Tax, CIS and Making Tax Digital for self-employed landscapers and gardeners

When Making Tax Digital starts for landscapers and gardeners

It depends on your qualifying income, not your trade. Qualifying income is the total of self-employment and property income before expenses (turnover), not profit.

Once you’re in, you send HMRC a quarterly update by 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May, then a tax return after the year ends. MTD for Income Tax does not change how tax is paid or the payment due dates.

Check your own start date and what to sort first. It’s free and takes a minute.

CIS for landscapers and gardeners

Routine gardening, garden maintenance and tree surgery are outside CIS. Walls, drives and patios are covered even as routine landscaping, because they count as works forming part of the land. Planting, turfing and tree clearance are covered only when they prepare for or finish a building project, such as a new estate. Fencing has its own rule: a one-off fence is covered if the posts are set in concrete. Homeowners paying for their own garden are not contractors, so they don’t deduct CIS.

When CIS applies, a contractor deducts 20% if you’re registered for CIS, 30% if you’re not, and nothing if you have gross payment status. To work out a CIS deduction, the contractor starts with the gross invoice and takes away what the subcontractor paid for VAT, consumable stores, fuel (except for travelling), plant hire, manufacturing or prefabricating materials, and materials; the CIS rate is then deducted from the amount left.

Before you join Making Tax Digital, over-deducted CIS is claimed 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. Either way, the sooner after 5 April the return is filed, the sooner HMRC can repay you.

Estimate your CIS refund

Free, and it runs in your browser: add your van or mileage, tools and phone, for 2025-26 and 2026-27.

Costs landscapers and gardeners usually claim

The test for every cost is whether it was for your business. If something is partly personal, only the business part counts.

Your van, tools and kit

A trailer for mowers and tools is business equipment, alongside the van. Fuel and oil for garden machinery is a running cost of the kit, kept apart from van fuel, which you only claim if you use actual van costs instead of the flat mileage rate. A round of customers’ gardens is the kind of travel HMRC allows from a home base, so log the addresses you visit. If you dry-hire a mini digger for a contractor’s job, the hire firm is paid in full, and on your own CIS invoice the hire and the fuel it uses can be shown with your materials.

From 2024-25 the cash basis is the default for sole traders and partnerships without corporate partners, with no turnover limit; traditional (accruals) accounting is an opt-out. Under the cash basis, the cost of equipment bought to keep and use in the business, such as machinery, computers and vans, is claimed as a normal allowable expense rather than a capital allowance. Cars are different: they go through capital allowances.

Simplified expenses for cars and goods vehicles (vans) from 6 April 2026: 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles, then 25p; motorcycles 24p. Once used for a vehicle you must keep using it for that vehicle, and it cannot be used for a vehicle already claimed through capital allowances.