Expenses Abroad - Laundry

[dundeedude]

Hello fellow working-weekenders.

Couldn't find an answer through searching:

I'm regularly in random countries and often have to use hotel laundry services. These are expensive, but as with most capital cities laundrettes are a thing of the past.

Clothes do have dual-purpose - I understand that. But given I'd not pay £10 to wash a knitted jumper whilst in the UK, surely these are claimable? I'm not laundering suits, just underwear.

As an example, I've been in Eastern Europe for the last week and will be here another week. Hardly seems fair to expect me - as an individual - to cover the cost of necessary cleaning services. I brought as many clothing sets as I could manage in a large business suitcase, but had to bring necessary safety equipment in this allowance too.

In future, should I:
Pay for more baggage and bring what I think I'll need (eg: 14 days worth of clothes)

Launder items using the large hotel chain services and expense this?

Launder by hand and wait 3 days for things to dry


I should add that the client is happy to pay such expenses.

In addition, isn't there some sort of overseas allowance apart from the £10 subsistence to account for such necessities?

I currently claim all meals, travel, taxis, whilst abroad and wouldn't expense laundry items if it wasn't so substantial. This hotel charge £6 per t-shirt, as an example. A week's washing would then be £100 at least.

Apologies for this rather dull hygienic question

[Sysman]

I never had a problem claiming hotel laundry expenses. I just stuck the lot down under "Hotel bill".

[OwlHoot]

Apologies for this rather dull hygienic question

Just leave your socks and undies soaking in the bidet - That's what it's there for.

HTH

[Paddy]

I used to pack my case with dirty laundry and get it done aboard and bring clean ones back to the UK so that I make full use of the weekend. Sometimes I would drop them off in the morning and collect in the afternoon on the way back to the hotel.

The other method is to buy high quality drip dry shirts and wash them on a daily basis at the hotel.

Buy a few cheap packs of socks at ASDA and dump them in the hotel bin or behind the radiator at client co.

[SueEllen]

This post shouldn't be in general as it's a serious question.

The reason you can't find the answer is you are not searching for the right question. You need to search for threads on working abroad or being sent abroad by the client.

There is a HMRC booklet for expenses abroad giving the maximum your company can claim for subsidence without problems with NIC depending on what country you are in..

Whether you can actually claim the full rates for the country listed depends on:
1. Whether your company pays for the expenses
2. Whether you are full or half board
More information can be on this page. You need to scroll to the bottom and read the links.

In addition to this you can claim an overnight allowance of £10 a night which you need to claim daily for the full length of your stay otherwise you can't claim it at all. This overnight allowance is for incidental expenses like your laundry.


So for 13 nights you can claim £130. This comes out of your company expenditure before tax.

Oh and as a woman in regards to washing my underwear I hand-wash in the bathroom it if I'm away/abroad and haven't brought enough. A trick I was taught when young is that if you don't have hand clothes washing stuff with you than use a bar of soap.

If I need to new top i.e. jumper that costs £10 or whatever to clean then I buy a new one. Though when I've worked abroad or been in the UK where this has happened I've been lucky enough to be in places where the shops opened later than 6pm/there was a large supermarket.

Also in hotel rooms nothing takes 3 days to dry as they are so damn warm.

[Sysman]

This post shouldn't be in general as it's a serious question.

Agreed. I see it has been moved now. Thanks mods.

Oh and as a woman in regards to washing my underwear I hand-wash in the bathroom it if I'm away/abroad and haven't brought enough. A trick I was taught when young is that if you don't have hand clothes washing stuff with you than use a bar of soap.

A bar of soap is also good for getting the grime out of shirt collars (one client's offices overlooked a street perpetually jammed with diesel taxis and your shirt collar would be black by lunchtime).

Shower gel is useful for washing clothes. I always take my own anyway because some hotels don't give you enough sachets for more than one shower a day.

If I need to new top i.e. jumper that costs £10 or whatever to clean then I buy a new one. Though when I've worked abroad or been in the UK where this has happened I've been lucky enough to be in places where the shops opened later than 6pm/there was a large supermarket.

Also in hotel rooms nothing takes 3 days to dry as they are so damn warm.

I have regularly bought extra shirts to top up.

In my experience most hotel rooms are warm enough to dry stuff overnight.

[Jessica@WhiteFieldTax]

In addition to this you can claim an overnight allowance of £10 a night which you need to claim daily for the full length of your stay otherwise you can't claim it at all. This overnight allowance is for incidental expenses like your laundry.

Yes, thats the route for laundry costs.

[Wanderer]

I should add that the client is happy to pay such expenses.

Everyone here is presuming that your LTD is paying the expenses. If the client is willing to pay the expenses for you then then go for it and fill your boots my son!

Also ask your accountant about claiming a flat amount for scale rate expenses which could be substantial if you spend a lot of time abroad...

[Sockpuppet]

Everyone here is presuming that your LTD is paying the expenses. If the client is willing to pay the expenses for you then then go for it and fill your boots my son!

Just because the client is willing the pay the expense doesn't mean its allowable from your Ltd to yourself.

[dundeedude]

Just because the client is willing the pay the expense doesn't mean its allowable from your Ltd to yourself.

Hi everybody,

thanks very much for the input. Apologies for originally posting in 'General', I see now it was inappropriate.

I've resorted to hand-washing - the only issue being that I've been out of the hotel room so much that I didn't have time to spend washing clothes in the sink, as I was so tired.

I can't use soap, due to having a fussy coat of skin. Resorted to some friendly smell-free shower gel.

It seems obvious to me from reading some forum posts that people claim whatever they can whilst abroad, such as hotel, dinner and the usual items, then claim it back from their Ltd Co. In many cases the client will also pay for the items.

I've just spoken to 10 contractors who I know do significant work abroad, same as myself, and none of them were aware of a per-country/city limit on claiming!

Take this trip, as an example. Everything is 'last minute', due to the type of sector I work in. Hotels need booked at the last minute. Being near to the office means staying at one of the larger brands, which happen to be four or five star - standard rooms have disappeared when you book things last minute.

Result: I personally end up in expensive rooms, with room-service ordered regularly, due to unsociable and long working hours.

Am I then expected to not claim for these high costs to my Limited, when I'm paying on a personal credit-card?

Generic £10 per day subsistence abroad is also a good laugh. The UK, outside London, is very very cheap. Try Amsterdam, Paris central business district or Berlin, near offices, on the rates provided in the HMRC pdf link - for a busy person those are just simply not viable. I bill per hour, so can easily show that I have indeed worked, for example, 18 hours in a day, then 20 hours the next day, just to get a project finished. If I worked 9 hours per day I could definitely find time to conform to the HMRC figures published in that link.

End result is: all the contractors I spoke to have said they claim whatever they spend, but they only spend on hotels and food, as they are busy working whilst abroad. I suspect, if honest, a lot of people really do this too, and do not trawl through the PDF mentioned to calculate how much they have overspent compared to the arbitrary limits that do not take into account certain working factors.