You’re Away for Business — What Can You Actually Write Off?

On flights, hotels, and the meals you eat while you’re away from home.

A business trip has a way of turning into a pile of receipts you’re not quite sure what to do with. The flight’s obvious. The hotel’s obvious. But then there’s the airport coffee, the dinner the night before your conference starts, the groceries you grabbed instead of eating out twice a day. By the time you’re home, it’s hard to remember what was actually “the trip” and what was just… living, somewhere else for a few days.

So let’s sort out what counts — and why travel and meals aren’t one expense category, but two, with very different rules.

Two Buckets, Two Rules

Travel expenses — your flight, hotel, taxi or rideshare, parking, mileage — are generally deductible in full, as long as the trip, or the relevant portion of it, was for business.

Meals while you’re travelling are only ever 50% deductible. This is a flat rule from the CRA, and it doesn’t matter how clearly business the trip was. Even if you’re travelling alone, purely for work, with zero personal time built in — your meals are still capped at 50%. There’s no version of a “fully deductible” meal, ever, even on a 100% business trip.

So the same trip can have a fully deductible hotel bill and a half-deductible dinner bill. That’s not an inconsistency — that’s just how the two categories work.

Travel Is Judged by Purpose, Not Just Location

The CRA’s test for travel isn’t really where you went. It’s why. If the primary purpose of the trip was business — say, a three-day conference — your flight, hotel, and ground transportation for those business days are deductible. If you tacked on two extra days to explore the city, or bring the family along for a visit, those two days are on you.

A quick example: you fly out for a four-day industry conference, then stay an extra two days to visit family. Your flight, your hotel for the four conference nights, and your registration fee are deductible. The two extra hotel nights — and any meals during that stretch — are personal.

The Convention Rule Nobody Warns You About

If you attend a few industry events a year, there’s a lesser-known limit worth knowing: the CRA only allows you to deduct convention expenses for up to two conventions per year related to your business. A third one might still be worth going to — it just won’t reduce your tax bill the way the first two will.

What About Toiletries, Groceries, Luggage, and Passports?

This is where I get asked the most questions, so let’s go through it. The test the CRA applies is simple, even if it doesn’t always feel that way: would you have this cost anyway, trip or not? If yes, it’s a personal living expense — not deductible, no matter how business-focused the trip was.

Groceries, bought while you’re away instead of eating at a restaurant, still count as a meal expense — same 50% rule applies. You’re not being penalized for cooking instead of dining out.

Toiletries — toothpaste, shampoo, sunscreen — are personal care items you’d need whether you were on a work trip or any other kind of trip. Not deductible.

Luggage falls the same way. A suitcase you use for any trip, business or otherwise, is a personal item in the CRA’s eyes. The exception is something used exclusively for business — like a sample case a sales rep only ever uses for client visits. If it doubles as your regular travel bag, it doesn’t qualify.

Passports are always personal, even for a fully business trip. A passport outlives any single trip and exists for you as a person, not for the business — so it never becomes a deductible expense.

The pattern across all four: if it exists because you’re travelling, not because the business needed it, it stays out of the books.

What to Actually Keep

You don’t need anything elaborate — just enough that future you, or I, can reconstruct the story. For each trip, keep the receipts and jot down the business purpose and, for meals, who you were with. A line scribbled on the receipt is often plenty.

The Short Version

Travel and meals aren’t one expense category — they’re two, with different rules. Travel is generally fully deductible when the business purpose is clear; meals while you’re away are always capped at 50%, no exceptions. And the everyday personal stuff — toiletries, groceries eaten as personal food, luggage, passports — mostly stays out of the deduction pile, because you’d need it whether or not the trip existed.

If you’ve got a trip coming up and you’re not sure how something shakes out, send me a quick note before you go. Much easier to sort out ahead of time than after the receipts are all mixed together.

Until next time — safe travels!

This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute accounting or legal advice. Every business is different — please reach out to discuss your specific situation.