Expenses and benefits: mobile phones
Work out the value
The value to use for reporting or paying tax and National Insurance depends on who arranges and pays for the mobile phone, and whether you cover the cost of personal or business calls.
Your employee arranges the phone but you pay the supplier or reimburse them
The amount to put through payroll is the amount of monthly tariff you reimburse, plus the cost of any private calls above the tariff if you reimburse these as well.
You do not need to report the cost of any business calls you reimburse that are on top of the monthly tariff.
Your employee has a ‘pay as you go’ mobile and you pay for business calls
The value to use is the amount you reimburse or give to the employee as a ‘top up’.
Salary sacrifice arrangements
If the cost of the mobile phones is less than the amount of salary given up, report the salary amount instead.
These rules do not apply to arrangements made before 6 April 2017 - check when the rules will change.