How to pay carers for mileage: HMRC rates and what to record

• Cars and vans: 45p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in the tax year, 25p a mile after that.
• Motorcycles: 24p a mile. Bicycles: 20p a mile.
• Passengers: an extra 5p a mile for each colleague carried on a business journey.

These are the Approved Mileage Allowance Payments. Pay up to these rates and there is no tax or National Insurance on it. Pay more and the excess is taxable pay. Pay less and the carer can claim Mileage Allowance Relief from HMRC on the difference.

Travel between one client and the next is business travel. So is travel from the office to a client, or to training, or to collect supplies. The journey from home to the first client of the day and from the last client home is usually ordinary commuting and does not count, unless the person has no fixed base and the contract treats their home as the workplace. That last point catches a lot of providers out, so take advice on your own contracts and write the rule down.

HMRC expects a record of each business journey: the date, where it started and ended, why it was made, and the miles. A monthly total scribbled on a timesheet is not a record. Odometer readings at the start and end of the day, with the client visits in between, are. Keep the records for at least the tax year plus three years, and longer if the mileage feeds a commissioner's invoice.

Two separate questions get mixed together. Mileage pays for the car. Travel time pays for the person. Time spent travelling between clients is working time and counts towards the National Minimum Wage, so a carer paid only for the minutes inside each house can fall below the minimum once travel is added. Check the pay-reference-period arithmetic, not just the hourly rate.

Mileage becomes a Friday row when it is reconstructed from memory. Exhale Time and Attendance records it as it happens: the carer taps start mileage, types the odometer reading, photographs the dial, and the journey runs until they tap stop. The record has the date, the start and end, the miles and the photo, and it lands on the timesheet next to the hours. Payroll pays it at your rate. Nobody adds anything up. TOIL or overtime covers the other thing that gets added up by hand.