Over £90,000
When your taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000, you have 30 days from the end of that month to register. You are registered from the first day of the second month after you went over.
VAT
VAT, from the threshold to the return.
You must register for VAT once your taxable turnover goes over £90,000 in any 12 months, or as soon as you expect it to in the next 30 days. From then on a return is usually due every three months, sent through software that works with Making Tax Digital. Here is what it asks of you, and what Stoneledger does about it.
Do you need to register?
It turns on the last 12 months, and the next 30 days.
About to go over
If you can see your taxable turnover going over £90,000 in the next 30 days alone, register by the end of those 30 days. You are registered from the day you realised, not the day you went over.
Below it, by choice
You can register voluntarily with a turnover under £90,000, for example to reclaim the VAT on what you buy. Once you are registered, everything below applies either way.
HMRC sets out the rules, with worked dates, in its guide to registering for VAT.
What it asks of you
A return every three months, through software.
The return
Usually every three months, due with any payment one calendar month and 7 days after the period ends. It goes through software that works with Making Tax Digital: HMRC’s online account is only for businesses exempt from it.
A late return
Each late return is a penalty point. On quarterly returns the limit is four points, and reaching it costs £200, then £200 again for each late return after. On monthly returns the limit is five, on a yearly return two.
A late payment
Nothing for the first 15 days, apart from interest. Then 3% of what was owed at day 15, another 3% of what is still owed at day 30, and from day 31 a further 10% a year on what is left.
HMRC’s own pages: sending a VAT Return and penalty points for a late return.
Two schemes
Two ways to make it simpler, if they suit you.
The Flat Rate Scheme
With VAT turnover of £150,000 or less, you can pay a fixed percentage of your takings, set by your type of business, instead of working out the VAT on each sale and purchase.
You cannot reclaim VAT on what you buy, except on some capital assets over £2,000. A business that spends very little on goods pays 16.5%, your first year registered gets 1% off, and you leave once your turnover passes £230,000 including VAT.
The Cash Accounting Scheme
With VAT taxable turnover of £1.35 million or less, you pay the VAT on a sale when your customer pays you, and reclaim the VAT on a purchase when you have paid for it, rather than on the invoice dates.
It helps when customers are slow to pay. You leave the scheme if your turnover goes over £1.6 million.
What Stoneledger does
The return worked out from your own records, every box explained.
- The nine boxes, from your own records. Every sale, purchase and payment you record lands in the right box, on the standard, cash accounting or flat rate scheme.
- Where the VAT comes from. The return split by tax type, every figure opening onto the invoices and payments behind it.
- VAT that does not match the rate. An invoice whose VAT is not the rate it says is flagged before the return goes.
- Every deadline, period by period, and the threshold watched for you, so registering is never a surprise.
- Returns already sent, against the books now. Anything that changed after a return went is shown, so it is put right in the next one.
- Sending it for you. Once HMRC grants Stoneledger live access, the return goes through Making Tax Digital, with HMRC’s receipt kept beside it.
What it costs
£8 a month or £50 a year, VAT returns included.
One plan, with everything in it: the books, VAT, both sides of CIS, your Self Assessment or Corporation Tax, payroll and journals. No price that jumps the day you register for VAT. 30 days free, no card needed. How that compares
Your VAT, worked out from your own records.
The nine boxes, the deadlines and the threshold, kept with the records behind them. Stoneledger has completed its testing in HMRC’s sandbox for Making Tax Digital for VAT, and sending your returns is on track for the 2027 to 2028 tax year.