The complete Vinted tax guide for UK resellers
Vinted and HMRC explained: the £1,000 trading allowance, when you need to register, what you can deduct, and how to file your Self Assessment.
The Vintify team
3 min read
If you are selling on Vinted to make a profit, HMRC wants to know about it. Since 2024 the platforms report seller data to HMRC directly, and the thresholds for reporting are stricter than most people think. This guide covers what you need to stay compliant without overpaying.
The £1,000 trading allowance
Every UK individual gets a £1,000 trading allowance each tax year. If your total trading income from all sources is under £1,000, you do not need to declare it or pay tax on it. The moment you cross £1,000 in sales revenue, you must register for Self Assessment and report it.
Important: the £1,000 is income, not profit. If you bought items for £800 and sold them for £1,200, your income is £1,200. You are over the threshold and must register, even though your profit is only £400.
When you need to register for Self Assessment
You must register with HMRC by 5 October after the tax year in which you exceeded the £1,000 allowance. If you crossed £1,000 in the 2024/25 tax year, which ended on 5 April 2025, you had to register by 5 October 2025.
Registration is free and done online at gov.uk. You get a Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR), which you use to file your Self Assessment return each year.
What counts as a business expense
You can deduct legitimate business expenses from your income before calculating profit. Common deductible expenses for Vinted resellers include:
- Cost of goods sold: what you paid for the items you are reselling
- Packaging materials: poly bags, bubble wrap, tape, labels
- Postage you paid yourself, where the buyer did not cover it
- Software you use for the business, including a Vintify subscription
- A home-office share of your internet, heating and electricity, if you work from home
- Mileage for sourcing trips, at HMRC's approved rate of 45p a mile for the first 10,000 miles
Keep receipts for everything. HMRC can ask for evidence up to six years after the tax year.
Cash basis or accruals basis
Most sole traders use the cash basis: income counts when the money arrives and costs count when you pay them. The accruals basis matches each cost to the sale it produced, so stock you bought but have not sold yet is not a cost this year. The difference between the two is exactly your change in stock over the year, and it can be large for a reseller who buys ahead of a season.
How to work out your profit
Your taxable profit is your total sales income minus your allowable expenses. The rate you pay depends on your total income from all sources, Vinted included:
- Personal allowance: £12,570 tax-free
- Basic rate: 20% on income between £12,571 and £50,270
- Higher rate: 40% on income between £50,271 and £125,140
- Additional rate: 45% on income above £125,140
If you have a day job paying £30,000 and make £5,000 profit from Vinted, your total income is £35,000, all within the basic rate band, so the Vinted profit is taxed at 20%.
How Vintify helps
Vintify pulls your Vinted and eBay sales in every hour, keeps the cost you paid against every item, and holds your running costs with their receipts. Its tax report lays out your UK tax year on both the cash basis and the accruals basis, with the six cost rows HMRC asks about, refunds dated to the day the money went back, and a CSV that shows the workings.
It does not estimate the tax you owe and it is not tax advice. It gives you the figures, correctly added up, so that filing is copying numbers rather than reconstructing a year from screenshots.
In VintifySee the tax report in VintifyRead nextNot sure if you need to register as a business seller? Read the Vinted Pro Seller guideFree toolWork out the profit on one sale, before tax, with the free calculatorFree toolKeep the records HMRC asks for in the free Vinted spreadsheet templateFirst published , updated .
