Registering as a sole trader: the whole process

Registering is the bit everybody puts off and the bit that takes the least time. It is one online form, it costs nothing, and it is the difference between a tax return you file in an evening and a letter from HMRC you did not expect.

Do you actually need to register?

Yes, if your delivery income before expenses was more than £1,000 in a tax year. That is the trading allowance, and it is measured on turnover, not profit. A driver who took £1,400 and spent £600 on fuel has passed it even though they only made £800.

It makes no difference whether delivery is your only job, whether you did it for three weeks, or whether you made a loss. The test is the income, and the tax year runs 6 April to 5 April.

When to do it

The legal deadline is 5 October following the end of the tax year you started in. Start in June 2026, the tax year ends 5 April 2027, and you must be registered by 5 October 2027.

Do it much earlier than that. Your UTR arrives by post and takes a couple of weeks, longer in January when everybody who left it is registering at once, and you cannot file without it. Registering in your first month costs you ten minutes and removes the whole problem.

What you need before you start

• Your National Insurance number.
• Your address, date of birth and contact details.
• The date you started trading. That is the date of your first delivery job, not the date you downloaded the app or passed a background check.
• A description of the work. "Delivery driver" or "self-employed courier" is fine.

The process, step by step

1. Go to Register for Self Assessment (opens in a new tab) and choose the self-employed option.
2. Create a Government Gateway account if you do not have one, or sign in if you do. Write the user ID down somewhere permanent.
3. Fill in your details and your trading start date.
4. HMRC posts your UTR, usually within about two weeks.
5. HMRC posts an activation code for the online Self Assessment service separately. It expires, so use it as soon as it lands.
6. Sign in and check that Self Assessment appears in your account. If it does, you are done until the return.

What being a sole trader actually means

You and the business are the same legal person. There is no company, nothing at Companies House, no annual accounts to file and no separate legal entity. What you have is an obligation to report your profit each year and pay tax on it.

You keep the profit. You also carry the risk personally, which is the argument for making sure your insurance is right rather than an argument for setting up a company.

You do not need a business bank account, though a second account used only for the work makes the bookkeeping considerably easier and stops tax money getting spent.

What comes next

Your first return covers the tax year you started in and is due by 31 January following the end of it. Between now and then, the job is records: what you were paid, what you spent, and how far you drove.

The mileage log matters most. At 55p a mile for your first 10,000 business miles it is usually the largest single deduction on the return, and it is the one HMRC is most likely to ask to see.

JoltMile keeps all three from the first shift, and its compliance calendar puts the dates above against your own tax year.

Common mistakes

• Waiting until January. The UTR will not arrive in time and the £100 penalty applies even if you owe nothing.
• Registering with the wrong start date. Use the date you first earned, so HMRC asks for the right years.
• Assuming a PAYE job covers it. It does not. You register for the self-employed income on top and file one return covering both.
• Not keeping records from day one. Reconstructing a year from bank statements is possible and miserable.