Is there VAT on train tickets?

No. Passenger transport in a vehicle designed or adapted to carry ten or more passengers is zero-rated under item 4 of Group 8 of Schedule 8 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994, and a train comfortably meets that condition. The ticket carries no VAT and there is nothing to reclaim. Zero-rated is not the same as outside the scope, however, so the cost still belongs in the purchases total on the VAT return. A great many expense systems default a rail ticket to the standard rate and recover a sixth of it, which is tax nobody charged.

Is there VAT on flights?

No, on both of the routes that matter. Any scheduled flight is zero-rated whatever the size of the aircraft, and any journey between a place in the United Kingdom and a place outside it is zero-rated in either direction. So a domestic scheduled flight and an international charter are both free of VAT. Air Passenger Duty is part of the fare and takes the same treatment, so it is not separately recoverable either. Pleasure flights are the exception and are standard-rated.

Is there VAT on Uber and taxi fares?

The supply is standard-rated, because a car carries fewer than ten passengers and so falls outside the zero rate for passenger transport. Whether there is any VAT on your particular receipt is a different question, and it depends entirely on whether the supplier is VAT registered. A great many individual drivers trade below the registration threshold and charge no VAT at all, while a large operator will. Reclaim only what a valid VAT receipt actually shows, and never assume a fare includes VAT because the supply type is standard-rated.

Can I reclaim VAT on the congestion charge?

No. Where a congestion charging scheme is operated by a local or other public authority under statutory powers, HMRC treats the charge as outside the scope of VAT, because running the zone is part of the authority's non-business activity rather than a supply. There is therefore no VAT in the charge to recover. The position would differ for a scheme run by a private operator, which would be a business activity. Parking and traffic penalties are different again: a penalty is not consideration for a supply at all.

Is there VAT on hotel accommodation?

Yes. Hotel and similar accommodation is standard-rated at 20 per cent, and this is one of the few lines on a typical travel claim where there genuinely is input tax to recover. You need a valid VAT invoice rather than a card receipt, and the invoice should be in the business name. Where a booking platform collects the money, check whether the VAT invoice comes from the hotel or from the platform, because recovering against the wrong document is a common finding on a VAT inspection.

What about mileage paid to employees?

A mileage payment is not itself a supply carrying VAT, but the business can recover the VAT on the fuel element of the journey. HMRC publishes advisory fuel rates for that purpose, and the claim is calculated by applying the VAT fraction to the fuel element rather than to the whole mileage payment. You must hold fuel receipts covering at least the amount claimed, which is the part most businesses miss. The receipts do not need to match each journey, but they must exist.

VAT on Train Tickets, Flights and Travel: What You Can Reclaim

Passenger transport in anything built to carry ten or more passengers is zero-rated — trains, coaches, buses — along with any scheduled flight and any journey crossing the UK border. No VAT, nothing to reclaim. A taxi carries fewer than ten, so the supply is standard-rated, but there is only VAT on the receipt if that operator is registered. Hotels are 20% and genuinely recoverable. The congestion charge is outside the scope entirely.

Send me one month of expense claims and I will tell you what is being reclaimed that shouldn't be. No names needed - just the lines and the amounts. This is the fastest thing on the whole site to check and almost nobody gets all of it right. Free, back to you within one working day, and nothing follows unless you ask for it. Send me a month of claims.

Why a train ticket carries no VAT

Item 4 of Group 8 of Schedule 8 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994 zero-rates the transport of passengers in a vehicle, ship or aircraft designed or adapted to carry ten or more passengers. HMRC's guidance at VTRANS020100 sets out that test alongside three further routes into the zero rate: transport provided by the Post Office, any scheduled flight whatever the aircraft size, and any journey between a place in the UK and a place outside it, in either direction.

So the design of the vehicle decides it, not the distance, the price or the operator. A train, a coach and a London bus are all in. A car is not, because it was never built to carry ten people.

Three things the zero rate specifically excludes, and they look like ordinary travel: pleasure flights; transport to and from an airport car park where the car park provider supplies it; and transport to or around an entertainment or cultural venue supplied by whoever sells the admission. The airport one catches real businesses — the courtesy bus from the long-stay car park is standard-rated, while the flight it takes you to is not.

The whole table

Expense	Treatment	Reclaim?
Train	Zero-rated	No — there is none
Coach and bus	Zero-rated	No
Scheduled flight	Zero-rated, incl. Air Passenger Duty	No
International journey, any mode	Zero-rated	No
Taxi, minicab, ride-hailing	Standard-rated supply	Only if the operator is VAT registered and gives a VAT receipt
Hotel and similar accommodation	Standard-rated 20%	Yes, with a valid VAT invoice
Meals bought while travelling	Standard-rated when eaten in or hot	Yes, on the VAT shown
Congestion charge (public authority scheme)	Outside the scope	No
Tolls charged by a public authority under statute	Outside the scope	No
Tolls on a privately operated crossing	Standard-rated	Yes
Car park run by a commercial operator	Standard-rated	Yes
Parking or traffic penalty	Not consideration for a supply	No
Airport car park courtesy transfer	Standard-rated — excluded from the zero rate	Yes
Employee mileage	Fuel element only	Yes, via advisory fuel rates, with fuel receipts held

On the congestion charge, HMRC's position at VATGPB8665 is that where a public authority runs the scheme under statutory powers, operating the zone is a non-business activity and the charge is not consideration for a supply at all. A scheme run by a private operator would be different.

The arithmetic of getting it wrong

One employee, one month, a system that treats everything as standard-rated and recovers a sixth.

Claim line	Amount	Reclaimed at 1/6	Correct
Rail travel	£180.00	£30.00	£0.00
Scheduled flight	£240.00	£40.00	£0.00
Hotel	£300.00	£50.00	£50.00
Taxis, driver not registered	£60.00	£10.00	£0.00
Congestion charge	£45.00	£7.50	£0.00
Total	£825.00	£137.50	£50.00

That is £87.50 of input tax recovered that was never charged, on one person for one month. Ten travelling staff on a similar pattern is around £10,500 a year, and it is recoverable by HMRC for four years with interest.

This is the first thing an inspector looks at, and the easiest to prove. Travel claims are high volume, low value and almost always keyed by someone who is not a bookkeeper, which makes them the cheapest place for HMRC to find a systematic error. "Systematic" is the word that matters: once the pattern is established on a sample, the assessment is extrapolated across the whole period rather than limited to the receipts actually examined.

Three rules that fix most of it

Reclaim what the document shows, not what the category suggests. A taxi fare is a standard-rated supply, and that tells you nothing about whether this particular driver charged VAT. No VAT shown on a valid receipt means no claim.
Zero-rated is not outside the scope. The train fare still belongs in the purchases total in box 7, exactly as bank charges do. The congestion charge does not. Two different codes, and most systems ship with them mapped to the same place — the detail is set out for Xero and for Sage.
Set the defaults once. Nearly every error here is a default, not a decision. Rail, air and congestion charge categories should be locked to the right code in the expense system so the person filing the claim cannot get it wrong.

References above are to HMRC's published guidance and the VAT Act 1994, linked in full. This page is a general reference and not advice on a particular business — if a line on your own claims does not match what is set out here, that is exactly the sort of thing worth sending over.