A call out charge is the full cost of one visit divided by one minus your target margin. Add up travel time, vehicle costs, loaded labour, admin, and overheads, then divide the total by 0.75 for a 25% margin. For a 15-minute fix that needs a 20-mile round trip, an illustrative visit cost of £48 gives a call out charge of £64.

Short jobs are why you need one. Billing only the 15 minutes on site, you would have to charge £192 an hour just to cover that £48 visit. Joblogic job costing shows the profit on each visit, so you can see which of your short jobs your current fee covers.

This guide builds the charge from GOV.UK mileage, wage, and National Insurance rates, shows what UK trades publish, and sets out the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rules on advertising a call out charge. That way the fee holds up when a customer asks why it is there.

What is a call out charge?

A call out charge pays for sending an engineer to site and finding the fault, before any repair labour or parts. The ASA describes a call-out as a professional travelling to a home or premises to assess the work needed.

The same guidance says "assessment" or "diagnostic" fees that apply when the customer doesn't go ahead with the work are likely to be treated as call-out charges too. Show the fee as its own line on quotes and invoices, separate from repair labour and parts.

Joblogic quoting software splits a quote into sections that each carry their own total, so the call out charge can sit as its own section ahead of the repair work.

Why do short jobs lose money without a call out charge?

Travel, van costs, and unbillable paid time cost the same for a 15-minute fix as for a two-hour job. An hourly rate only recovers the time your engineer spends on site.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) approved mileage rates value a car or van mile at 55p for the first 10,000 business miles. At that rate, a 20-mile round trip costs £11 before any work starts.

Paid hours also run ahead of billable hours, because almost all workers get 5.6 weeks' paid holiday a year. Each return visit means another drive, so aim to fix it first time.

Billing the time on site cannot recover that cost on a short job. The £48 visit cost is built up in the worked example below, and the figures here are illustrative apart from the 55p mileage rate.

Source: illustrative figures, with the mileage rate from GOV.UK travel, mileage and fuel rates and allowances

A call out charge, or a minimum charge, exists because the cost of getting to site does not shrink when the job does.

What costs should a call out charge cover?

A call out charge should cover travel time, vehicle costs, the engineer's loaded labour cost, admin time, a share of overheads, and your target margin. Loaded labour is the engineer's hourly wage plus employer costs such as National Insurance and paid holiday.

Build the fee from these costs:

• Travel time: Count paid driving minutes to and from site at the loaded labour rate.
• Vehicle cost: Use HMRC approved mileage rates as a benchmark, shown in the table below. HMRC sets them for employees using their own vehicles, so swap in your own per-mile running cost for company vans when you have it.
• Wage: Start from the engineer's hourly pay, which can't fall below the National Living Wage of £12.71 for workers aged 21 and over.
• Employer National Insurance: Add 15% on earnings above the secondary threshold, shown in the table below.
• Paid holiday: Spread the cost of 5.6 weeks' paid holiday across the hours you can bill in a year.
• Admin time: Include the minutes office staff spend booking, scheduling, and invoicing each visit.
• Overheads: Share premises, insurance, software, and tool costs across the visits you expect to complete.
• Margin: Add your target profit margin last, as a percentage of the final price.

HMRC approved mileage rates for cars and vans for 2026 to 2027 give a benchmark vehicle cost per business mile.

Source: GOV.UK travel, mileage and fuel rates and allowances

Employer Class 1 National Insurance adds 15% to earnings above the secondary threshold for categories A, B, and C.

Source: GOV.UK rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027

How do you calculate a call out charge?

Add up the full cost of one visit, then divide that total by one minus your target margin. Work it out with these steps:

1. Add up the cost of one visit, covering travel time, vehicle miles, loaded labour, admin minutes, and a share of overheads.
2. Decide whether the fee includes the first 30 to 60 minutes on site, and add that labour if it does.
3. Set your target margin as a percentage of the selling price.
4. Divide the total visit cost by one minus the margin, so a 25% margin means dividing by 0.75.

These illustrative examples use invented figures for two visits, apart from the HMRC mileage rate of 55p. Each fee includes the first stated period on site.

Source: illustrative figures, with the mileage rate from GOV.UK travel, mileage and fuel rates and allowances

Distance, not job size, drives most of the gap between the two. A flat fee that ignores travel loses money on the far-away jobs, which is why some firms set a service radius and charge extra beyond it.

Joblogic job costing records costs against each job by line type, including labour, overtime, travel, mileage, and call-out. It works out travel and labour costs from the times engineers record in the mobile app and shows the profit and margin on each job. Swap these estimates for real costs from recent visits before you change your price.

What do UK trades publish as a call out minimum?

Among the 73 of 130 UK trade firms that published a figure, the median minimum charge for a standard-hours visit was £85, with the middle half between £67 and £102. OptiTech Automation recorded only prices shown on each firm's own website, and the data was accessed on 18 August 2026.

Source: OptiTech Automation, what UK tradespeople charge for a call-out in 2026

Read these as published prices, not average charges, because firms that publish prices are self-selected towards transparency. The same study found that 58 of the 130 firms (45%) advertise "no call-out fee", and 9 of those 58 still publish a first-hour minimum.

Use the figures to sense-check your formula result, not to replace it. A result far outside £67 to £102 is a prompt to recheck your travel, labour, and overhead inputs.

How does a call out charge differ from a minimum charge or hourly rate?

A call out charge pays for travelling to site and assessing the work needed. A minimum charge sets the lowest job total, and an hourly rate bills working time.

Offsetting means deducting the call out charge from the final bill when the customer goes ahead with the work. ASA guidance says an offset charge is likely to be acceptable if you genuinely deduct the fee and haven't raised your prices to cover it.

Because an offset fee comes off the final bill, it only adds revenue on visits where the customer does not go ahead. Bill the call out charge separately from the work itself.

Source: ASA call-out charges guidance

Pick the combination you use and describe it in the same words on your website, quotes, and invoices.

Which call out charge structures can you use?

These are the common models. The ASA's guidance covers the first four, and the section on advertising rules below sets out what it says. Each model works like this:

• Fixed fee: You charge one set price for travelling to site and assessing the work, then bill labour and parts on top.
• Fee including time on site: The price covers attendance plus a stated first period of work, such as the first 30 minutes.
• Offset fee: You deduct the fee from the bill if the customer goes ahead, with no price rise to cover it.
• No call-out charge: You charge nothing for travel time, initial diagnosis, or anything else before the work is agreed.
• Out-of-hours rate: You charge a separate, higher fee for evening, weekend, and emergency visits.
• Service radius: The fee covers sites within a set distance, and you charge extra travel beyond it.

Joblogic quoting software lets you set labour and parts costs with mark-ups and shows a profitability breakdown in the quote summary, so you can see whether a job covers its cost before you send it. Quote templates hold your prices for common jobs, so the same visit is priced the same way each time.

How should you price an out-of-hours call out charge?

Use the same formula, with the overtime pay rate in place of the basic rate for evening, weekend, and emergency visits. If your engineer earns overtime for the drive, apply it to travel time as well as time on site.

Among the firms that publish both figures, the median out-of-hours minimum is about 1.47 times the daytime figure, and most sit between 1.3 and 1.7 times (OptiTech Automation, August 2026).

For example, take an illustrative overtime rate of £36 an hour, which is time and a half on £24. The same 15-minute fix with a 20-mile round trip then costs £27 in labour plus the same £11 vehicle, £4 admin, and £15 overhead, so £57 in total and a £76 fee at a 25% margin. Your own premium may be higher if you also price in the disruption of being on call, which is a business choice rather than a cost calculation.

Joblogic job costing records overtime as its own cost line and can apply basic or overtime pay rates to timesheets based on the time and day of the week, so an out-of-hours visit is costed at the right rate.

Give the customer the out-of-hours fee when they book, before the engineer sets off.

What do the rules say about advertising a call out charge?

You can legally charge a call out fee. ASA guidance only accepts "no call-out charge" when you charge nothing for travel time, initial diagnosis, or anything else before the work is agreed. The ASA ruled against Rightio on 25 November 2020 and Town Force on 4 November 2020, and cited Academy Maintenance on 18 March 2015 for the same principle.

The ASA's call-out charges guidance also sets out two changes:

• The ASA enforces the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) Code, and the amended version has been in force since 7 April 2025.
• On misleading pricing, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 replaced the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

Run this ASA test before any "no call-out charge" claim goes on your van, website, or adverts.

Source: ASA call-out charges guidance

How do you keep a call out charge profitable over time?

Compare the revenue from each visit against the real job cost, and review the fee when your costs change.

Joblogic job costing reports can be filtered by job, customer, and location, so you can see which visits make money.

Sort jobs by type and check which visits make money and which only break even. Flag every job that needed a second visit, because the fee you charged covered one trip.

Review the fee when wages, National Insurance, or mileage costs move. The National Living Wage rose to £12.71 an hour from 1 April 2026 for workers aged 21 and over. Check the employer rates and thresholds at the start of each tax year and rerun your formula.

Set your call out charge from your own numbers

Your call out charge should come from your own job costs and target margin. Pull your short jobs from the last month, add up what each visit cost, and test your current fee against the formula. Any job where cost plus margin comes out above the fee is money you give away on every similar visit.

A price copied from another business carries their travel distances, wage bill, and margin. Your own job records already hold the numbers you need.

Joblogic shows the profit on each job, so you can see which visits your fee covers. More than 7,000 UK service businesses run their jobs on it. Book a demo to see how it works with jobs like yours.

Frequently asked questions about call out charges

How much should a call out charge be?

There is no set UK figure, because the right charge depends on your travel distances, wage costs, overheads, and target margin. In a 2026 OptiTech Automation study of 130 UK trade firms, the median published standard-hours minimum among the 73 firms that stated one was £85, and the middle half fell between £67 and £102. Those are published prices rather than what firms charge on every job, so use the formula in this guide with your own numbers.

Can you advertise "no call-out charge"?

Only if you charge nothing for travel time, initial diagnosis, or anything else before the work is agreed. ASA guidance treats assessment or diagnostic fees that apply when the customer doesn't go ahead as call-out charges, so a claim that hides one is likely to be misleading.

Can you charge a call out fee if no work is done?

Yes. The fee covers travelling to site and assessing the work, so it applies whether or not the customer goes ahead. ASA guidance asks whether customers can decline the work without paying anything. If they can't, the charge counts as a call-out charge, so state it before the visit and keep it out of any "no call-out" claim.

Should a call out charge include VAT?

Yes, if you're registered for Value Added Tax (VAT), you charge it on a call out fee like any standard-rated service. The standard rate of VAT is 20% and applies to most goods and services. At that rate, an illustrative £64 fee becomes £76.80 for the customer, so set your price knowing which figure they'll see. In the OptiTech study, half the firms published a price without saying whether VAT was included, so state it every time.

Do you have to tell customers about a call out charge before you attend?

Yes, if the customer is a consumer, for distance and off-premises contracts. Schedule 2 of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 requires the total price, or how it's calculated, before the contract. The ASA also says an unavoidable fee must be stated clearly.