Do I need to file a tax return?
You need to file if you were self-employed with income over the £1,000 trading allowance, had rental or foreign income, had untaxed income HMRC cannot collect through your tax code, made a taxable capital gain, or earned over £60,000 while receiving Child Benefit. And you must file if HMRC has sent you a notice to file — that overrides everything else.
Two groups get this wrong in opposite directions: people who file returns nobody asked for, and people who assume PAYE covers everything while a second income quietly accumulates. Both are fixable, and the second gets more expensive with time.
Check in half a minute
Tick anything that applied during the tax year:
Do I need to file a Self Assessment?
The triggers, explained
Self-employment above the trading allowance
£1,000 of self-employed or casual income is covered by the trading allowance. Above it, you are in Self Assessment. The allowance applies to income rather than profit, so costs do not bring you back under it.
Rental income
There is a separate £1,000 property allowance, and letting a room in your own home has its own scheme with a £7,500 limit. Beyond those, rental income belongs on a return — see landlord tax for how it is actually calculated, which surprises most first-time landlords.
Foreign income
Salary, freelance work, rent, dividends or interest from abroad. Tax authorities exchange account data automatically now, which is why nudge letters about foreign income are so specific. Newly arrived in the UK? Residence comes first — see your first UK tax year.
Untaxed income HMRC cannot collect through your code
Savings interest above your allowance, dividends above £500, and other income arriving gross.
Capital gains
Shares, crypto, a second property. The annual exempt amount is £3,000. UK residential property is the exception to the usual timing: it is reported and paid within 60 days of completion, not in January.
Child Benefit and income over £60,000
The High Income Child Benefit Charge is collected through Self Assessment, and it catches households where one earner crosses the line while the other claims.
Still not sure?
Describe your situation in a sentence — what you earn and where it comes from. We will tell you whether a return is needed, for which years, and what it costs to put right. Free, and if the answer is that you do not need us, we will say so.
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Free assessment first. If there is work to do, you get a fixed quote in writing before anything starts.
If the answer is yes
Three dates follow, and only the first is easy to miss:
- 5 October — register after the tax year you first needed to file.
- 31 January — file online, and pay what you owe. See the full deadline list.
- 31 July — second payment on account, where you make them. Our guide to paying the bill covers when those apply.
And if the answer is that you needed to file for years you have not: that is ordinary work, not a catastrophe. We do it regularly, and the outcome is nearly always better than the version people imagine.
Questions people ask
HMRC sent me a notice to file. Do I have to, even with no income?
Yes. Once a notice to deliver a return has been issued, the obligation exists regardless of whether you owe anything — and the £100 penalty applies to a missing return, not to unpaid tax. If the notice is genuinely wrong for your circumstances, ask HMRC to withdraw it rather than simply ignoring it.
I am employed and taxed through PAYE. Am I done?
Usually, if PAYE is your only income. It stops being true if you also have self-employment over the trading allowance, rental income, foreign income, significant untaxed savings or dividends, capital gains, or income over £60,000 while receiving Child Benefit.
What about a side hustle or selling online?
Selling your own second-hand possessions is not trading. Buying or making things to sell is, and once that income passes £1,000 it belongs on a return. Online platforms now report seller data to HMRC, so the practical answer is that they can see it.
Do I file if I made a loss?
Often yes, and usually to your advantage: the return is what records the loss, and a recorded loss can be set against other income or carried forward. An unrecorded loss is simply lost.
What if I have been filing and no longer need to?
Tell HMRC to take you out of Self Assessment. Until they do, the notice to file keeps being issued and the penalties keep applying to a return nobody needs.
I should have filed for past years. What now?
File them. Penalties are calculated on how late the return is and on whether you came forward — which means the cheapest version of this conversation is the one you start, rather than the one that starts with a letter.
Figures are for the tax year shown and change every April. They are general information, not advice — we check the current position for your circumstances before anything is filed.
Reviewed 19 October 2026.
Part of our work on self-employment and self assessment — if you want someone to take it off your hands, start with our Self Assessment accountant page.