How to Claim Tax Relief on Professional Fees and Subscriptions: HMRC List 3 (2026/27)

This guide is general information, not advice.

This is for employees who pay their own professional registration fee or subscription: a nurse renewing with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, a paramedic or physiotherapist paying the Health and Care Professions Council, an HR professional in the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Uniform and flat-rate expenses are a different claim, covered in our uniform tax rebate guide.

By the end you will know whether your fee qualifies, what the relief is worth, and how to claim it for this year and earlier years.

Before you start

• The name of the body exactly as it appears on HMRC’s List 3.
• Receipts or other evidence of what you paid for each fee, for each year. GOV.UK says you must send them with the claim.
• The full annual fee and any employer contribution. HMRC’s online service asks for both.
• Your National Insurance number and employer details. Form P87 asks for your employer’s PAYE reference (on your P45, P60 or personal tax account), name and address, and your job title.

Step-by-step

1. Check which of the two legal routes your fee falls under

The law gives employees two separate deductions, and HMRC’s EIM32880 explains that the general rule for employment expenses does not cover these fees, and that a deduction is given if the conditions of either section are met:

• Section 343 of ITEPA 2003: professional fees. A fee listed in the section 343 table, where the duties of your job involve practising that profession and the registration, certificate or licence is a condition of practising it. The table names, among others, the register of medical practitioners, the Nursing and Midwifery Council register, the Health and Care Professions Council register, the dentists register and the register of veterinary surgeons.
• Section 344: annual subscriptions to an approved body. A subscription to a body HMRC has approved, where its work advancing knowledge, maintaining professional standards or providing indemnity is of direct benefit to, or concerns, the profession you practise in your job (section 344).

GOV.UK puts the two in plain terms: membership fees “if you must pay the fees to be able to do your job”, and annual subscriptions to approved bodies “if being a member of that body or society is relevant to your job”.

2. Find your body on List 3

Open List 3 (last updated 7 September 2026) and use your browser’s find function. Entries seen on it when this guide was written include:

• Nursing and Midwifery Council, with the note to allow “the fee payable for entry or retention of a name in the register (section 343 ITEPA 2003)”;
• Health and Care Professions Council, allowing “the fee payable every 2 years” for entry or retention on the register;
• Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development;
• Royal College of Nursing (J).

Read the brackets after the name. A (J) means an annual journal subscription also qualifies. Some entries restrict relief: the British Medical Association is listed with “tax relief restricted to 85% of annual subscription”, and others are limited to two-thirds or 50%. GOV.UK’s professional fees page adds that your organisation can tell you how much you can claim.

3. Rule out what does not qualify

GOV.UK says you cannot claim tax relief on:

• life membership subscriptions;
• fees or subscriptions your employer paid (if it paid part, claim only the part it did not);
• subscriptions to organisations not approved by HMRC.

The overview page adds that you must have paid tax in the year you claim for, and the relief cannot be more than the tax you paid that year.

4. Claim online

Use HMRC’s Check if you can claim work related expenses service and select Professional fees and subscriptions. You will need the full annual fee and any employer contribution, and GOV.UK says you must send copies of receipts or other evidence showing how much you paid for each fee or subscription.

5. Or claim by post on form P87

HMRC’s postal claims page says you can claim by post if the claim is within 4 years from the end of the tax year, your total expenses for each tax year are £2,500 or less, and you paid tax that year. It will reject postal claims that do not use form P87. Section 4 of the form asks for the name of each professional body, the amount of subscription or fee, any amount repaid to you, and the expenses claimed, with a column for each tax year. Download it, open it in Adobe Reader, sign the declaration and post it with your evidence to Pay As You Earn and Self Assessment, HM Revenue and Customs, BX9 1AS.

6. If you file Self Assessment, use the return

GOV.UK is explicit: if you complete a Self Assessment tax return, you must claim through the return instead. The postal route also sends you there if your expenses for a year are more than £2,500. If you need to start filing, see how to register for Self Assessment.

Deadlines and what happens next

You can claim for the current tax year and the 4 previous tax years. Using HMRC’s postal wording (within 4 years from the end of the tax year), the oldest year open in 2026/27 is 2022/23, which ended on 5 April 2023, so a claim for it has to reach HMRC by 5 April 2027.

For the current year, GOV.UK says HMRC will usually adjust your tax code so you pay less tax. For earlier years it will either adjust your code or give you a refund. Neither page gives a processing time, so this guide does not either; the PAYE coding notice guide covers checking the new code when it arrives.

If someone else claims for you, charges a fee and wants the repayment paid to them, HMRC’s postal page points them to its rules for receiving repayments on behalf of others, and form P87 asks professional nominees who charge a fee for an agent reference number.

Common mistakes

• Claiming the whole fee as a refund. You get the tax on it, not the fee.
• Claiming a body that is not on List 3. Relevance to your job is not enough on its own; the body must be approved.
• Missing a restriction. If the entry says 85% or two-thirds, claim only that share.
• Claiming a fee your employer reimbursed.
• Leaving out evidence. GOV.UK says copies of receipts or other evidence are required for each fee.

Worked example

Illustrative figures, not any body’s actual fees. You pay a £200 registration fee yourself. At 20% (rest-of-UK basic rate, on income from £12,571 to £50,270) the relief is £40. At 40% it is £80. In Scotland, at the 21% intermediate rate it is £42 and at the 42% higher rate £84.

Now a £500 subscription to a body restricted to 85%. Only £425 counts, so a 40% taxpayer gets £170, not £200. Claimed for 2026/27 plus the 4 previous years at the same fee and rate, that is five years of relief in one claim.

Related reading

• Uniform and job expenses tax rebate - flat-rate expenses for uniforms and tools.
• Working from home tax relief - the other common employee claim.
• UK tax refund: the complete process - how refunds reach you once HMRC agrees one.