Per Diem allowance

[Ballistic]

I have a friend (UK resident) who is a field service engineer and regularly visits customers in Europe for trips of a few days or a week at a time.

He is curios as to whether he can claim per diem as a daily allowance as an alternative to the company credit card currently used for major expenditure and a cash float for incidental items.

Does anyone have any experience of claiming this allowance and will he be legible?

If the allowance can be claimed how does it work and who pays it?

[LC23]

It depends on the company policy. If they pay based on receipts then he would need to continue to do that. If they want to switch to a Per Diem then this will be taxable and NICable unless they have up front agreement from HMRC that the amount can be included in their dispensation.

[siscar]

Per diem is worse for everyone, the company pays employer's NI and the employee pays tax unless HMRC agree to it. They used to be reasonably open to that, but my understanding is that these days they are not, companies with pre-existing agreements can continue to do it but they aren't keen on new agreements.

[Ballistic]

Many thanks for the replies so far.
I'll suggest to my friend that maybe this is not such a good idea.