Civometry

MPs’ business costs

What IPSA paid, by category and by year

487,150 published rows between 2010-11 and 2025-26, totalling £696.9m. These are the costs of running an office and employing staff, claimed under the rules of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and paid by it. They are not an MP’s salary, which IPSA sets and publishes separately.

647 members appear in the register: 646 sitting now, and the rest members who have left the House since IPSA’s scheme began on 7 May 2010. A member whose service ended before that date is not here, because the scheme did not cover them — IPSA’s record for each of them is empty.

The single largest heading is staffing, at £541.2m — 77.7% of everything paid. That is the wages of the people an MP employs to answer constituents and run an office. IPSA pays them; the money does not reach the MP. Reading the total as money an MP received would misread roughly 77.7% of it.

By category

IPSA’s own category names, grouped into the headings below. Totals are the sum of IPSA’s “amount paid” column across every year held, in the pounds of the year each claim was paid in.

CategoryWhat it coversClaimsPaidShare
StaffingThe salaries and employment costs of the people an MP employs to run their office and casework. IPSA pays these directly; they are not money an MP receives.45,240£541.2m77.7%
Office costsRenting and running a constituency office: rent, utilities, equipment, stationery and postage.355,781£81m11.6%
AccommodationThe cost of somewhere to stay for an MP whose constituency is far enough from Westminster that IPSA's rules allow it. An MP representing a London seat is not eligible on the same terms.64,056£47.6m6.8%
TravelJourneys between the constituency and Westminster and within the constituency. Until 2018-19 IPSA published one travel category; from 2019-20 it publishes travel by the MP, by staff and by a dependant separately.19,349£24.8m3.6%
Starting up and winding upThe one-off costs of opening an office on election and of closing one on leaving. These fall in the years around a general election and are absent from the rest.1,491£1.1m0.2%
MiscellaneousClaims IPSA records under none of the headings above. Called “Miscellaneous Expenses” until 2018-19.1,233£1.2m0.2%

What one row is

A claim in this register is not a single unit of anything. IPSA publishes most of a member’s staffing as one row for the whole year, and does the same for some other categories, so a small number of rows carries most of the money and a count of claims counts unlike things. The rows are told apart here by IPSA’s own wording, which is printed in the description column of every claims table on this site.

RowHow IPSA describes itRowsShare of rowsPaidShare of money
A year of staffing in one rowDescribed by IPSA as “Total Staffing budget payroll costs for the ⟨year⟩ year”: one member's whole staffing budget for one year.2,7310.6%£436.8m62.7%
A single claimOne claim as it was submitted and paid: a purchase, a journey, a month's rent.483,05199.2%£249.9m35.9%
A year of one category in one rowDescribed by IPSA as “Aggregated figure for this business cost and budget category”: one category for one member for one year.1,3680.3%£10.2m1.5%

The money is the same either way — nothing is counted twice and nothing is missing. What changes is what a row means: the largest row in a member’s list is usually their year of payroll rather than anything they bought.

By year

Each of IPSA’s financial years, and what each category cost within it. The members column counts everyone who claimed in that year, which can exceed the 650 seats: in a year with a general election or a by-election two members hold one seat in turn and each claims for the part of it they served, so the year’s total covers both. Figures are not adjusted for inflation, so a rise between two distant years is partly a rise in prices.

YearMPsClaimsStaffingOffice costsAccommodationTravelStarting up and winding upMiscellaneousTotalPer MP
2010-1111913,263£9.8m£1.6m£977k£661k—£16k£13.1m£110k
2011-1212117,926£13m£2.1m£1.3m£859k£4,830£14k£17.3m£143k
2012-1312619,821£14.8m£2.2m£1.4m£912k£14k£9,260£19.3m£154k
2013-1412822,049£15.9m£2.3m£1.4m£964k£14k£11k£20.7m£162k
2014-1512917,938£16.6m£2.3m£1.4m£991k£832£17k£21.3m£165k
2015-1619222,531£22.4m£3.2m£2m£1.2m£561k£40k£29.4m£153k
2016-1719222,564£24.9m£3.5m£2.2m£1.4m£65k£13k£32m£167k
2017-1823126,297£29.8m£4.4m£2.9m£1.3m£137k£16k£38.6m£167k
2018-1923027,483£32.6m£4.6m£3.2m£1.9m£40k£24k£42.2m£184k
2019-2028732,505£34.3m£4.9m£3.3m£1.9m£299k£242k£44.9m£157k
2020-2128531,161£46.2m£6.2m£3.6m£784k£1,459£101k£56.9m£200k
2021-2228431,635£49.3m£6m£3.9m£1.6m—£89k£61m£215k
2022-2328938,680£54.9m£6.3m£4.1m£2.3m—£92k£67.6m£234k
2023-2429541,527£60.4m£7.1m£4.5m£2.4m—£61k£74.5m£253k
2024-2564583,561£115.1m£15.4m£9.6m£5.7m—£341k£146.1m£227k
2025-2664538,209£1.3m£8.6m£1.8m——£119k£11.8m£18k

2025-26 is the most recent year held and may be incomplete: IPSA publishes claims as it settles them, so a recent year gains rows for months after it ends. Its figures are not yet comparable with a closed year.

What each category is made of

The largest cost types IPSA records inside each heading, by what it paid.

Staffing

Cost typeClaimsPaid
Payroll3,546£526.9m
Bought-in services3,490£5.1m
Pooled staffing services1,117£3.5m
Professional Services (Staff.)1,756£2m
Pooled Services: Direct416£1.4m
Training - staff1,642£813k
Pooled Services184£438k
Pooled Staffing Services119£330k

Office costs

Cost typeClaimsPaid
Rent12,229£16.6m
Const Office Rent10,082£9.2m
Stationery & printing62,037£6.2m
Equipment - purchase18,889£4.6m
Software & applications15,657£3.4m
Stationery Purchase31,295£3.2m
Pooled staffing services1,134£3.2m
Utilities14,011£2.5m

Accommodation

Cost typeClaimsPaid
Rent10,613£24.3m
Accommodation Rent10,018£13.6m
Hotel - London7,054£2.7m
Council tax4,369£2.2m
Utilities9,970£1.2m
Council Tax3,030£898k
Hotel London Area2,696£661k
Service Charges731£340k

Travel

Cost typeClaimsPaid
Aggregated Travel Costs1,366£10.2m
Rail5,497£6.7m
Air travel901£2.9m
Mileage - car3,616£2.1m
Hotel - London995£1.4m
Parking1,979£427k
Hotel - UK Not London720£333k
Railcard339£180k

Starting up and winding up

Cost typeClaimsPaid
Payroll18£672k
Office Furn Purch StartUp226£79k
Office Alterations StartUp100£72k
Comp HW Purch StartUp123£66k
Staff Costs - Routine1£36k
Office Rent18£22k
Other Equipment Purch StartUp118£20k
Comp SW Purch StartUp33£16k

Miscellaneous

Cost typeClaimsPaid
Payroll41£332k
Redundancy18£273k
Removals363£180k
Removal Costs - Contingency152£74k
Bought-in services38£70k
Contingency185£65k
Rent30£41k
IPSA RICS Valuation24£26k

Claims refused and money repaid

Not every claim is paid. IPSA records an amount it did not pay and an amount repaid to it, and both are part of the register: they are the rules being applied. A refusal is not a finding of wrongdoing — most are claims outside the rules, or submitted without the evidence IPSA requires.

YearClaims affectedNot paidRepaid
2010-1184£5,866£4,630
2011-12144£3,042£18k
2012-13168£3,038£39k
2013-14138£1,590£17k
2014-15185£8,433£16k
2015-16190£2,141£30k
2016-1787£229£11k
2017-18133£932£21k
2018-1992£3,295£19k
2019-20381£6,078£146k
2020-21324£2,556£166k
2021-22195£1,207£65k
2022-23286£2,865£131k
2023-24269£2,956£98k
2024-25607£22k£181k
2025-26379£12k£152k

The publisher’s own categories

IPSA has renamed and split categories over the years. Every name it has used is below, with the heading it is grouped under above and the years it appears in, so the grouping can be checked against the source.

IPSA categoryGrouped underYearsClaimsPaid
StaffingStaffing2010-11–2025-2645,240£541.2m
Office CostsOffice costs2010-11–2025-26355,779£81m
AccommodationAccommodation2010-11–2025-2664,056£47.6m
TravelTravel2010-11–2018-191,366£10.2m
MP TravelTravel2019-20–2024-259,445£10.2m
Staff TravelTravel2019-20–2024-257,742£4.1m
MiscellaneousMiscellaneous2019-20–2025-26792£1m
Winding UpStarting up and winding up2015-16–2020-21538£810k
Dependant TravelTravel2019-20–2024-25796£389k
Start UpStarting up and winding up2011-12–2016-17953£328k
Miscellaneous ExpensesMiscellaneous2010-11–2018-19441£160k
Office Costs ExpenditureOffice costs2012-13–2014-152£880

By member

All 647 members the register holds a claim for, by surname, with the years they appear in it and what IPSA paid across them. Each name opens that member’s own claims, grouped the same way, filterable to one year, and naming every seat they claimed for.

Alphabetical, and deliberately not ordered by the money. A member’s total is set first by how many of these years they served — the range is shown against each name — and then by how far their constituency is from Westminster, which decides what they may claim for accommodation and travel at all. Ordering the list by pounds would rank members on those two facts.

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What this page does not show

Whether any of it was justified. These are claims IPSA accepted under its own rules, and the register records what was paid, not whether it should have been. A large total is not a finding about the MP who incurred it.

Nor does it rank MPs. The two headings after staffing are accommodation and travel, and both are decided mostly by where a constituency is: an MP representing a seat several hundred miles from Westminster is eligible for costs an MP representing a London seat is not. Comparing two members’ totals without that is comparing two sets of rules. Each member’s own claims are on their page, where the constituency is stated beside them.

It is also not an MP’s pay. Salaries are set and published by IPSA separately and are not in this register, and staffing costs here are the salaries of employees, not of the member.

And a member’s total is not their whole career. It is what IPSA has paid since its scheme began on 7 May 2010: a member who sat before then claimed under the House of Commons’ own scheme, which IPSA does not publish and this page does not hold. Each member’s page states their own first and last year in the register.

Public money · Sources · Methodology