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What can you actually claim against rental income?

Add up your allowable rental costs to see your taxable profit, then check whether the £1,000 property income allowance beats claiming actual expenses. A guide, not tax advice. Free, no sign-up.

Annual rental income (£) Total rent received over the tax year, before any expenses.

Allowable expenses

Enter each yearly cost you can claim. Leave any blank. These follow HMRC's SA105 property pages.

Repairs and maintenance (£) — optional Like-for-like fixes, not improvements (those are capital, see below).

Letting agent and management fees (£) — optional Commission, tenant find fees, ongoing management.

Landlord insurance (£) — optional Buildings, contents and landlord liability cover.

Ground rent, service charges and rates (£) — optional For leasehold flats and similar.

Utilities and council tax (£) — optional Only if you pay them, not the tenant.

Legal, accountancy and professional fees (£) — optional Accountant, certain legal costs, professional advice.

Other allowable costs (£) — optional Advertising, phone, stationery and other day-to-day running costs.

Use of home, flat rate — optional If you run the lettings from home, HMRC's flat rate by hours worked there each month is a simple way to claim a share of household costs, instead of apportioning actual bills. Added to your expenses below.

Three things landlords often miss (add them under "Other allowable costs"): Replacement of Domestic Items relief for furnished lets, the cost of replacing beds, sofas, carpets, white goods and the like (the like-for-like cost, less anything you sell the old one for). Mileage for property visits at HMRC's rate of 45p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in the year, then 25p. And anything part-personal (phone, broadband, car) is claimed only at its business proportion, under the wholly-and-exclusively rule, not the whole bill.

Mortgage interest is handled separately

Mortgage and other finance interest is no longer an allowable expense. It gives a separate 20% tax credit under Section 24, which this tool does not calculate. Our Section 24 tax calculator works that out. You can enter it below for reference only — it is never added to your expenses or profit here.

Finance interest (mortgage), memo only (£) — optional Claimed separately as a 20% credit, not included in the total below.

A guide, not tax advice. The categories follow HMRC's property pages (SA105), but always check GOV.UK or an accountant. Improvements are capital, not allowable here, unlike like-for-like repairs. Mortgage and finance interest is handled separately under Section 24 as a 20% tax credit and is never included in the totals above. The one fixed figure used is the £1,000 property income allowance. Nothing you type here leaves your browser.

What you can and can't claim

Allowable, capital, or a separate credit.

Repairs versus improvements. The cost of keeping a property in its existing state is an allowable expense: mending a broken boiler, repainting, replacing a worn kitchen with a similar one. Improvements, like adding an extension or upgrading to a far better standard, are capital costs. They are not allowable against rental income, though they may reduce a future capital gains tax bill instead.

The £1,000 property income allowance. Instead of claiming your actual costs, you can deduct a flat £1,000 from your rental income. You cannot do both, and you cannot use the allowance to create a loss. It only helps when your real expenses are below £1,000, so it is mostly useful for very low-cost lets. This tool shows your profit both ways and tells you which is better for you.

Mortgage interest moved to a 20% credit. Since April 2020 you can no longer deduct mortgage or other finance interest as an expense. Instead it gives a basic-rate (20%) tax reducer under Section 24. That is a different calculation, and this tool deliberately leaves it out of your expense total and profit. Our Section 24 tax calculator works that out.

Replacement of Domestic Items relief. For furnished and part-furnished lets you can't claim the cost of the original furniture, but you can claim the cost of replacing domestic items: beds, sofas, carpets, curtains, white goods, crockery and so on. The relief is the cost of a like-for-like replacement (you can't claim the extra if you upgrade to something noticeably better), less anything you get for the old item. Add it under "Other allowable costs" once an item is replaced.

The wholly-and-exclusively rule. A cost is only allowable if it's incurred wholly and exclusively for the letting business. Where something is part-business, part-personal (a phone, broadband, a car), you claim only the business proportion, not the whole bill.

Mileage for property visits. Travel to inspect, maintain or manage your let is allowable. Instead of working out the actual running cost of the vehicle, you can use HMRC's simplified mileage rate of 45p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in the year, then 25p a mile after that. Keep a log of the trips and add the total under "Other allowable costs".

You can't mix the two methods. For a given tax year you either claim actual allowable expenses or the £1,000 property allowance, never a blend of both. Pick whichever leaves you with the lower taxable profit.

Add it up once, then keep it logged.

Stead's landlord tools log rent and expenses against each property, build a tax-year P&L, and track the compliance that protects your profit — gas, EICR, EPC, deposits and notices, all in one place.

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