Training & Development
Training courses
The dividing line for training costs is the trade you already carry on. Keeping existing skills up to date is generally allowable — and since HMRC's 2024 guidance change, so is learning new skills within your existing business area if you're self-employed — but a course that sets you up in an entirely new trade or qualification often is not.
Professional qualifications & exam fees
Exam fees and registration costs for qualifications that deepen expertise within your existing trade or profession are generally allowable. An initial qualification to enter a profession, or one that sets you up in an entirely new and unrelated line of work, is not.
Conferences & seminars
Attendance fees for conferences and seminars relevant to your existing trade are allowable. Travel and subsistence to attend follow the normal business travel rules; any entertainment element in the conference package is disallowed.
Books, journals & learning materials
A subscription to your trade's specialist journal is claimable; the newspaper you read over breakfast is not. The line between them is relevance to the business you already carry on — reference books, trade journals and learning materials tied to your existing work are allowable, general or personal-interest reading is not, and employees buying books at their own cost almost never qualify at all.
Online courses & e-learning
Online courses and e-learning relevant to your existing trade are allowable under the same principle as other training costs. The course must relate to the business you already carry on, not set you up in a new and unrelated trade.
Business coaching & mentoring
Fees for a business coach or mentor focused on your existing trade are generally allowable. Personal or life coaching without a direct business purpose is not. The same BIM35660 principle that governs training costs applies: the coaching must relate to the business you already carry on.