Registering for CIS

Registering for the Construction Industry Scheme.

If you work in construction and a contractor pays you, registering for CIS means 20% comes off your labour rather than 30%. If you pay subcontractors for construction work, you must register as a contractor before you pay the first one. Here is what each needs, from HMRC's own guidance.

As a subcontractor

Registered, the deduction is 20%, not 30%.

What you need

Your legal business name (and trading name, if different), your business's Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR), your VAT registration number if you are VAT registered, and the date you started trading. Depending on your business, also your National Insurance number, company registration number or a partner's details.

Online is quickest

Register online with your UTR. That registers you for net payment status - payment under deduction. No UTR yet? Register as a new business for Self Assessment and choose working as a subcontractor, and you are registered for both at once.

Or by post

There is a postal form for a sole trader, a partnership and a limited company. A subcontractor based abroad who does construction work in the UK still registers.

As a contractor

Through PAYE, before your first payment.

Who is a contractor

A mainstream contractor's business is construction and it pays subcontractors for construction work - a builder, a labour agency, a gangmaster, a property developer. A business that does not do construction is a deemed contractor once it has spent more than £3 million on construction in the 12 months since its first payment.

How to register

Follow the process for setting up as a new employer. HMRC sends a letter with what you need to work as a contractor, including your employer PAYE reference.

Then verify

Before you pay a new subcontractor, verify them with HMRC, which tells you the rate to deduct. Verify again anyone not on one of your returns this tax year or in the last two.

Both, and what is outside

Registering as both, and work CIS does not cover.

Paid and paying

If you are a subcontractor and you also pay subcontractors for construction work, you register for CIS as both.

Work outside CIS

Architecture and surveying, scaffolding hire with no labour, carpet fitting, delivering materials, and work on site that is not construction, such as running the canteen, are outside the scheme.

Gross payment status

A subcontractor who passes HMRC's tests can be paid with nothing taken off, and pays all their tax at the end of the year. How to get it.

HMRC sets it all out in registering as a subcontractor and registering as a contractor.

What Stoneledger does

From the day you are registered.

Your status and references held once and used everywhere: on every invoice, and on every return.
The deduction on every invoice at the rate in force on the day it was raised, on the labour only.
Subcontractors on file with their UTR, verification number and rate, and anything a return needs flagged before the month closes.
Every tax month's CIS300 with its due date, nil returns included.

Subcontractors on file: one verified at 20%, one not yet verified at 30%, and one with gross payment status, with their UTRs and verification numbers — **Subcontractors, verified and rated** · Sole trader sample book

Both sides of CIS, from your own invoices.

Registered, verified and deducted at the right rate, with every statement and return kept together.