Tax, CIS and Making Tax Digital for self-employed tilers

When Making Tax Digital starts for tilers

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 tilers

HMRC lists tiling among the finishing operations that complete a construction project, alongside kitchen and bathroom fitting and floor screeding. So tiling you do for a builder or developer as part of building work is usually covered. Vinyl and laminate laid where no building work is going on are outside, and carpet tiles on their own are excluded. One contract that mixes covered and uncovered work makes every payment under it covered. On a supply-and-fit job, the tiles and adhesive you paid for come off before the deduction is worked out.

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 tilers 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

Most tilers move from job to job in a van loaded with cutters, a wet saw and mixing kit, so trips from home to each customer’s house or site are usually business travel to a temporary workplace. A long job at one site, day after day, starts to look like commuting, so keep a note of where you worked and for how long. Saws, cutters and the van are business equipment. Blades, sponges and levelling clips that wear out on jobs are running costs.

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.