HS205 Seafarers’ Earnings Deduction worksheet

What is HS205?

HS205 is HMRC’s Seafarers’ Earnings Deduction working sheet. The current version walks you through whether you qualify, how to calculate eligible periods, and how to enter the deduction for the tax year.

You use it to decide if days of absence from the UK are enough to make up an eligible period, then to add up earnings from employment where you worked wholly or partly overseas during those periods.

What HMRC still expects you to keep

A completed HS205 is one of the records HMRC lists if they check a claim, alongside air tickets, hotel bills, passports, your discharge book and freeboard or position logs.

A refund does not mean they have agreed the worksheet. Keep it indefinitely with the evidence behind every day count.

Where the figure goes on the return

The deduction is entered in box 11 on page Ai 2 of the Additional information pages. In the ‘any other information’ box you should also name the ships on which you carried out duties in the year.

If you had more than one employment in the eligible period, you may only claim for those in which you performed duties outside the UK, and each employment needs its own qualifying voyage.

This page is general information based on published HMRC guidance, not personal tax advice. Seatax will apply the rules to your sea service after you enrol. Fees from £275 including VAT per return.