Passengers and splitting fuel costs

The Passengers card on a trip does two separate jobs, and it helps to know which one you are doing:

1. Colleagues on a business trip. If your employer pays passenger payments, the trip shows what they could pay you tax free.
2. Friends or family on any trip. Milometry works out each person's share of the fuel. That is a cost share between you, not a tax claim.

Add passengers after the drive, once you have parked.

1. Add the passengers

1. Open Trips and tap the trip.
2. Scroll to Passengers.
3. Tap the plus button once for each passenger. The minus button takes one off.

2. Colleagues on a business trip

When the trip is sorted as Business, the Money card adds a line: Passenger payment, with a note under it: only if your employer pays it for colleagues. For two colleagues on a 40-mile trip, that is £4.00 (2 × 40 × 5p).

What HMRC says:

• An employer can pay up to 5p per passenger per business mile tax free for carrying fellow employees in a car or van, on journeys that are also work journeys for them.
• It only applies if your employer actually pays it. If they pay less than 5p, or nothing, there is no tax relief to claim instead.
• It is a payment from an employer to an employee, so it has no place in a self-employed claim.

So read the figure as what your employer could pay without tax, not money you are owed. It shows on the trip only. It is not added to your mileage figure, the claim PDF or the statements. Trips that count as ordinary commuting do not show it at all.

In versions before 1.1.0, this line is called Passenger claim.

3. Friends or family: sharing the fuel

Once there is at least one passenger, two choices appear:

• Split with me: the fuel is divided between everyone in the car, you included.
• They cover fuel: the passengers split the whole cost between them.

Underneath, Milometry shows what that comes to, for example "Your 3 passengers owe £9.60 (£3.20 each)".

This is the estimated cost of the fuel for that drive, from your car's fuel economy and a fuel price. If you see "Set your car's MPG and a fuel price to work out what they owe.", add those first. See real MPG and fuel.

Money friends give you towards fuel is a private arrangement between you. Milometry does not treat it as a mileage claim, does not add it to any claim figure, and does not take it off one.

If something is not right

• No passenger payment line. The trip is not sorted as business, it counts as ordinary commuting, or your country's scheme has no passenger rate.
• No amount owed. Your car has no fuel economy or there is no fuel price yet.
• The share looks high or low. It follows the car's fuel economy. Once you log fill-ups, Milometry uses the figure your car actually returns.

Sources

• Travel, mileage and fuel rates and allowances: passenger payments (HMRC)
• Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, section 233: passenger payments (legislation.gov.uk)