Claiming Cost Of Railcard

Old_Oak_Tree

I’m self employed and all of my work  and travel is paid direct from various organisations 
e.g travel from my home by car to work and back home, I will be paid a day rate plus mileage 

Now lockdown is easing I now need to travel by train to London / occasionally other places etc. Where claiming for that previously was dead easy - I would claim and be reimbursed the ticket cost. However I now qualify for a railcard which will cost £70 for 3 years. This will clearly benefit my various employers with lower rail fares, is there any way I can claim part of the cost of the railcard from my employers until I’ve covered the cost of the card? my employers will be the beneficiaries. Overall I will not claim more than the railcard cost, as that would be unethical/ fraudulent. It’s highly unlikely I’d  be using the card for private travel as I live in the middle of nowhere and really only go to London by train as other destinations are impractical. 

yorkie2

My employer has a policy of allowing this, but without asking them I do not know what your employer would say

Indigo_and_Violet

I've done it previously but for a journey where discount fair+railcard = less than normal fare and included a note with my expense claim showing that full fair would have cost more. However, I was a full employee and like Yorkie able to check that this was allowable beforehand, rather than being a contractor working for multiple orgs. 
I think that's probably easier to do it like that e.g. claim whole cost for one journey rather than part claim a small sum for the next n journeys you take so you might like to look at an annual rather than 3 year card. If you can't reclaim from employers it would definitely be an allowable expense for tax purposes. 

ic

Surely the cost of the travel card falls into your own "business costs" (like any professional insurances, accounting, etc), and should be covered in your hourly/day rate.  By using the card, you reduce your costs to your clients, so become more attractive over others that don't.

NBLondon

If you're definitely not going to use the railcard for personal use - don't buy it.  Your clients (not your employers) will pay the ticket rate for the journey made; very unlikely that they will notice or care that you could have got a discount.
What you're apparently suggesting is that the first few clients (or first few invoices) pay more to cover the cost of the railcard.  Isn't that also unethical since they are subsidising other clients?   I guess if you actually work for the same clients on a regular basis - you could ask them off-the-record.  

Old_Oak_Tree

Thanks for the responses , interesting to see the range of views