Everything You Need to Know About Commuting Benefits for Companies

1. Public transport subscription/bike hire schemes: You can cover 50% of the cost of subscription tickets taken out by employees.
 
2. Sustainable Mobility Allowance: You can encourage the use of so-called "soft" modes of transport for commuting to and from work. 
 
3. Fuel costs: Costs for fossil fuels (e.g. petrol, diesel, LPG) or “green” energy (electric, plug-in hybrid or hydrogen) incurred by an employee for travel using a personal or company vehicle (e.g. car, scooter) for commuting.

These types of support can be combined, under certain conditions, and we provide all the relevant limits to apply, depending on the different types of support, in the following article: What is the maximum tax-free amount I can allocate to my beneficiary?

With the Sustainable Mobility Allowance, you can cover your employees’ travel costs, provided they use soft or alternative modes of transport to get to work:

• Personal bicycle, with or without electric assistance (purchase and maintenance)
• Carpooling, as a driver or passenger
• Public transport, excluding season tickets (single ticket purchases)
• Other shared mobility services (electric scooter hire, self-service electric scooter hire)

Your employees can also benefit from the bike mileage allowance (also known as IKV). This is an allowance paid by the employer to employees who use a bike for their commute. Reimbursement is based on the number of kilometres travelled.

All you need to do is top up your employee’s account, and they can spend their benefits with their Swile card or by submitting a reimbursement request.
What’s more, if your employee already receives another benefit, such as meal vouchers or gift cards, they’ll find everything in one account.

The admin process is simplified for HR, even in the case of mixed modes of transport. That’s because the Sustainable Mobility Allowance can be used on its own, or combined with a public transport subscription.

They have two options: 

• Pay with their Swile card at specialist retailers. The home-to-work travel balance will be debited automatically. To find out more: How do I use home-to-work travel benefits?
 
• Request a reimbursement with an invoice from their Swile account. This applies to purchases made with a personal bank card or transport subscriptions paid directly from your employee’s bank account. It’s not possible to pay directly with the Swile card at non-specialist mobility retailers (e.g. Decathlon, Go Sport, etc.). In this case, they’ll need to pay up front with their bank card and then request a reimbursement. Our team will then process the reimbursement. To find out more: How do I request a reimbursement with an invoice?