What expenses can a self-employed roofer claim?

A self-employed roofer can claim tiles, slate, lead and membrane, scaffold and tower hire, harnesses and roof ladders, van costs, insurance and scheme fees. For 2026-27, everyday clothes, fines and private use cannot be claimed.

Roofing has more hire and safety costs than most trades, and some of them change how the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) works out your deduction. This page covers what is specific to roofers. The general guide for tradespeople covers the basics. Everything here follows GOV.UK and HMRC's manuals as checked on 16 October 2026.

What a roofer can and cannot claim

Tools and kit you keep. The cash basis is now the standard way for sole traders to keep their books. Under it, GOV.UK says items you buy and keep for the business, other than cars, are claimed as allowable expenses. A new roof ladder or nail gun comes off your profit in the year you pay for it. If you have chosen traditional accounting, kit you keep goes through capital allowances instead. See our page on claiming tools.

Clothing. HMRC's manual allows protective clothing and uniforms, but not clothes that could be part of an everyday wardrobe, even if you keep them for work. A safety harness and boots are in; an ordinary waterproof is not. The work clothes and PPE guide has more.

Competent person schemes. If you replace roof coverings, membership of a competent person scheme lets you self-certify the work instead of getting building regulations approval. GOV.UK lists CompetentRoofer and NAPIT for pitched and flat roof coverings. The fees count as membership related to your business.

Travel. Most roofers move from job to job. HMRC's manual allows travel between home and temporary sites for an itinerant trader whose base is at home; its example is a jobbing builder. Travel to a fixed yard or office counts as travel between home and work, which is not allowable.

Scaffold, plant hire and CIS

Roofing is construction work, so a contractor you work for takes 20% from your pay under CIS if you are registered, or 30% if not. The CIS 340 guide says plant you hire from a third party, such as scaffolding or a tower, can be treated as materials when the contractor works out your deduction. Plant you own cannot: there is no notional deduction for it, although fuel it uses can still be treated as materials.

There is a second side to scaffolding. CIS 340 lists erecting and dismantling scaffolding as construction work, while GOV.UK lists scaffolding hire with no labour as outside the scheme. So if you pay a scaffolding firm to put up and take down scaffold, you are paying a subcontractor for construction work and may need to register as a CIS contractor and deduct from their payments. Our guide on being a contractor or a subcontractor explains the test.

What this means for you

Here is an example. You invoice a main contractor £6,000 for a re-roof: £4,000 labour, £1,200 of tiles, battens and lead you bought, and £800 you paid a hire shop for a tower. The 20% is worked out on £4,000, so £800 is deducted and you are paid £5,200. If the tower were your own and you charged the same £800 for it, the deduction would be worked out on £4,800, which is £960, and you would be paid £5,040.

The deduction is not an expense. It is an advance payment of your tax and National Insurance, which HMRC takes off your bill when you send your tax return. If more was taken than you owe, before you join Making Tax Digital you claim it back through your Self Assessment tax return. Once you are in Making Tax Digital, HMRC adds your CIS deductions to your tax return, and any refund is requested separately through HMRC online services. Your actual costs, from tiles to tower hire, are what reduce the profit you pay tax on. This is an example only.

Steps to claim your roofing expenses

1. Keep every merchant, hire shop and skip receipt, matched to the job.
2. Show materials and hired plant separately on invoices to contractors, with receipts to back them up.
3. Check whether any scaffolding firm you pay supplies labour, and if it does, check your CIS position before you pay them.
4. Choose flat-rate mileage or actual van costs, and keep a log of business miles.
5. Work out the business share of your phone and van if you also use them privately.
6. Record CIS deductions from your monthly statements separately from your costs.

The free MTD check shows when Making Tax Digital starts for you, and the trades section has more guides for roofers.