CHECKLIST
Site-Based Worker Expenses
Travel, subsistence and the 24 month rule, for anyone working from a different site every few months. About thirty minutes to set up, then a habit.
- Five sections, seventeen checks, thirty minutes
- The 24 month rule, and the second test people forget
- The one record almost nobody keeps and everybody needs
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Who this checklist is for
Subcontractors and site workers who claim travel to sites and have never checked whether the site they have been on for two years still counts.
You have been on the same site a long time
A workplace is permanent once you have spent, or expect to spend, more than 24 months there and you spend at least 40 per cent of your working time there. Both tests have to be met. Under 40 per cent and it stays temporary however long it runs.
You are working out the answer with hindsight
It turns on expectation, not outcome. A site you expected to last three years is a permanent workplace from your first day even if the job is cancelled at month six. One you expected to run eighteen months is allowable until the day your expectation changed, and not after it.
Your mileage log gets written in January
A log kept weekly is evidence. One reconstructed from memory eleven months later is an estimate, and it reads like one. Date, site, miles and the reason if it is not obvious, written as you go.
FACTS
The mileage rates changed in April 2026
55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in the tax year, then 25p. That was the first increase since 2011, so anyone using a spreadsheet set up a few years ago is still claiming 45p. The band follows the person rather than the vehicle, and it resets on 6 April.
17 checks
Five sections
24 months
And 40 per cent of your working time
FACTS
The record that answers the question
A list of sites with start and end dates. It is the only document that settles the 24 month question, almost nobody keeps one, and without it you are reconstructing your own expectations from years ago in front of someone who is not obliged to believe you.