Vinted Tax UK 2026: HMRC Rules for Sellers

Short answer: if you’re selling your own unwanted clothes on Vinted, you almost certainly owe no tax, however many items you sell. Vinted does report you to HMRC once you make 30 sales or receive more than €2,000 (about £1,700) in a calendar year, but being reported is not the same as owing tax. You only pay tax if you’re trading (buying or making things to sell) and your trading income goes over £1,000 in a tax year, or if you sell a personal item for more than £6,000 at a profit.

This guide explains Vinted tax for UK sellers in plain English: what HMRC’s digital platform rules (the “side hustle tax” headlines) actually changed, how to tell whether you’re a casual seller or a reseller, and when Self Assessment and VAT come into it. If you also sell on other platforms, see our guides to eBay tax and Etsy tax.

Do I need to pay tax on Vinted? Find your situation

What you’re doing on Vinted	Reported to HMRC?	Tax to pay?	Do you need to tell HMRC?
Clearing out your own wardrobe, under 30 sales and under about £1,700 a year	No	No	No
Clearing out your own wardrobe, 30+ sales or over about £1,700 a year	Yes	Usually no	No, as long as it’s genuinely your own stuff
Selling a personal item (jewellery, art, a designer piece) for more than £6,000 at a profit	Probably	Possibly Capital Gains Tax	Possibly, see personal possessions
Buying to resell (charity shops, car boots, wholesale) or making to sell, £1,000 or less in a tax year	Depends on volume	No	No, the trading allowance covers it
Buying to resell or making to sell, over £1,000 in a tax year	Very likely	Income tax on your profit	Yes, register for Self Assessment by 5 October after the tax year
A reselling business with over £90,000 of sales in 12 months	Yes	Income tax and VAT	Yes, and register for VAT

The £1,000 is takings, not profit, and it’s one allowance across everything you sell, not £1,000 per app.

What changed: HMRC’s digital platform reporting rules

From 1 January 2024, online marketplaces in the UK have had to collect details about their sellers and send them to HMRC once a year. The rules come from the Platform Operators (Due Diligence and Reporting Requirements) Regulations 2023, which put the OECD’s model reporting rules into UK law. The EU has the same system under the name DAC7, which is why you may see that term in the Vinted app.

The first reports, covering sales in 2024, reached HMRC by 31 January 2025. That’s when the “HMRC is coming for Vinted sellers” stories went viral. HMRC responded with a press release headed No tax changes for online sellers, stressing that the rules are about sharing data, not a new tax. If you’re not trading and only occasionally sell unwanted items, HMRC says there’s no tax due.

Is there a “side hustle tax”?

No. “Side hustle tax” is a newspaper label, not a law. The tax rules for side hustles are the same as they’ve been since April 2017: income from trading is taxable, with the first £1,000 a tax year covered by the trading allowance. What’s new is that HMRC now gets the data to check. HMRC’s own Tax Help for Hustles campaign calls the idea that “30 items” triggers tax a myth.

You may also have read that the limit is going up to £3,000. That’s not in force. The government announced in March 2025 that it plans to raise the point at which trading income needs a full tax return from £1,000 to £3,000, with a simpler online service for people in between. HMRC says that tool is expected by 2029. Until then, trading income over £1,000 still has to be reported through Self Assessment, and the plan was never to make that income tax-free.

Watch this date: these figures are current on 28 October 2026, the day of the Autumn Budget 2026. We’ll update this page if the Budget changes any of them.

When does Vinted report you to HMRC?

Vinted only reports sellers who cross at least one of two lines in a calendar year (1 January to 31 December):

Threshold	Figure
Number of sales	30 or more sales of goods
Amount received	More than €2,000, which Vinted and HMRC describe as about £1,700

You’re left out of the report only if you stay under both. So 31 sales of £5 each (£155 in total) gets you reported, and so does selling one £1,800 item. The thresholds come from the regulations, and HMRC’s guidance for platforms confirms they’re tested together. If you have more than one Vinted account, they’re added together.

Vinted’s help page, HMRC requirements: what you need to know, says it will contact you by the end of the year if you reach either threshold. If you don’t hear from Vinted, you don’t need to do anything.

What Vinted asks you for

If you cross a threshold, Vinted shows you a pre-filled form in the app. You check your details and add your National Insurance number. There’s an option to confirm if you don’t have one. Pro sellers add their business details, such as a company registration number, instead. Vinted explains the fields on its details for HMRC reporting page.

Under HMRC’s guidance for sellers, platforms collect:

• your full name and home address
• your date of birth
• your tax identification number (your National Insurance number if you’re UK resident)
• for businesses, the legal name, main address and company registration number

Don’t ignore the request. Platforms can be fined for incomplete reports, and HMRC’s manual says they may limit or suspend an account until the seller provides the details (IEIM902350).

What Vinted sends HMRC

Once a year, by 31 January, Vinted sends HMRC your identity details and what you were paid in each quarter of the calendar year, net of any fees or commission the platform took. You get a copy of the same report. HMRC can pass the data to the tax authority of another country if you live abroad.

Two things to know about that number:

1. It’s a calendar-year figure, but tax works on the tax year (6 April to 5 April). If you do need to file a return, you’ll have to work out your figures for the tax year yourself.
2. It’s your sales, not your profit. The report doesn’t know what you paid for anything. A seller who received £2,500 for clothes that cost them £6,000 shows up the same as a reseller who made £2,000 of profit.

HMRC may compare the data with tax returns and write to people where it looks like trading income hasn’t been declared. If you’re a genuine wardrobe-clearer, you can explain that the sales were your own used belongings sold at a loss.

How much can you sell on Vinted before paying tax?

It depends on what you’re selling, not how much.

• Your own unwanted possessions: there’s no limit. You can sell 300 items for £4,000 and owe nothing, because you’re not trading and you’re almost always selling for less than you paid.
• Things you bought or made to sell: up to £1,000 of takings a tax year with no tax and no need to tell HMRC. Above that, you pay income tax on your profit, but only once your total income goes over your personal allowance (£12,570 in 2026 to 2027).
• A single personal item sold for more than £6,000: possibly Capital Gains Tax on the gain.

So the honest answer to “how much can I sell on Vinted before paying tax?” is: as much as you like if it’s your own wardrobe, and £1,000 a year if you’re reselling.

Selling your own clothes vs trading

The question that decides everything is whether you’re trading. HMRC’s Tax Help for Hustles gives typical examples of trading: flipping charity-shop finds, upcycling furniture, reselling wholesale vintage clothing and selling handmade items. Selling your old clothes, toys or loft clear-outs isn’t trading.

The badges of trade

When it’s not obvious, HMRC and the courts look at the nine badges of trade set out in HMRC’s Business Income Manual at BIM20205. No single badge decides it. Here’s how they apply on Vinted:

Badge of trade	Points towards a hobby or clear-out	Points towards trading
Profit-seeking motive	You want space in your wardrobe	You list things because you expect to sell them for more than you paid
Number of transactions	A one-off clear-out after a move	A steady flow of listings, month after month
Nature of the asset	Clothes you wore for years	Brand-new items with tags, multiples of the same thing
Similar trading interests	None	You also run a vintage stall or another reselling account
Changes to the asset	Sold as it is	Altered, repaired, dyed or upcycled to sell for more
How the sale is carried out	Casual photos, whatever price sells	Professional photos, bundles, regular price drops, a “shop” style profile
Source of finance	Nothing borrowed	You borrowed or used a credit card to buy stock
Time between buying and selling	Owned for years	Bought last month, sold this month
Method of acquisition	Bought for yourself, or a gift	Bought specifically to resell

If you only sell things you bought to wear and later didn’t want, you’re not trading, even if you sell a lot of them. If you go to car boot sales on Sunday to find stock for Vinted on Monday, you are.

Making things to sell

Making things to sell is trading too. If you crochet tops, customise jackets or sew children’s clothes and sell them on Vinted, that’s trading income, and the £1,000 trading allowance applies across it and anything else you trade.

Personal possessions and Capital Gains Tax

Personal belongings you sell (HMRC calls them “chattels”) only come into Capital Gains Tax in narrow cases. The rules are on gov.uk’s Capital Gains Tax on personal possessions page and in helpsheet HS293:

• The £6,000 rule: there’s no CGT on a personal possession sold for £6,000 or less.
• Items with a limited lifespan are exempt anyway. Anything with a predictable life of 50 years or less (most clothes, shoes, phones and electronics) is a “wasting asset” and outside CGT whatever you sell it for.
• Sets count as one item. A matching set sold in pieces to different buyers is tested against the £6,000 limit as a whole.
• You only pay on a gain. Most second-hand items sell for less than they cost, so there’s no gain.
• The annual exempt amount covers the first £3,000 of your total gains in a tax year (gov.uk).

In practice this matters only for items that hold or grow in value, such as fine jewellery, art, antiques or rare collectables, and only if one sells for more than £6,000 for more than you paid. Almost no one selling on Vinted will ever be affected.

The £1,000 trading allowance and Self Assessment

The trading allowance lets you take in up to £1,000 of trading income a tax year tax-free, and without telling HMRC. Our trading allowance guide covers it in depth. The key points for Vinted resellers:

• It’s gross income, before costs. £1,200 of sales from stock that cost you £900 is over the limit, even though your profit is £300.
• It’s one allowance across all your trading. Vinted, Depop, eBay, Etsy and the market stall all add up.
• Over £1,000, you choose: deduct the £1,000 allowance from your income, or deduct your actual expenses (stock, packaging, Bumps, postage you paid), whichever is better. You can’t do both.
• You must register for Self Assessment by 5 October after the end of the tax year in which you went over, using gov.uk’s register for Self Assessment service. Your online return and any tax are due by 31 January after that.

HMRC also reminds people that a PAYE job doesn’t cover side hustle income. Reporting it is your job, not your employer’s. For which costs you can claim, see allowable expenses for online sellers.

What tax will you pay?

Your Vinted profit is added to your other income. If your total stays under the £12,570 personal allowance, there’s no income tax, though you still need to file once your trading income is over £1,000. Above that, basic-rate tax is 20% (gov.uk income tax rates). If your self-employed profits are over £12,570, Class 4 National Insurance applies too, at 6% up to £50,270 (gov.uk).

If your trading income grows, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies to sole traders whose qualifying income is over £30,000 from April 2027, and over £20,000 from April 2028.

Worked examples

Hollie clears her wardrobe from Bristol

Hollie sells pre-loved clothes on Vinted from Bristol. During 2026 she has a big clear-out before moving flat:

• Items sold in 2026: 64
• Total received: £1,920
• What she originally paid for those clothes, roughly: £4,800

Hollie made more than 30 sales and received more than about £1,700, so Vinted asks for her National Insurance number and reports her to HMRC in January 2027.

Does she owe tax? No.

• She isn’t trading. She bought the clothes to wear, owned them for years, and is selling them because she doesn’t want them.
• There’s no gain anyway. She received £1,920 for clothes that cost about £4,800, a loss of roughly £2,880. Clothes are wasting assets, and no single item came near £6,000.

She doesn’t need to register for Self Assessment. Sensible extra step: she keeps a short note of what she sold and why, in case HMRC ever asks.

Priya resells charity-shop finds from Leeds

Priya has a full-time job paying £28,000. At weekends she buys vintage denim and knitwear from charity shops and car boot sales in Leeds and resells it on Vinted. She’s trading: she buys to resell, she sells regularly, and she lists in bulk.

Her figures for the 2026 to 2027 tax year (6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027):

	Amount
Sales received on Vinted (Vinted charges sellers no selling fee)	£7,400
Stock bought from charity shops and car boots	£2,100
Packaging and mailers	£140
Bumps and Showcase to promote listings	£160
Share of phone bill used for the business	£60
Total expenses	£2,460

She compares the two options:

• Actual expenses: £7,400 − £2,460 = £4,940 taxable profit
• Trading allowance: £7,400 − £1,000 = £6,400 taxable profit

Actual expenses give the lower profit, so she claims those. Her salary already uses up her £12,570 personal allowance, so the whole £4,940 is taxed at 20%:

• Income tax: £4,940 × 20% = £988
• Class 4 National Insurance: none, because her self-employed profit is under £12,570
• Class 2 National Insurance: nothing to pay, because her profit is under £7,105 (she can pay it voluntarily if she wants the National Insurance credit)

Her deadlines: register for Self Assessment by 5 October 2027, then file her return and pay the £988 by 31 January 2028.

If Priya had only taken £900 that year, she’d have been under the £1,000 allowance: no tax and no need to tell HMRC, even though she’s trading.

Vinted Pro and business sellers

If you sell on Vinted as a business, Vinted requires you to declare yourself a Pro seller. Its Pro seller guide says business sellers who don’t declare themselves can be blocked, and that not declaring can breach consumer law. Pro accounts are for UK sole traders, companies and non-profits, and they show a “Pro” tag.

What changes when you go Pro:

• Consumer rights apply. Buyers get a 14-day right to cancel and statutory rights on faulty goods, as with any online shop.
• Your listings must show business details, including a trade registration number if you have one and a VAT number if you’re VAT-registered.
• Prices must include VAT if you’re VAT-registered.
• Vinted invoices you for services like shipping labels and visibility boosts.

Going Pro doesn’t change your tax. You’re trading whether or not you tick the Pro box, and the Pro label isn’t what tells HMRC you’re a business. If you’re already making a profit, you should be registered for Self Assessment as a sole trader. For bigger operations, see sole trader or limited company for online sellers.

When does VAT apply to Vinted sales?

VAT only comes in once your business sales go over the £90,000 VAT registration threshold in any rolling 12 months. Our VAT threshold guide explains the rolling test in detail.

• Selling your own belongings isn’t a business, so it never counts towards £90,000.
• Reselling counts at its full sale value. The test uses turnover, not profit. £90,000 of sales on £30,000 of stock still means registering.
• Every channel counts together. Vinted, eBay, Depop, your own website and market stalls all add up.
• Vinted doesn’t collect VAT for UK sellers. Once you’re registered, you account for VAT on your own sales.

The margin scheme for second-hand resellers

Paying 20% VAT on the full price of second-hand clothes would wipe out most resellers’ margins. The VAT margin scheme means you pay VAT only on the difference between what you paid for an item and what you sold it for, at one-sixth of that difference. It works for second-hand goods you bought without VAT, which covers stock from charity shops, car boots and private sellers.

Example: a reseller buys a vintage leather jacket for £8 and sells it for £38.

• Margin scheme: margin £30 × 1/6 = £5.00 VAT
• Normal VAT accounting: £38 × 1/6 = £6.33 VAT

The saving grows with the margin rate across thousands of items. You must keep the right records for each item: a stock book, purchase details and sales invoices. See our margin scheme guide for how to set it up.

Vinted tax checklist

1. Decide honestly whether you’re trading. Own wardrobe: you’re done. Buying or making to sell: keep going.
2. Fill in Vinted’s HMRC form if asked. It’s a reporting duty, not a tax bill.
3. Track your trading income by tax year (6 April to 5 April), across all platforms.
4. Keep receipts for stock, packaging and promotion, even small charity-shop purchases. A notes app or spreadsheet is enough.
5. Over £1,000 of trading income? Register for Self Assessment by 5 October after the tax year.
6. Heading towards £90,000 in 12 months? Plan for VAT and look at the margin scheme early.

Where GoodVat fits in

GoodVat doesn’t file Self Assessment returns or handle income tax. Use HMRC’s online services, your own bookkeeping software or an accountant for that. We help resellers on the VAT side, once a side hustle becomes a business:

• Tracking your rolling 12-month turnover across your sales channels, and warning you before you reach £90,000. We don’t connect to Vinted directly, but we can work from your Vinted sales exports alongside live integrations like Shopify, Etsy and Amazon.
• Registering you for VAT with HMRC, on time
• Calculating the right VAT on your sales, including second-hand stock
• Filing your Making Tax Digital VAT returns

Reselling turning into a real business?

Tell us where you sell and roughly what you turn over. We’ll show you how close you are to the £90,000 VAT threshold, whether the margin scheme suits your stock, and what registering would mean for your prices. Then we handle the VAT registration and returns for you.

Ask a tax expertor email hello@goodvat.com

A real person replies within one business day

FAQ

How much can you sell on Vinted before paying tax?

If you’re only selling your own unwanted clothes and belongings, there’s no sales limit: you normally pay no tax however much you sell, because you’re usually selling for less than you paid. If you buy or make things to sell, you’re trading, and you can take in up to £1,000 a tax year before you need to tell HMRC. Above that, you register for Self Assessment and pay tax on your profit.

Does Vinted report you to HMRC?

Yes, if you make 30 or more sales, or receive more than €2,000 (about £1,700), in a calendar year. Vinted asks for your National Insurance number and sends HMRC your name, address, date of birth, tax number and what you earned each quarter, by 31 January of the following year. You get a copy.

Do I need to pay tax on Vinted if I’m reported to HMRC?

Not necessarily. Being reported doesn’t mean you owe tax. The reporting threshold is just the point at which Vinted has to share your details. If you were selling your own used things for less than you paid, there’s normally nothing to pay and nothing to declare.

What is the side hustle tax?

There isn’t a new side hustle tax. The headlines refer to the digital platform reporting rules that started on 1 January 2024, which make sites like Vinted, eBay and Etsy share sellers’ details with HMRC. The tax rules themselves didn’t change: trading income over £1,000 a tax year has had to be declared since 2017.

Do I need to tell HMRC about selling clothes on Vinted?

Not if you’re clearing out your own wardrobe. You only need to tell HMRC if you’re trading, meaning you buy or make clothes to sell for a profit, and your total trading income is over £1,000 in a tax year, or if you sell a single personal item for more than £6,000 at a profit.

Is the £1,000 trading allowance per platform?

No. It’s one £1,000 allowance across all your trading income in the tax year. If you take £600 reselling on Vinted and £500 selling handmade cards on Etsy, your trading income is £1,100 and you need to tell HMRC.

Do I have to register for VAT to sell on Vinted?

Only if you’re trading and your taxable sales across every channel go over £90,000 in a rolling 12 months. Selling your own possessions isn’t a business, so those sales don’t count. VAT-registered resellers of second-hand goods can usually use the margin scheme, which charges VAT on the profit on each item rather than the full price.

Related guides

• eBay tax for UK sellers: HMRC reporting, private vs business accounts and VAT on eBay fees
• Etsy tax for UK sellers: income tax, Etsy fees and what Etsy collects for you
• The £1,000 trading allowance: when it covers you and when to claim expenses instead
• Allowable expenses for online sellers: what you can deduct, and hobby vs business
• VAT margin scheme for second-hand sellers: pay VAT on your margin, not the full price
• VAT threshold 2026: how the £90,000 rolling test works
• UK VAT guide: rates, schemes and filing at a glance