Tax on Vinted selling: when you owe nothing, and when you do
Reviewed by Rob Webb, practising accountant since 2015 · Last reviewed September 2026 · Figures are for the 2026/27 tax yearReviewed by Rob Webb, practising accountant since 2015 · Last reviewed September 2026 · Figures are for the 2026/27 tax yearSelling your own used clothes? That's not trading, so there's no tax and no tax return, however much you make.
Buying or making things to sell? That's trading. Even then, the first £1,000 of sales in 2026/27 is covered by the trading allowance.
Want to check your own costs? See what you can claim as a Vinted seller →
This is the only question that matters, and almost everyone gets the frightening answer when the calm one is correct.
If you are selling clothes, shoes, bags or household items that you originally bought for yourself or your family to use, you are disposing of your own possessions. That is not a trade. There is no income to declare, no tax return needed, and no limit on how much you can sell. If you clear £3,000 of old clothes over a year, none of it is taxable trading income. You almost certainly sold each item for less than you paid for it, so there is no gain either.
You are trading if you are buying stock in order to sell it on at a profit, or making things to sell. Sourcing bundles from car boot sales, buying charity shop stock to relist, buying wholesale, reselling trainers you never intended to wear — that is a trade, and the profit is taxable.
Two things that often confuse people. First, selling a lot does not make you a trader. Volume follows from having a lot of stuff, not from intent. Second, occasionally reselling something you bought for yourself and did not get on with does not make you a trader either. What HMRC looks at is why you acquired the item.
If you are trading, the trading allowance gives you £1,000 of gross trading income free of tax in 2026/27. Gross means before any costs.
If your total trading income from all sources — Vinted, any other platform, any side work — comes to £1,000 or less in the tax year, you have nothing to pay and nothing to file on account of it. If it comes to more, you must report it, and you then choose between deducting the £1,000 allowance or deducting your actual costs, whichever gives you the lower profit. You cannot do both.
The government announced in March 2025 that the reporting threshold would rise from £1,000 to £3,000. That announcement has no commencement date on gov.uk, so £1,000 is still the operative figure for 2026/27. Do not plan around £3,000 until a start date is confirmed.
Here is a seller who buys bundles at car boot sales and relists them. Vinted buyers pay the postage, so the seller's costs are mostly stock, packaging and promotion. This person has no other income.
| 2026/27 | |
|---|---|
| Sales received | £9,400 |
| Cost of stock bought to resell | £3,100 |
| Packaging (mailers, tape, labels) | £180 |
| Vinted promotion and boost fees | £240 |
| Mileage, 400 miles at 55p | £220 |
| Working from home, 51–100 hours a month at £18 | £216 |
| Total expenses | £3,956 |
| Profit | £5,444 |
| Personal allowance | £12,570 |
| Taxable income | £0 |
| Income tax | £0 |
| Class 4 National Insurance | £0 |
| Total to pay | £0 |
Profit of £5,444 sits below the £12,570 personal allowance, so there is no income tax. Class 4 National Insurance only starts at £12,570 of profit, so there is none of that either. Profit is below the Small Profits Threshold of £7,105, so voluntary Class 2 at £3.65 a week is available if this person wants to protect their National Insurance record — worth thinking about if they have no other job.
Change one fact and the answer changes completely. If this seller also has a job that already uses their personal allowance, the whole £5,444 is taxed at 20%, which is £1,088.80. Class 4 would still be nil, because profits are under £12,570.
Only if you are trading. If you are selling your own possessions, there is nothing to claim because there is nothing to declare.
| What you can claim | What to watch |
|---|---|
| Cost of stock bought to resell | Only stock you have actually sold in the year. Unsold bundles sitting in the spare room are closing stock, not an expense yet. |
| Vinted fees you pay — boosts, wardrobe spotlight, promoted listings | Vinted's buyer protection fee is paid by the buyer, not you, so it is not your expense. |
| Packaging: mailers, tape, tissue, labels, printer ink | Keep the receipts. This is small and constant and adds up more than people expect. |
| Mileage to car boot sales, charity shops and drop-off points | 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in 2026/27, then 25p. Keep a note of dates and destinations. Journeys to buy personal items do not count. |
| Working from home flat rate | £10 a month for 25–50 hours, £18 for 51–100, £26 for 101 or more. No flat rate below 25 hours a month. Broadband and phone are claimed separately on a business-proportion basis. |
| Photography props, a ring light, a clothes rail, a garment steamer | If you also use it personally, claim only the business share and be able to explain the split. |
| Repairs and cleaning to get resale stock saleable | Dry cleaning your own clothes before you list them is not a business cost — those are your possessions. |
No, and this is the single biggest source of panic we see.
Online marketplaces including Vinted are required to report seller information to HMRC — your name, contact details and what you sold through the platform — once a seller passes the platform's reporting threshold. That is a reporting rule, not a tax rule. It says nothing about whether you owe anything.
HMRC then sometimes writes to sellers asking them to check their position. Receiving that letter does not mean you owe tax. If you were selling your own used possessions, the honest answer is that there is no taxable income, and you say so. Do not ignore the letter, and do not register for Self Assessment in a panic just because one arrived. Work out first whether you were trading.
For the overwhelming majority, no — Making Tax Digital for Income Tax only applies to people with a trade or property business, and only above the thresholds.
The thresholds are tested on your previous year's return, on qualifying income, which is gross self-employment turnover plus gross property income added together, before expenses. Over £50,000 (tested on the 2024–25 return) means you are in from 6 April 2026. Over £30,000 (tested on the 2025–26 return) means from 6 April 2027. Over £20,000 (tested on the 2026–27 return) means from 6 April 2028. Anyone with qualifying income of £20,000 or below is permanently outside it.
If you do get pulled in, you send quarterly updates from compatible software: the periods end 5 July, 5 October, 5 January and 5 April, filed by 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. The updates are cumulative — each one restates the year to date, so a mistake in one quarter is corrected in the next. The final declaration is still due by 31 January.
Most Vinted sellers do not need an accountant, and we would rather say so than charge for a return nobody had to file.
If you are selling your own clothes and household items, you need nothing from us. If you are trading but your gross sales are £1,000 or under, you need nothing from us. If you are trading modestly, have no other complications, and the trading allowance covers your costs, the return is short and HMRC's own online filing is free and adequate — do it yourself.
Where it is worth paying someone is when you are genuinely running a resale business, when Making Tax Digital pulls you in and you need quarterly filings handled, when you have several income sources to knit together, or when HMRC has written to you and you want the reply to be right first time.
No. Selling your own used possessions is not trading and produces no taxable income, so there is nothing to report and no return to file. There is no ceiling on this. Keep a rough note of what you sold in case HMRC ever asks.
Sales. It is £1,000 of gross trading income before any costs, so £1,100 of sales with £400 of stock costs still takes you over the line and into reporting, even though the profit is only £700.
If your gross sales are over £1,000 you still need to report, even at a loss. That is not a bad thing: a properly recorded trading loss can be set against other income or carried forward, which is worth having on record.
Selling a single high-value personal item can raise capital gains rather than income tax, which is a different set of rules with its own £3,000 annual exempt amount for 2026/27. Ordinary second-hand clothing sold for less than you paid produces no gain at all.
No. Vinted does not deduct UK tax. Anything due is your responsibility through Self Assessment, which is why sellers who are trading should set money aside as they go.
No. The rise was announced in March 2025 but has no commencement date on gov.uk. Until a start date is confirmed, £1,000 is the figure that applies.
If you have worked through this and concluded you were trading, Filed Tax can handle it. The first month is free. It is £25 a month after that, which covers all four Making Tax Digital quarterly updates, the year-end final declaration, unlimited questions and deadline reminders. Send us your sales figures and costs and we will tell you what you owe before you commit to anything.
Rob is a Certified Xero Advisor with a BSc from the University of Salford. Last reviewed September 2026 against GOV.UK guidance current at that date. This guide is general information, not personal tax advice. Figures are for the 2026/27 tax year and can change at each Budget — always confirm the current numbers on GOV.UK or ask us to check your situation.