Cold Rooms & Capital Allowance
When you’re running your own business, it’s worth taking every little bit of help on offer. Capital allowances can be claimed when you purchase essential assets that you use regularly in your business, including machinery, equipment, and vehicles. These are classed as ‘plant and machinery’, the cost, or partial cost, of which can be deducted from your profits before tax, reducing your tax bill.
Do Cold Rooms Qualify For Capital Allowances?
Cold rooms are named in capital allowances legislation, but whether yours qualifies depends on how it is installed. HMRC asks what would be left if the cold room were taken away.
- A cold room inside a building that could stand on its own without it qualifies. The building does not.
- If the panels and refrigeration are the building itself, the structure only qualifies if it works more like a large freezer than a building.
Most cold rooms installed inside an existing building qualify as plant and machinery.
What Can You Claim in 2026?
Any business can claim 100% of the cost up to £1 million a year through the Annual Investment Allowance. Limited companies can also claim 100% on a new cold room with no upper limit, and since January 2026 a 40% allowance on new equipment has been open to sole traders and partnerships as well. You can’t claim on a cold room you lease and won’t own.
Easing The Burden On Your Business
If you’re planning to install a cold room on your premises, remember that you could claim capital allowances to relieve the burden of tax on your business – depending on how it is installed, so check with your accountant. At MTCSS, we can advise about the range of cold rooms available to ensure they meet the needs of your business, so feel free to get in touch for more information – call us on 01886 833381, email us at sales@mtcss.co.uk, or fill in an enquiry form here!
Last reviewed October 2026.