Never Filed a Self Assessment Return Before? Here Is the Complete Guide for Vinted Sellers
First time filing Self Assessment as a Vinted seller? This checklist covers income, expenses, tax and the payment on account most first-timers never see coming
SELF ASSESSMENT TAX RETURNS
First-time Vinted sellers filing Self Assessment for 2025/26 must register, confirm their income from Vinted sales, calculate tax on their trading profit and submit online before 31 January 2027. Vinted reports gross sales directly to HMRC under DAC7 rules. If your Self Assessment bill exceeds £1,000, a first payment on account is due on the same January date on top of the main bill. Most first-time filers do not know this until the bill arrives.
Jade has been selling on Vinted since 2024. It started as a clear-out. Then it became something more deliberate. By 2025/26 she was buying items to resell, selling consistently, earning well from it. Her Vinted receipts for the year came to £14,200. Her teaching assistant salary was £18,500 on the side.
She had been putting off dealing with tax since April. Not because she did not care. Because every time she tried to look into it, the whole thing felt impossible. The forms. The deadlines. The risk of getting something wrong. She would open a browser, read three sentences of guidance on the HMRC website and close the tab.
This is her checklist. If you are in her position, it is yours too.
Step One: Confirm Your Registration Is in Place
This catches more first-time filers than anything else. Not the calculation. Not the forms. The registration that should have happened months ago and may not have.
If your self-employment income, including Vinted sales, exceeded £1,000 in the 2025/26 tax year, you were required to register for Self Assessment. The deadline was 5 October 2026.
If you have not registered yet, do it today. Not this week. Today. Go to gov.uk and search Self Assessment registration. It takes around fifteen minutes. Your Unique Taxpayer Reference arrives by post within ten working days. You need it to file. Register this week and it will arrive with time to spare.
If October passes before you register, register anyway. Late registration is better than none. HMRC treats voluntary disclosure more leniently than being contacted first. Do not let a missed deadline become a reason to avoid sorting it altogether. That thinking is what turns a manageable situation into a serious one.
Work through these before moving on:
☐ You have registered for Self Assessment at gov.uk. If your Vinted income exceeded £1,000 in 2025/26, this is not optional.
☐ Your Unique Taxpayer Reference has arrived by post. A ten-digit number on a plain envelope. Check recent post if you registered in the past two weeks. Contact HMRC on 0300 200 3310 if it has not arrived within ten working days.
☐ Your Government Gateway account is active and you can log in. Your user ID and password are separate from your UTR. Both are needed. Test them now. Recovering a forgotten password takes days and is far more stressful in January.
☐ You know your National Insurance number. On your payslip, P60 or any HMRC letter. Format: two letters, six numbers, one letter.
Step Two: Get the Right Income Figure from Vinted
Something that surprises most Vinted sellers when they first encounter it. Vinted works differently from platforms like eBay or Etsy.
On eBay and Etsy, the platform deducts seller fees before paying sellers. What arrives in your bank is the net amount after charges. The gross figure is higher. That distinction matters on those platforms.
On Vinted, the model is different. Buyers pay a buyer protection fee separately. Sellers receive the full listed sale price with nothing deducted before it reaches them. What arrives in your bank account is the full amount the buyer paid.
So your Vinted income figure for Self Assessment is simply your total Vinted bank receipts for the year. There is no gross versus net calculation to work through. What you received is what you earned.
HMRC still receives your sales data from Vinted under DAC7 reporting rules. The figure they hold should match your bank receipts. For Vinted sellers, confirming this is straightforward in a way it is not on other platforms. The full picture of what HMRC now holds on Vinted sellers is covered in the article on HMRC and your Vinted sales.
Confirming your Vinted income total: Go to your Vinted profile. Click Selling. Go to Sales history. Download your sales for the period 6 April 2025 to 5 April 2026. The total received is your Vinted income for the year.
If you also sold on eBay, Etsy or Depop during 2025/26, download the transaction report from each platform. Those platforms deduct seller fees before paying. For them you need the gross sales figure from the transaction report, not the bank payout, and the fees are claimed as a separate expense. The guide to gross income versus bank payouts for online sellers covers this in full for eBay, Etsy, Depop and Amazon.
Work through these before moving on:
☐ You have confirmed your total Vinted bank receipts for 6 April 2025 to 5 April 2026. This is your income figure. Check it against your sales history in the Vinted app.
☐ If you also sold on other platforms, you have downloaded their transaction reports. eBay, Etsy and Depop require the gross sales figure from the report, not the bank payout.
☐ If you were also employed, you have your P60. Issued by your employer each April. It shows gross salary, income tax deducted and any student loan deducted. Jade's showed a salary of £18,500 and PAYE income tax of £1,186.
☐ You have checked bank statements for any income not in the Vinted report. Private sales, cash transactions or any selling activity outside the platform.
Step Three: Work Out Your Expenses
Jade's instinct was to claim nothing. She was not sure what counted. She had not kept formal records. She did not want to claim something she was not entitled to and end up in trouble.
That instinct costs sole traders hundreds of pounds every year. Not dishonesty. Just not knowing what HMRC allows.
HMRC allows any expense incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade. For a Vinted seller buying items to resell, the allowable list is longer than most people assume.
Stock purchases. Every item bought to resell. Charity shops, car boot sales, online marketplaces, anywhere. Every pound spent on stock that was subsequently sold is deductible. Go through bank statements and PayPal history for every stock purchase from April 2025 to April 2026.
Jade spent £3,800 on stock during the year. Most of it appeared on her bank statements and PayPal history. A few car boot purchases were cash with nothing recorded. She made a written note estimating those at £180 based on her known attendance and typical spend. A documented honest estimate is more credible than nothing. If you have very few records from 2025/26, the guide to reconstructing your records from bank statements covers the full process.
Postage and packaging. Every parcel posted. Labels, jiffy bags, bubble wrap, boxes. Check bank statements for Royal Mail, Evri, DPD and any other service used. Check PayPal for labels bought through the platform. Jade's total: £620.
Mileage. If you drove for business during 2025/26, the confirmed HMRC rate is 45p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles. Not 55p. That is the 2026/27 rate. For the 2025/26 return, 45p is correct.
Business miles include drives to car boots, charity shops, post offices, collection points. Jade drove regularly to sourcing spots and to post offices for batch drop-offs. She worked back through her calendar and a realistic estimate of regular journeys: 845 miles. At 45p: £380.
Phone proportion. If your phone is used for managing listings, messaging buyers and running the selling activity, the business proportion of the annual cost is claimable. Apply an honest estimated percentage to the annual contract or SIM cost. Jade used her phone around 30 percent for Vinted. Annual SIM cost: £400. Her claimable proportion: £120.
Work through these before moving on:
☐ Stock purchases identified from bank statements and PayPal history. Every item bought to resell from April 2025 to April 2026.
☐ Postage and packaging costs identified. From bank statements, PayPal history and any receipts kept.
☐ Mileage reconstructed and calculated at 45p per mile. Not 55p. That is the 2026/27 rate.
☐ Phone proportion estimated and applied. An honest percentage based on actual usage.
☐ You have chosen between the trading allowance and actual expenses. The £1,000 trading allowance needs no evidence or calculation but produces a higher taxable profit for any seller with real costs. If actual expenses exceed £1,000, they produce a lower bill. You cannot claim both. Jade's actual expenses came to £4,920. The trading allowance would have cost her significantly more in tax.
Step Four: Calculate What You Owe
This is the part Jade had been dreading since April. The number at the end. The one that tells her how much she owes and whether she has it.
Here is the calculation for someone in her exact position.
Gross Vinted income: £14,200 Less allowable expenses: £4,920 (stock £3,800, postage £620, mileage £380, phone £120) Trading profit: £9,280
Jade's teaching assistant salary of £18,500 went through payroll. Her employer applied the personal allowance of £12,570 against the salary and collected income tax of £1,186 on the remaining £5,930 at 20 percent. By the time the salary arrived in her account, the personal allowance was gone.
This is the point where most sellers with a day job get their first shock. Because the personal allowance is already used by the salary, the Vinted profit sits on top of already-taxable employment income. Nearly every pound of it is taxable at 20 percent.
Combined income: £18,500 + £9,280 = £27,780
Less personal allowance: £12,570 (applied once across combined income)
Taxable income: £15,210 Gross income tax: £15,210 x 20% = £3,042 Less PAYE already collected through payroll: £1,186 Income tax owed through Self Assessment: £1,856
Class 4 National Insurance: Jade's trading profit of £9,280 is below the Class 4 NI lower threshold of £12,570. Class 4 NI: £0. (Class 2 NI was abolished in April 2024 and does not apply to the 2025/26 return.)
Total Self Assessment bill: £1,856
Total due 31 January 2027: £1,856 + £928 = £2,784 Total due 31 July 2027: £928
Work through these before moving on:
☐ You have calculated your trading profit correctly. Gross income minus allowable expenses. Not gross income minus a rough estimate.
☐ Income tax has been calculated on combined income. Salary plus trading profit, minus the personal allowance once. Gross tax minus PAYE already collected. The remaining balance is what Self Assessment charges.
☐ Class 4 NI has been checked. 6 percent on trading profit between £12,570 and £50,270. 2 percent above. Zero if profit is below £12,570. Class 2 NI was abolished April 2024. It does not apply.
☐ Payment on account has been calculated. If your Self Assessment bill exceeds £1,000, a first payment on account of 50 percent is due on 31 January alongside the main bill. A second 50 percent is due 31 July 2027. Your January total includes both. Budget for the combined figure.
☐ You know your complete January 2027 total. SA income tax, plus Class 4 NI if applicable, plus student loan if applicable, plus bank interest tax if applicable, plus first payment on account if the bill exceeds £1,000.
Step Five: File the Return
The calculation is done. The figures are confirmed. Now the return gets submitted.
☐ Log into your HMRC Self Assessment account. At gov.uk/log-in-file-self-assessment-tax-return. Use your Government Gateway credentials. Do not leave this until January. The HMRC system is slow and unreliable in the final days before the deadline.
☐ Start a new return for the 2025/26 tax year. The system will ask which year. Confirm 2025/26, the year ending 5 April 2026. Check you have not accidentally selected the wrong year.
☐ Complete the employment section using your P60. Gross salary £18,500. Income tax deducted £1,186. Student loan deducted: the figure from your P60, or zero if no loan. These figures tell HMRC what was already collected through PAYE.
☐ Complete the self-employment section. Gross income: your confirmed Vinted receipts total. Allowable expenses: your total. Profit: the difference. Enter figures exactly as calculated.
☐ Cross-reference every figure against the source document before entering it. Do not type from memory. Gross income from sales history. Expenses from bank statements, PayPal and receipts. Salary figures from your P60. Every figure has a source.
☐ Read the declaration before clicking submit. You are legally responsible for what you submit. Read it. Then submit.
☐ Save the submission confirmation. HMRC provides a reference number immediately. Screenshot it. Keep it somewhere you can find it in twelve months.
☐ Arrange payment of £2,784 before 31 January 2027. Bank transfer is the most reliable method for amounts over £1,000. Allow three to five working days for clearance. Do not pay on 31 January itself if you can avoid it.
☐ Put 31 July 2027 in your calendar right now. The second payment on account of £928 is due that day. Set a reminder today. It will not feel urgent in February but it will feel very urgent in July if it has been forgotten.
What Jade Did Next
Jade filed in October 2026. She sat down on a Sunday afternoon with her sales history, her P60 and her bank statements. It took four hours. Most of that time was working back through statements to find stock purchases she had not been tracking at the time.
The total due on 31 January 2027: £2,784. More than she had expected. The £928 payment on account was the number she had not seen coming. Once she understood what it was and why it existed, the shock became manageable. But she still needed nearly three thousand pounds ready by January, and she had not been putting money aside for it.
She set up a dedicated savings account and moved everything across that she could. She committed to a fixed percentage of every Vinted payout into it until January. She was not comfortable. But she had a plan.
And she decided, sitting at that kitchen table on that Sunday afternoon, that she was not doing any of this again.
The 2025/26 return took Jade a Sunday afternoon and more stress than it needed to. It does not have to work that way for 2026/27. Log each sale as it happens. Record each expense when it is paid. Know the January 2028 bill from the first sale in April 2026.
Jade started logging on the Monday after she filed. By the end of that first week she had entered every October sale and every expense. It took eleven minutes. She has not had another Sunday like that one since.
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