The £1,000 test for sole traders
The tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April. Deciding today, the year that matters is 2025-26, which ran from 6 April 2025 to 5 April 2026. If your gross income from self-employment was more than £1,000 in that year, you are in Self Assessment and you need to send a return, whatever you spent to earn it.
Falling at or below £1,000 keeps most sole traders out. You do not need to be registered as self-employed, and you do not need to tell HMRC at all, unless an exception applies.
| Situation | What it means |
|---|---|
| Over £1,000 | You must register for Self Assessment and send a return for the tax year. |
| £1,000 or less | No need to register or tell HMRC, unless one of the exceptions below applies. |
| HMRC has written to you | You must send a return by the date on the letter, whatever you earned. |
When £1,000 or less still means registering
The exemption is not absolute. You must register and declare the income if you need Self Assessment for something else, including these:
- you made a loss and want to claim relief for it
- you want to pay voluntary Class 2 National Insurance
- you want to claim Tax-Free Childcare based on your self-employment income
- you want to claim Maternity Allowance
You can still use the trading allowance once you are inside Self Assessment. Used that way it replaces your expenses rather than adding to them: you deduct up to £1,000, but never more than the income itself, so if your costs were higher than your takings, claiming the real expenses is the better route.
The £1,000 figures also do not help if your income comes from a company you or a connected person controls, from a partnership you are in, or from your employer or your spouse or civil partner's employer. In those cases the allowance is not available and you have to tell HMRC even below the threshold.
Property income of £1,000 or less does not need reporting on its own, though you may still need a return for other income.
Other things that put you in Self Assessment
Self-employment is only one route in. You also need a return if any of these applied to you in the tax year:
- you were a partner in a business partnership
- you had untaxed income, such as rent from property or land, tips and commission, savings interest, dividends and investments, or foreign income
- you had to pay Capital Gains Tax on a disposal
- you had to pay the High Income Child Benefit Charge and do not pay it through PAYE
- you are an off-payroll worker repaying a student or postgraduate loan
If HMRC asks you to send a return, you must send one. That overrides the £1,000 tests, so file by the date HMRC gives you even if you think you are outside the rules.
The thresholds differ for income that is not trading income. If other untaxed income comes to more than £1,000 but no more than £2,500, you contact HMRC about it rather than registering; above £2,500 you register for Self Assessment.
The dates for the 2025-26 return
If you do have to file, the deadline depends on how you send it. All of them are 11:59pm deadlines.
| Deadline | What it is for |
|---|---|
| 30 December 2026 | The cut-off if you want the tax owed collected through your tax code instead of paid directly. |
| 31 October 2026 | Paper returns for the 2025-26 tax year. |
| 31 January 2027 | Online returns for the 2025-26 tax year, and the date the tax itself is due. |
The 30 December date catches people out because it sits between the paper and online deadlines and only matters if you want the bill coded out. Miss it and you pay another way.
Check your own position
HMRC runs an online checker that asks the same questions and gives you a yes or no. It covers the 2025 to 2026 tax year, and it does not send your answers to HMRC, so using it is not the same as telling HMRC anything.
No checker for 2026-27 is in place yet, so for the current tax year work from the tests above or ask HMRC directly. If your situation is unusual - a partnership, foreign income, or income from an employer you also work for - get the position confirmed before you decide not to file.