a sole trader, you should keep receipts for the business portion of motor expenses (Fuel, motor tax, motor insurance) hotels and related expenses.

Reimbursement rates

Use of private vehicles

You can repay your employees when they use their private cars, motorcycles or bicycles for business purposes. This payment can be made, tax free, by the amount of business kilometres travelled.

You can either:

Use the current schedule of Civil Service rates
Use other rates not higher than Civil Service rates
Repay the actual cost of the travel to your employee. This amount should not exceed the current Civil Service rates.
Your employee may make a claim to Revenue for any travel expenses that are not repaid by you. They should use the car expenses claim form.

Subsistence expenses

You may repay your employee expenses for their subsistence costs while they are temporarily away from their normal place of work.

Payments can be made by either:

Using the current schedule of Civil Service subsistence rates
Repaying the actual cost of subsistence, at a rate not higher than the current Civil Service rates

The current Civil Service Rates are:

Motor Travel Rates per kilometer
Distance Bands		Engine Capacity up to 1200cc	Engine Capacity 1201cc to 1500cc	Engine Capacity 1501cc and over
Band 1	0 – 1,500km	37.95 cent	39.86 cent	44.79 cent
Band 2	1,501 – 5,500 km	70.00 cent	73.21 cent	83.53 cent
Band 3	5,501 – 25,000 km	27.55 cent	29.03 cent	32.21 cent
Band 4	25,001 km and over	21.36 cent	22.23 cent	25.85 cent

Reduced Motor Travel Rates per kilometer
Engine Capacity up to 1200cc	Engine Capacity 1201cc to 1500cc	Engine Capacity 1501cc and over
16.59 cent	17.63 cent	18.97 cent

Current Subsistence Rates (applying from 1 April 2017) are:

Night Allowance			Day Allowance
Normal Rate	Reduced Rate	Detention Rate	10 hours or more	5 hours but less than 10 hours
€133.73	€120.36	€66.87	€33.61	€14.01

Overnight allowance

Overnight allowance covers an overnight absence of up to 24 hours. This must be at least 100km from the employee's home and their normal place of work.

Day allowances

There are two categories, five to ten hours and over ten hours absence. The absence must be outside eight kilometers of the employee's home or normal place of work (five kilometers prior to 1 July 2015).

Domestic day subsistence rates (from 1 July 2015)
Domestic day subsistence rates
Ten hours or more €33.61
Between five and ten hours €14.01

The Revenue Commissioners are always reviewing mileage and subsistence claims so make sure your expense claims and records will withstand detailed Revenue scrutiny. If they don’t it could cost you!

For further information on the revenue guidelines on travel & Subsistence go to www.revenue.ie or contact Kevin O’Donnell at RDA on 053 9170507 or email kodonnell@rda.ie.

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