Childminding is one of the few trades with its own set of simplified expense rules, and they're generous. You can claim a flat 10% of your childminding income for wear and tear, and a set share of your household bills based on the hours you work, without itemising a thing. Those shortcuts only apply while you're outside Making Tax Digital. Once you're in it, you work your expenses out the long way.
What are the special childminder expense rules?
They're a long-standing HMRC convention that lets childminders claim a share of the cost of running their own home without measuring every unit of electricity. There are three parts: wear and tear on furniture and household items, a proportion of household running and fixed costs, and the food and drink you provide.
They apply to income from minding children in your own home, and only while you're working out your profits the traditional way.
How much of my household bills can I claim?
Wear and tear is the simple one: 10% of your childminding income, covering furniture and household items used in the business.
Household costs are scaled to the hours you mind. At a full 40 hours a week you can claim 33% of running costs (gas, electricity, metered water) and 10% of fixed costs (Council Tax, unmetered water, rent or mortgage interest). Fewer hours, smaller share:
| Hours a week | Running costs | Fixed costs |
|---|---|---|
| 40 | 33% | 10% |
| 35 | 29% | 9% |
| 30 | 25% | 8% |
| 25 | 21% | 7% |
| 20 | 17% | 5% |
| 15 | 13% | 4% |
| 10 | 9% | 3% |
Only count hours you're actually looking after a child. Time spent on paperwork, cleaning up or planning doesn't go into the calculation, however real it is.
What about food and drink?
You claim what you actually spend on food and drink for the children. There's no flat rate for it, and no requirement to keep a receipt for every packet of pasta, but you do need a reasonable basis for the figure. Where you're feeding your own family from the same shop, claim the children's share rather than the lot.
What records do I need to keep?
Outside Making Tax Digital, a cashbook and an attendance register is the expected minimum. The register matters more than people think: it's what supports the hours in the table above, and it's the first thing HMRC would ask for.
Keep receipts for anything costing £10 or more, individually or as a combined purchase. Food and drink for the children, and small items under £10, don't need one.
What changes under Making Tax Digital?
The conventions go, and you move onto the same rules as any other self-employed person.
- Wear and tear: instead of a flat 10%, you claim what you actually spent buying, repairing or replacing items, apportioned to business use.
- Household costs: instead of the hours table, you work out a reasonable business proportion yourself, based on something defensible like rooms used and time spent minding.
- Records: digital, kept in software that connects to HMRC, with quarterly updates through the year.
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies from 6 April 2026 if your income from self-employment and property, before expenses, was over £50,000 in the 2024 to 2025 tax year. The threshold drops to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028, and that £20,000 stage is the one that will pull in a lot of childminders who are nowhere near it today.
Will I be better or worse off?
It depends on your house and your hours, and this is worth actually working out rather than guessing.
The hours table is generous for a childminder in a modest home with high occupancy, because 33% of the gas bill can be more than a room-by-room calculation would give you. It's less generous if you've given over most of your ground floor to the business, where an honest apportionment might beat it comfortably.
Either way, the flat 10% for wear and tear is hard to beat once it's gone, unless you've had a year of replacing furniture. That's the change most childminders will feel.