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Packing orders at home: the HMRC flat rate of £10, £18 or £26 a month, worked for five weekly routines
HMRC simplified expenses pay a flat £10, £18 or £26 a month for working from home, from 25 hours a month. Five routines worked.
Stock on the landing, a packing table in the spare room, a printer that never stops in December. A self-employed online seller working from home can claim something for it without sorting the electricity bill into business and personal. Here is what the GOV.UK page says and what it comes to in pounds.
What the page says
The GOV.UK page on simplified expenses for working from home says: "You can only use simplified expenses if you work for 25 hours or more a month from home." It gives these flat rates for the month:
| Hours of business use at home per month | Flat rate per month |
|---|---|
| 25 to 50 | £10 |
| 51 to 100 | £18 |
| 101 and more | £26 |
The flat rate covers the business share of home costs such as utilities without splitting personal and business use. It does not include telephone or internet costs, which can be claimed separately by working out the business share of the actual bills. The page points to a simplified expenses checker to compare the two methods.
Hours a month in hours a week
Packing is planned by the week, the bands are by the month. A month is 52 / 12 = 4.333 weeks, so hours a week x 4.333 gives hours a month.
| Band edge (hours a month) | Hours a week (x 12 / 52) |
|---|---|
| 25 | 5.77 |
| 50 | 11.54 |
| 51 | 11.77 |
| 100 | 23.08 |
| 101 | 23.31 |
So under about 5 3/4 hours a week gets nothing, roughly 6 to 11 1/2 hours gets £10, roughly 12 to 23 hours gets £18, and above about 23 1/4 hours gets £26.
Five invented routines
Each person is self-employed, works the same hours every week of the year, and the hours are real business use at home: packing, listing, photography, customer email, bookkeeping.
| Weekly hours | Hours a month | Band | Flat rate a month | Claim over 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 21.67 | below 25 | none | £0 |
| 10 | 43.33 | 25 to 50 | £10 | £120 |
| 12 | 52.00 | 51 to 100 | £18 | £216 |
| 20 | 86.67 | 51 to 100 | £18 | £216 |
| 25 | 108.33 | 101 and more | £26 | £312 |
Check the arithmetic. 5 x 52 / 12 is 260 / 12 = 21.67. 10 x 52 / 12 is 520 / 12 = 43.33. 12 x 52 / 12 is exactly 52. 20 x 52 / 12 is 1,040 / 12 = 86.67. 25 x 52 / 12 is 1,300 / 12 = 108.33. Yearly: 10 x 12 = 120, 18 x 12 = 216, 26 x 12 = 312.
Two things stand out. The 12-hour and 20-hour routines claim the same £216, so the extra eight hours earn nothing more. And one hour a week can move the claim: at 11 hours (47.67 a month) the rate is £10, at 12 hours it is £18, which is £8 a month or £96 a year more.
What it saves
A deduction reduces taxable profit, so the saving is the claim multiplied by your rate of income tax. This table uses 20% and 40% purely as examples; we did not read the rates page, so check the rate that applies to you.
| Yearly claim | Saved at 20% | Saved at 40% |
|---|---|---|
| £120 | £24.00 | £48.00 |
| £216 | £43.20 | £86.40 |
| £312 | £62.40 | £124.80 |
These are small sums. The flat rate is worth having for the lack of paperwork, not for the size of the saving. If your real costs for heat and light attributable to the business are higher, the page points you to the checker and the actual-costs route, which we did not read in full.
What to do this week
- Keep a plain log of hours spent on the business at home for four weeks: date, hours, task.
- Convert the average to hours a month and find the band.
- Claim telephone and internet separately, on their business share of the actual bill.
- Compare with the HMRC checker before choosing a method for the tax year.
- Keep the log with your records for the return.
If you are also weighing the trading allowance, see the trading allowance or expenses guide. When the hours outgrow your own kitchen table and you hire help, a part-time packer's real cost shows the employer side.
Overlyft can set up AI staff who join your team, take your weekly hours log, convert it to monthly hours, pick the band and draft the yearly claim for a person to check and approve.
This is general information, not advice. Check GOV.UK before you rely on it.
Where this comes from: GOV.UK, Simplified expenses if you're self-employed: working from home (gov.uk/simpler-income-tax-simplified-expenses/working-from-home). Read 30 October 2026. We did not read the pages on the actual-costs method in full, the rules for a business that is a limited company, the tax rates used for the saving, or whether storage of stock counts as business use of home. The routines and the shop are invented.
AEO Lookup editorial team
We write practical guides for people who run small UK firms, and we check every fact against its source on the date shown. Read how we review, or tell us if something has changed.
