Temporary work trips and the additional deduction – a per diem allowance available to a self-employed person

If you are a self-employed operator of a trade or business and you need to make various journeys or trips, you can claim tax deductions for temporary travel examples including accommodation in addition to claiming your car expenses
You cannot pay per diems to yourself out of your self-employed enterprise. However, an additional deduction is available to you. This is a way to cover the extra expenses that you had paid out of your private funds when you made a work-related trip. The maximum amount of this deduction equals the maximum per diem that would be paid to another person – in other words, the per diem that would be paid to an employee earning wages. The additional deduction is intended to cover any extra spending on meals during your trip and other comparable expenses that are higher than usual.

The condition for the deduction: you leave the district where you normally work

In order to be able to claim the deduction, the trip has to be a temporary visit. In addition, the trip must be made outside the normal area of activity of your business enterprise. Typically, the work-related trips that qualify are a training session held at another location, a trip to collect goods, a temporary visit to sell products and a trip to visit a different place of business of your own enterprise.

The “normal area of activity” is where you normally conduct business or have a fixed place of business, meaning a place where you work regularly, continuously and on a long-term basis.

The additional deduction’s amount

The additional deduction for covering the temporarily increased living expenses can maximally reach the confirmed amount of the tax-free per diem allowance payable to employees. The full per diem for travel in Finland is €53 and the partial per diem is €24 in 2025. However, if expense entries had been made into the accounting books of your business so as to recognize them as direct costs of your business, the additional deduction must be reduced by the corresponding amount.

Over the course of the 2025 tax year, a self-employed businessman spent 15 full 10-hour days travelling in Finland. He also went on other trips in this country that lasted 6 to 10 hours each. He made these trips on 10 different days. The accounts of his self-employed enterprise contain no entries nor deductions concerning his increased living expenses.
15 days × €53.00 + 10 days × €24.00 = €1,035.00
Because no expense entries nor deductions related to the above living expenses had been on the books of the enterprise itself, the businessman is entitled to claim an additional deduction amounting to €1,035.00. When he completes his 2025 tax return, he can claim this amount.