Going self-employed as a tradesperson: the first-90-days admin checklist

Handing in your notice is the easy bit. So is the work — you've been doing it for years on someone else's payroll. What nobody teaches is the admin: the registrations, the records, the tax that's suddenly your problem. Here's the checklist for the first 90 days, roughly in the order it wants doing.

1. Tell HMRC you exist

Once you expect more than £1,000 of self-employment income in a tax year, you need to register for Self Assessment. The legal deadline is generous — 5 October after the end of the tax year you started in — but don't use it. Register the week you start: it's free, it's a short online form, and the UTR number HMRC posts back takes a while to arrive. You'll need that number for almost everything else.

From then on you file a tax return each year by 31 January. Miss it and the penalties start at £100 and climb.

2. Open a second bank account

A sole trader doesn't legally need a business account — a personal one is fine. But open a separate account anyway, even just a second current account, and run every job through it. Work money in, work costs out, and your records mostly write themselves. Mixing it all through one account means every tax return starts with an archaeology dig through your own statements.

3. Sort insurance before the first job, not after

• Public liability — not legally required, but treat it as if it were. Commercial clients, councils, and the marketplaces (Checkatrade and the like) all want to see it, and one dropped radiator through a ceiling costs more than a lifetime of premiums.
• Employers' liability — this one is the law, from the day anyone works for you. That includes a mate helping out for cash on a busy week. If it's just you, you don't need it — yet.
• Tool cover — price it against what's actually in your van. For most trades that number is higher than you'd guess.

And whatever your trade requires on top: Gas Safe registration is a legal requirement for gas work, and electricians will want a competent-person scheme (SELECT or NICEIC in Scotland, NICEIC or NAPIT down south) to self-certify notifiable work.

4. Keep records digitally from day one

Every invoice, every receipt, every van fill-up. You need to keep records for years, and HMRC's Making Tax Digital rules now require sole traders with income over £50,000 to keep digital records and file quarterly — a threshold that drops to £30,000 in 2027 and £20,000 in 2028. If things go well, you'll grow into those rules quickly, and the traders who suffer are the ones converting a carrier bag of receipts after the fact. Start digital and there's nothing to convert.

The same habit pays off outside tax season. Quotes, invoices and payments in one place per job means you always know who owes you what — that's the job grafter.ly does for the trades — but whatever you use, the rule is the same: record it the day it happens, not the January after.

5. Put the tax away before you feel rich

Nobody deducts tax from you any more — that's now your job. The rule of thumb: move 25–30% of everything you're paid into a separate pot the day it lands. That covers income tax and Class 4 National Insurance (6% on profits between £12,570 and £50,270, 2% above that) with headroom to spare.

The headroom matters because of the trap nobody warns you about: payments on account. Once your tax bill passes £1,000, HMRC doesn't just collect what you owe for the year — it adds a 50% advance on next year's bill, twice a year. Your first January bill is routinely one and a half times what you'd worked out you owed. Traders with a healthy first year get flattened by this every single January. If the money's been going into the pot all along, it's a non-event.

6. If you'll sub for other contractors: CIS

Working for a builder or main contractor rather than the homeowner directly? That's usually inside the Construction Industry Scheme. Register for CIS and contractors deduct 20% from your labour before paying you; don't register and they must deduct 30%. Ten percent of your labour is a lot to pay for skipping a form.

7. VAT: nothing to do yet — but know the number

You don't need to register for VAT until your turnover passes £90,000 in any rolling 12 months. Two things worth knowing now: it's a rolling 12 months, not the tax year, so a busy stretch can carry you over mid-year — and it's turnover, not profit. Keep half an eye on it once you're busy; ignore it otherwise.

The one question everyone asks: do I need an accountant?

Plenty of sole traders genuinely manage without one, especially in year one with clean records. But an accountant earns their fee the first time payments on account, CIS deductions, or an HMRC letter confuses you — and usually spots enough allowable expenses to cover the cost. A fair rule: if your records are tidy and your affairs are simple, try year one yourself; the moment it stops feeling simple, buy the help.

The bottom line

None of this is hard. It's just invisible until it bites, and it all bites in January. Register straight away, insure before the first job, keep records as you go, and move a quarter of everything into the tax pot on payday. Do those four things and the admin side of self-employment stays what it should be: boring.