Calculate tax relief on professional subscriptions and membership fees. Find HMRC-approved bodies and your annual saving at 20%, 40%, or 45%.
HMRC publishes a list of approved professional organisations (List 3) whose subscriptions qualify for tax relief. These include ICAEW, ACCA, CIMA, Law Society, BMA, Royal College of Nursing, RIBA, CIPD, and hundreds more. The subscription must be relevant to your employment duties — you cannot claim for a professional body unrelated to your work.
Employees can claim via a P87 form or Self Assessment return. For ongoing subscriptions, you can contact HMRC to have the relief coded into your tax code, reducing your monthly tax deductions automatically. Self-employed people include subscriptions as a business expense on their Self Assessment.
Exam fees for professional qualifications may qualify for tax relief if the qualification is relevant to your current employment and required by your employer. However, fees for initial qualifications (before employment) typically do not qualify. Training costs funded by employer are usually exempt from tax entirely rather than needing a relief claim.
For employed workers, professional subscription costs are employee expenses, not salary, so there is no NI relief. For self-employed sole traders, professional subscriptions are business expenses that reduce net profit, saving Class 4 NI (currently 6% on profits above £12,570 for 2024/25) as well as income tax.
Yes — you can claim tax relief for up to 4 previous tax years. For 2024/25, you can claim back to 2020/21. Use HMRC's P87 form or contact HMRC by phone to claim retrospectively. The repayment will be made via cheque or bank transfer after HMRC processes your claim.