HMRC & tax
Registering as self-employed, Self Assessment, National Insurance and what you owe.
Guides
Riding for Deliveroo: the full guide
How Deliveroo works for a rider: what you need to join, how each fee is worked out, the pay floor agreed with the GMB union, when the money arrives, the insurance Deliveroo gives you for free, and the parts that are left to you.
Getting startedUpdated 29/09/2026
Delivering for Uber Eats: the full guide
How Uber Eats works for a courier: signing up, how each delivery is paid, Quests and batched orders, the weekly pay cycle and the two ways to cash out early, the free Allianz cover, Uber Eats Pro, and the tax side.
Getting startedUpdated 29/09/2026
Delivering for Just Eat: the full guide
Just Eat works differently from the other food apps. You set your availability each week and are scheduled into delivery runs, each order pays Transit Pay, and your acceptance rate decides how quickly offers reach you. Here is how all of it fits together.
Getting startedUpdated 29/09/2026
Delivering for Evri: the full guide
Evri couriers are self-employed and paid per parcel, once a month. You choose between Evri Flex and Evri Plus, which trades a five-day commitment for holiday pay, a pension and guaranteed earnings. Here is how it works and what it means for your tax.
Getting startedUpdated 29/09/2026
Driving for DPD: owner driver, employed or Connect
There are three ways to deliver for DPD, and they are three different jobs for tax. An owner driver runs a route as a business, an employed driver is on PAYE, and a DPD Connect courier uses their own car on a local round. Here is how to tell which suits you.
Getting startedUpdated 29/09/2026
Driving for Bolt: the full guide
What it takes to drive for Bolt in the UK, how the weekly payout is worked out, what the 2024 tribunal ruling on worker status means, why the 2026 VAT change is Bolt's problem rather than yours, and how to report the income correctly.
Getting startedUpdated 29/09/2026
Driving for Addison Lee: the full guide
Addison Lee is London's largest private hire and courier firm, and it works differently from the apps: most drivers rent a car from it, the work leans on corporate accounts, and holiday pay is paid on every job. Here is how that shapes your money and your tax.
Getting startedUpdated 29/09/2026
Driving with Freenow: black cab and private hire
Freenow, now owned by Lyft, sends jobs to London black cabs and to private hire drivers. It charges commission only on completed jobs, rewards drivers who carry its advertising, and will pay for private hire drivers to do the Knowledge. Here is how each of those lands on your tax return.
Getting startedUpdated 29/09/2026
Uber driver benefits: holiday pay, pension, cover and Uber Pro
Since 2021 Uber drivers in the UK are workers, which brings a minimum earnings guarantee, 12.07% holiday pay and a pension. On top sit free Allianz insurance, the Uber Pro rewards tiers and early cash out. Here is what each one pays and how it is taxed.
Employment rights & legalUpdated 29/09/2026
When each app pays you, and why the date matters for tax
Most apps pay weekly, on different days, with a fee to get it sooner. Evri pays monthly. The pay date decides how much cash you need in reserve and, at the start and end of the year, which tax year the money falls in.
Earnings & profitabilityUpdated 29/09/2026
Substitutes, account sharing and the new right to work rules
Self-employed riders can usually send someone else to do the work. That right comes with rules on every platform, a tax position most substitutes and account holders get wrong, and from October 2026 a legal duty on the platforms to check who is actually working.
Account & platform problemsUpdated 29/09/2026
What the platforms tell HMRC about your earnings
Since 2024 every delivery and ride app has to collect your tax details and report what it paid you to HMRC once a year. There is no minimum for services. Here is what is reported, when, why it will not match your return, and what to do with the copy you are sent.
HMRC & taxUpdated 29/09/2026
Business miles, commuting and the depot run
A business mile is one driven wholly for the work. Commuting between home and a regular workplace is never claimable. For most gig drivers the working day starts when the app goes on, which makes the drive to a chosen pickup zone personal and the drive between drops business.
Mileage & expensesUpdated 27/08/2026
Payments on account, explained with a first bill
A payment on account is an advance instalment towards next year's tax. HMRC asks for them once a bill passes £1,000, in two halves each worth 50% of the year just filed. It is why a first bill can be one and a half years of tax at once.
HMRC & taxUpdated 27/08/2026
Budgeting for a tax bill you have not had yet
Set aside a percentage of every payment as it arrives, into an account you do not spend from. For most full-time drivers claiming mileage, somewhere between 20% and 30% of what the platforms pay is enough, and the first year needs more because of payments on account.
HMRC & taxUpdated 27/08/2026
Record keeping, and how long to keep it
You have to keep enough to show how every figure on your return was arrived at: what you were paid, what you spent, and how far you drove for the work. Records have to be kept for 5 years after the filing deadline for the year they cover.
HMRC & taxUpdated 27/08/2026
What a compliance check looks like
A compliance check is HMRC examining a return in detail. It starts with a letter naming a tax year and asking for specific records, usually the mileage log and the income figures. It is not an accusation, and how it goes depends almost entirely on what you can produce.
HMRC & taxUpdated 27/08/2026
Capital allowances on a vehicle
A capital allowance is tax relief on something you bought to keep and use, spread over years rather than deducted at once. You cannot claim capital allowances on a vehicle and use the mileage rate for it, so for most gig drivers this is a road not taken.
Mileage & expensesUpdated 27/08/2026
Class 2 and Class 4 National Insurance for drivers
Class 4 National Insurance is charged on your profits at 6% between £12,570 and £50,270, then 2% above, and is paid with your income tax. Compulsory Class 2 ended from 6 April 2024, but voluntary Class 2 at £3.65 a week still buys state pension years.
HMRC & taxUpdated 27/08/2026
Tax when you have a PAYE job as well
You get one personal allowance across all your income, and your job has usually used it. That means delivery profit is often taxed from the first pound, at whatever band your total income reaches. You file one return covering both, and you do not pay twice.
HMRC & taxUpdated 27/08/2026
Late filing and late payment penalties
Miss 31 January and there is an immediate £100 penalty even if you owe nothing. It escalates at three months, six months and twelve. Late payment carries separate penalties and interest, and the two run alongside each other rather than instead of each other.
HMRC & taxUpdated 27/08/2026
What HMRC asks for on your return, box by box
Most drivers file the short self-employment pages, which want four things: your turnover, your allowable expenses, your taxable profit, and the dates you traded. Everything else on the form either does not apply or follows from those.
HMRC & taxUpdated 27/08/2026
Buying, leasing or PCP as a gig driver
For high-mileage gig work, buying a cheap car outright is usually cheapest, because leases and PCP deals price mileage and you will exceed the allowance. The exception is an electric lease where the fuel saving and the zone exemptions outweigh the monthly cost.
Vehicles & equipmentUpdated 27/08/2026
Getting your earnings statements out of each app
Every platform holds your earnings history somewhere and none of them keeps it forever. Download a statement every month, in the app or on the partner web portal, and keep it outside the app. A deactivated account is an account you cannot get history out of.
HMRC & taxUpdated 27/08/2026
Universal Credit when you drive
Universal Credit for a self-employed driver works on monthly reported earnings, not on the tax year, and once your start-up period ends a minimum income floor can be applied. That combination makes an award unpredictable when earnings swing week to week.
Earnings & profitabilityUpdated 27/08/2026
Registering as a sole trader: the whole process
Everything from deciding whether you need to register, through getting a UTR, to the 5 October deadline and what arrives in the post.
HMRC & taxUpdated 20/08/2026
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: what delivery drivers need to do
Who it applies to and when, what a quarterly update actually is, and what changes about your records. The thresholds run £50,000 from 6 April 2026, then £30,000, then £20,000.
HMRC & taxUpdated 20/08/2026
Allowable expenses for delivery drivers: the full list
What you can claim, what you cannot, and the ones that depend on how you have claimed for your vehicle. Written for drivers using the mileage method, because most are.
Mileage & expensesUpdated 20/08/2026
Self Assessment for delivery drivers: the complete guide
Registering, what counts as income, what you can claim, how much tax you will owe and when it is due - written for UK delivery and courier drivers, correct for the 2026/27 tax year.
HMRC & taxUpdated 19/08/2026
The complete mileage guide for delivery drivers
What counts as a business mile, the 55p and 25p approved rates, the 10,000-mile threshold, and whether mileage or actual costs leaves you better off.
Mileage & expensesUpdated 19/08/2026
How to become a delivery driver in the UK
What you need before your first shift: the right licence and insurance, which platform to start with, what it costs to set up, and how to tell HMRC.
Getting startedUpdated 19/08/2026
Multi-apping: driving for more than one platform
Running two or three delivery apps at once - whether it is allowed, whether it pays, and how to keep records that still make sense at tax time.
Multi-app drivingUpdated 19/08/2026
Articles
Renting a PCO car: mileage rate or actual costs?
If you rent your private hire car by the week, you cannot claim both the rental and the mileage rate. Which one to claim depends on the rent, your miles and how much of the week the car works. Here is the arithmetic.
Mileage & expensesUpdated 29/09/2026
The 2026 VAT change on private hire, and what it means for drivers
From 2 January 2026 private hire operators can no longer use the Tour Operators' Margin Scheme, so operators that contract as principal pay VAT on the whole fare. It is a tax on the operator, not on you, but it changes fares and what drivers are offered.
HMRC & taxUpdated 29/09/2026
Amazon Flex or an Amazon delivery partner job?
There are two ways to deliver Amazon parcels. Flex is self-employed, in your own car, a block at a time. A Delivery Service Partner job is with a separate company that provides the van and usually sets a full day. They are different jobs with different tax.
Getting startedUpdated 29/09/2026
The trading allowance against claiming expenses
You can deduct the £1,000 trading allowance from your turnover, or you can deduct your real expenses. Not both. For anyone driving more than a few hours a week the expenses win easily, because the mileage claim alone passes £1,000 inside about two thousand business miles.
HMRC & taxUpdated 27/08/2026
Mileage method or actual costs: which is worth more?
For most delivery drivers the mileage method wins, and it is not close. At 55p a mile it usually beats the real running cost of an ordinary car, and it needs no receipts.
Mileage & expensesUpdated 20/08/2026
How much tax does a full-time delivery driver actually pay?
Far less than the headline turnover suggests. Mileage relief usually removes a third or more before income tax and National Insurance are worked out at all.
HMRC & taxUpdated 20/08/2026
Questions
JoltMile Help
How JoltMile estimates your tax
Income tax and Class 4 National Insurance on your running profit, using the 2026/27 bands.
HMRC & taxUpdated 29/09/2026
The Self Assessment screen
What each figure means, how it maps to your tax return, and what the CSV and PDF exports contain.
HMRC & taxUpdated 29/09/2026
Other income, PAYE and your tax estimate
Adding a job, rent or another trade, entering the tax already taken off your payslips, and how it changes your figures.
HMRC & taxUpdated 29/09/2026
Your JoltMile subscription as a claimable expense
Why a JoltMile subscription appears in your expenses automatically, where the figure comes from, and why you cannot edit it.
Mileage & expensesUpdated 29/09/2026
Deadline reminders
The Self Assessment dates JoltMile tracks for you, how it works out which ones apply, and how to turn them off.
HMRC & taxUpdated 29/09/2026
News
A job or other income now counts in your tax estimate
Add a job, rent or another trade, with the tax already taken off your payslips, and the estimate covers your whole year rather than the driving alone.
HMRC & taxUpdated 12/09/2026
HMRC will auto-enrol you into Making Tax Digital from September if you have not signed up
If your self-employed driving income was £50,000 or more, HMRC starts signing people up for Making Tax Digital automatically from September 2026 if you have not registered yourself.
HMRC & taxUpdated 28/08/2026
HMRC mileage rate rises from 45p to 55p a mile
The approved mileage rate for cars and vans rose to 55p for the first 10,000 business miles from 6 April 2026 - the first change since 2011.
Mileage & expensesUpdated 19/08/2026
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax has started
From 6 April 2026, self-employed people with qualifying income above £50,000 must keep digital records and send quarterly updates to HMRC.
HMRC & taxUpdated 19/08/2026
Just Eat couriers take worker status to tribunal
More than 7,000 Just Eat couriers are asking an employment tribunal to rule they are workers rather than self-employed. Judgment is expected later in 2026.
Employment rights & legalUpdated 19/08/2026