Important change to the cycle-to-work scheme

Tax-free perk

The cycle-to-work scheme encourages employers to help their employees go green by getting on their bike to commute to work. Where an employer provides a bike to an employee (without transferring ownership to them) it doesn’t count as a taxable benefit in kind.

£1,000 limit

Until recently where there’s a hire agreement between the employer and employee (directly or, as is often the case, involving a scheme run by a third party) it must either provide bikes that cost no more than £1,000 or have a consumer credit licence. A change of policy now means that employers don’t need to worry about the £1,000 limit where they use a third party who has a licence to supply the bikes.

Employers that use a third party cycle-to-work scheme to provide bikes worth more than £1,000 to employees are no longer required to have a consumer credit licence as long as the third party has one.