Is there a free trial?

Yes — 14 days free on any paid plan. No card required to start.

Can I manage different property types?

Absolutely. You can mix HMOs, single lets, and short lets in the same account. Each property gets the right tools for its type.

Does it work on my phone?

RentVault is mobile-first. It works beautifully on any phone, tablet, or desktop browser. No app download needed.

Does RentVault support Making Tax Digital?

Yes. RentVault generates quarterly summaries aligned with HMRC requirements and exports to Excel with one tap.

Your data is encrypted at rest and in transit. We use session-based authentication with bcrypt password hashing. No third-party tracking.

Can I cancel anytime?

Monthly plans cancel with no penalty. Annual plans run to the end of your billing year.

Landlord Allowable Expenses: The Complete 2026 Guide

By RentVault Team · Published 2026-07-07 · 8 min read

Every landlord doing their first MTD quarterly submission or preparing their self-assessment return faces the same question: what can I actually claim? The answer matters more than most landlords realise. Claim too little and you overpay tax. Claim the wrong things and you risk an HMRC enquiry.

This is the complete guide to allowable expenses for UK landlords in 2026, including how they map to your MTD quarterly submission categories, where the most common mistakes happen, and why the distinction between repairs and improvements is the one that catches landlords out most often.

What counts as an allowable expense

An allowable expense is a cost you incur wholly and exclusively for the purpose of your property letting business. If a cost is partly personal and partly business, only the business portion is allowable — and you need to be able to demonstrate the split.

HMRC publishes a list of allowable expense categories for property income. For MTD purposes, these categories map directly to the fields in your quarterly update submission.

The main expense categories

Rent, rates, insurance and ground rents

Premiums you pay for landlord insurance (buildings, contents, liability) are allowable in full. Ground rent on a leasehold property is allowable. Service charges where you as landlord are responsible for them are allowable.

Council tax is only allowable if you pay it as the landlord — for example during void periods when no tenant is in occupation. It is not allowable if your tenant pays it.

Property repairs and maintenance

This is the category where most landlords either underclaim or overclaim, and it is the category HMRC scrutinises most closely.

The rule is straightforward in principle: repair and maintenance costs are allowable. Improvement costs are not — they are capital expenditure.

In practice, the distinction requires judgement. As a building surveyor, the test I apply is this: does the work restore the property to its original condition and standard, or does it leave the property in a materially better condition than it was before?

Like-for-like repair is allowable. Replacing a failed boiler with an equivalent modern boiler is a repair. Replacing single-glazed windows with double-glazed windows is an improvement — the property is left in a better condition than before, not merely restored.

Betterment creates a problem. If a kitchen is damaged and you replace it with a significantly better quality kitchen, only the portion equivalent to a like-for-like replacement is allowable as a repair. The uplift in quality is a capital improvement.

Common allowable repairs:

Fixing a leaking roof (like-for-like slates or tiles)
Replacing a failed boiler with an equivalent unit
Repairing or replacing gutters, fascias and downpipes
Fixing or replacing a broken fence or gate
Redecorating following normal wear and deterioration
Replacing worn carpets with equivalent carpets
Plumbing repairs and like-for-like bathroom fixture replacement
Electrical repairs (not full rewires, which are normally capital)

Common capital improvements (not allowable as expenses):

Converting a loft into habitable space
Building an extension
Replacing single glazing with double glazing throughout
Upgrading a basic bathroom to a high-specification bathroom
Installing a new kitchen that materially exceeds the standard of the original

Mortgage interest and finance costs

Under Section 24 of the Finance (No.2) Act 2015, individual landlords can no longer deduct mortgage interest as an expense. This change was phased in between 2017 and 2020 and is now fully in force.

Instead, you receive a tax credit equal to 20% of your mortgage interest costs. The interest must be declared as a finance cost in your MTD submission, not as an expense. This is a critical distinction — putting mortgage interest into the expenses field of your MTD submission is wrong and will produce an incorrect tax calculation.

What you cannot claim at all: the capital repayment portion of your mortgage payment. If your monthly payment is £900 and £300 of that is capital repayment and £600 is interest, only the £600 interest is relevant — and that is a finance cost, not an expense.

What is allowable as a finance cost (generating the 20% credit):

Mortgage interest on a buy-to-let mortgage
Loan interest on a loan used to purchase or improve a rental property
Arrangement fees on new mortgages (spread over the term or claimed in full in the year paid — get advice on the method if the fee is significant)

What is not allowable: interest on loans used for personal purposes, even if those loans are secured on a rental property.

Legal, professional and accountancy fees

Fees for professional advice directly related to your letting business are allowable. This includes:

Accountancy fees for preparing rental accounts or tax returns
Solicitor fees for renewing or preparing a tenancy agreement
Fees for eviction proceedings (but not the initial cost of acquiring the property)
Property management fees charged by a letting agent
Fees for debt collection related to rent arrears

Not allowable: legal fees incurred in acquiring the property (these are capital costs). If you use a solicitor when you buy a property, those fees are not an allowable expense against rental income.

Letting agent and management fees

All fees charged by a letting agent for finding tenants, referencing, preparing tenancy agreements, and managing the property are fully allowable. This includes fees charged as a percentage of rent collected.

Wages and employment costs

If you employ someone to help with your property business — a cleaner, a maintenance person, a bookkeeper — their wages are allowable. If you pay a gardener to maintain grounds at a rental property, that cost is allowable.

Advertising costs

Costs of advertising the property to find tenants are allowable. This includes listing fees on Rightmove, Zoopla, SpareRoom and similar platforms.

Buildings and public liability insurance

All landlord insurance premiums for the rental property are allowable in full. This includes buildings insurance, landlord contents insurance, and any public liability cover.

Utilities and service charges

Utility costs are allowable only where you as landlord bear them — for example, during void periods, or where the tenancy agreement makes you responsible for utilities. Utility costs borne by the tenant are not your expense and cannot be claimed.

Cleaning and property expenses during voids

Cleaning costs between tenancies are allowable. Reasonable maintenance costs during void periods are allowable.

Travel costs

Travel to your rental properties for the purpose of inspecting, maintaining or managing them is allowable. You can claim either actual costs or the HMRC approved mileage rate (currently 55p per mile for the first 10,000 miles in a tax year, from April 2026). Keep a mileage log.

See how RentVault handles your MTD quarterly submissions →

Expenses you cannot claim

The following are not allowable expenses for individual landlords:

Capital costs (purchase price, stamp duty, improvements)
Personal expenses with no business purpose
Mortgage capital repayments
Your own time (you cannot charge the business for your personal labour)
Costs relating to properties you occupy rather than let

How allowable expenses appear in your MTD submission

Your quarterly MTD update requires you to categorise your income and expenses. The categories in your MTD submission broadly follow the HMRC expense categories above.

The key rules for MTD submissions:

Mortgage interest goes into the Finance Costs field, not the Expenses field.

Repairs and maintenance is a separate field from improvements. If you are unsure whether a cost is a repair or an improvement, err on the side of caution and seek advice before including it as an expense.

Your quarterly figures are estimates. You do not need to have every receipt perfectly categorised before submitting. HMRC expects quarterly figures to be reconciled at year end, and corrections can be made. What matters is that you are capturing figures in the right broad categories and not systematically misclassifying mortgage interest as an expense or including capital costs in your repairs field.

The most common mistakes

Including mortgage capital repayments as a finance cost. The capital portion of your mortgage payment is not a finance cost and does not generate the 20% tax credit. Only the interest portion counts.

Claiming improvements as repairs. Upgrading a property is not a repair. A new boiler replacing a failed boiler is a repair. A full kitchen refit that materially improves the property is not.

Missing platform income. If you let through Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com or any other short-let platform, all income received must be included in your quarterly submission. Platform fees can be offset against this income as an expense.

Claiming personal costs. A proportion of your home broadband if you use it to manage your property is arguably allowable — but you must be able to justify the business proportion. Your personal phone bill is not allowable unless you can identify and claim only the landlord-business element.

Forgetting void period costs. Utility bills, council tax and insurance premiums paid during void periods are allowable. Many landlords forget to record these because there is no tenant activity.

Keeping records that support your claims

For MTD, digital record-keeping is a requirement, not an option. Every expense should be backed by a receipt, invoice or bank statement entry. For property costs, keep records of what the work involved — a brief description of why a cost is a repair rather than an improvement is useful if HMRC ever questions your return.

RentVault's bank feed integration pulls transaction data directly from your bank account and allows you to categorise each transaction against the correct MTD field. Keeping your categorisation current throughout the year means your quarterly submission is a review rather than a reconstruction.

Allowable expenses are one of the most valuable tools a landlord has for managing their tax position lawfully. Getting the categories right — particularly the repairs versus improvements distinction and the correct treatment of mortgage interest — is worth the time it takes to understand. If you are unsure about a specific cost, your accountant or a tax adviser with property experience is the right person to ask before you include it in a submission.