Work clothing can be a significant expense within your company. Especially when you have a larger workforce, costs can increase significantly. We are regularly asked whether work clothing is tax deductible. To provide clarity on this issue, in this article we provide an explanation of the tax deductibility of work and company clothing.
What does work clothing include? 
To prevent everything from being classified as work clothing, the tax authorities have drawn up a number of conditions work clothes must comply with.
Clothing is work clothing if it meets one of the following conditions:
- The clothing is (almost) only suitable for wearing during work, such as a lab coat or a dust jacket.
- The clothing contains one or more clearly visible image features of the employer, such as a company logo. Together these have a surface area of at least 70 cm² per garment. You calculate this area with an imaginary rectangle around the extreme points of the logo.
- The work clothing is demonstrably left behind at the workplace.
- The work clothing is a uniform or overalls. If a group of employees wears the same clothing that is also associated with a company or profession outside the work environment, then that clothing is a uniform. For example, the work clothes of police, soldiers and flight attendants. A driver's black trousers and blue blazer is therefore not a uniform. If a garment is part of a uniform, then that garment is also work clothing. It does not matter whether or not this loose garment is recognized as a uniform and whether it can be worn outside of work.
- You reimburse, provide or make the clothing available because the Working Conditions Act prescribes this, as is the case with safety shoes. The following conditions apply:
- You have an occupational health and safety plan
- The work clothing is required according to that occupational health and safety plan.
- Company clothing is mainly worn during working hours.
- The employee does not have to pay a personal contribution.
Source: tax authorities
Deductibility 
But to what extent is the clothing actually deductible? If you have determined in accordance with the above conditions that the company clothing falls under the category of work clothing, you can deduct the "entire costs" from your taxable profit. This means that the part of the profit on which you have to pay tax decreases and you have more money left over after paying profit tax.
If you are allowed to make the work clothing available tax-free, you may also reimburse the cleaning costs tax-free. Reimbursement of these cleaning costs to your employee falls under the reimbursements for intermediary costs.
Caution
Unfortunately, other clothing that is necessary for work, such as a suit or smart trousers, does not fall under deductible work clothing. Since 2001, the law has changed and such clothing has become completely tax-exempt.
Embroidery or printing of your company clothing
Functional corporate clothing with your logo embroidered or printed gives a professional appearance, is recognizable, representative and contributes to your corporate identity. As mentioned earlier in this article, work clothing with a clearly visible logo (or company logo) is also tax-deductible if these logos together have an area of at least 70 cm² per garment. Unishore Workwear has years of experience in embroidering and printing corporate clothing. Want to know more? Please contact us or request a quotation.