Article
Mileage: when you can claim it, and when you can't
Mileage is the expense crew most often forget to claim, and the one most often claimed wrong. The rule itself is short. The catch is that it depends entirely on where the location is relative to a single postcode in Soho.
The rate
50p per mile. That is the figure in the APA Recommended Crew Terms, and it applies when you use your own car to reach a location.
Two things it does not cover: studio shoots (expenses do not apply), and PMs, production assistants and runners, who are excluded from the whole of the travel clause.
The M25 rule
This is the part that catches people.
If the location is inside the M25, you are not entitled to mileage. Not reduced mileage. None. The assumption is that London-based crew travelling to a London location are simply commuting.
If there are multiple locations inside the M25, mileage is payable at 50p per mile from the first location to the second, and for every subsequent location move. The journey to the first location is still not payable.
So a day with three unit moves around London pays mileage for the moves between them, but not for getting there in the morning.
Outside the M25
Once the location is outside the M25 and you are driving, mileage is payable at 50p per mile, calculated from W1F 9SE to the location and back, as per the Movement Order issued by the location manager or production.
W1F 9SE is the APA's own address in Soho. It is the fixed origin point for London-based production companies, regardless of where you personally live. You are not paid from your front door.
The worked example in the terms: Windsor Castle, SL4 1NJ, is approximately 23 miles from W1F 9SE. So 2 journeys × 23 miles × £0.50 = £23.
Note the "2 journeys" - out and back. It is a round trip, calculated once, not per leg.
Not London-based?
If the production company is based in another city, the same formula applies using a 20 mile radius from the production company's address rather than the M25.
So a Manchester-based production uses Manchester's centre as the origin, and locations within 20 miles are treated the way locations inside the M25 are for London.
Mileage is not travel time
Worth stating plainly, because they get conflated: mileage compensates you for running your car. Travel time compensates you for your time. They are separate provisions, calculated separately, and one does not replace the other.
Travel time is paid at single time and has its own threshold rule (if travel time and working time together total less than 11 hours, no travel time is payable). Mileage has no such threshold. If the location qualifies, the mileage is payable.
Turnaround between shoot days is a different provision again: time off the clock.
Why it gets missed
Mileage requires you to know the distance from a postcode you have probably never looked up, on a route you did not necessarily drive, for a location you were told about in a WhatsApp message. So people either guess, forget, or wait for someone else to raise it.
The Movement Order should give you the distance. If it does not, the calculation is from W1F 9SE, so it is at least a fixed and checkable number.
What we built
TimeMachine lets you add mileage to a shoot day and carries it through to the invoice, so it sits alongside your fee rather than being remembered separately at the end of the job. The rate is applied for you.
The short version
- 50p per mile, using your own car.
- Inside the M25: nothing payable. Multiple M25 locations: payable between locations, not to the first one.
- Outside the M25: payable from W1F 9SE to the location and back, per the Movement Order.
- Productions outside London use a 20 mile radius from their own address instead.
- Studio shoots are excluded. So are PMs, PAs and runners.
- Mileage and travel time are different things. Claim both where they apply.
TimeMachine is an independent tool for UK film and television crew. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Advertising Producers Association (APA). It references the publicly available APA Recommended Crew Terms as a rate reference only. This article is general information, not legal or financial advice.