What can a self-employed bricklayer claim?
Trowels, line and level, the cut-off saw and its diamond blades, a mixer, your CSCS card, your van and the hod carrier you pay all come off your profit before tax. Here is what changes when you run a gang, why CIS on a gang's money runs far ahead of your tax, and a worked year for a gang leader on price work.
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What a self-employed bricklayer can claim
Trowels, line and level
Brick and pointing trowels, spirit levels, line and pins, profiles, jointers, a brick hammer, club hammer and bolster are what the job is done with. In FileThat they belong in Repairs and maintenance, and the cash basis lets you deduct each one in full in the tax year you buy it, a £5 jointer or a £200 laser level alike.
Cut-off saw, blades and silica dust
A petrol cut-off saw or a disc cutter goes in Repairs and maintenance with the hand tools. Diamond blades wear through brick and block quickly, and they, the water bottles for dust suppression and the FFP3 masks for cutting are consumables in Other expenses. A face fit test for a tight-fitting mask is a cost of working safely too.
Mixers and splitters
A mixer or block splitter you own sits with the tools in Repairs and maintenance. Hiring one for a job, with the delivery charge, is Other expenses. Mortar tubs, spot boards and the shovels that wear out are allowable the day you buy them.
Bricks, blocks and mortar you buy
Most site bricklaying is labour only, with the developer supplying bricks, blocks, sand and cement. On private work, a garden wall or an extension, what you buy yourself, wall ties, DPC and lintels included, goes in Goods for resale, and the price you bill for it is turnover. Show it on its own line of the invoice.
The hod carrier and the gang
If you pay a labourer, a hod carrier or other bricklayers to work with you, what you pay them is a cost of your business. Record the gross amount, before any CIS you take off, as Construction industry - payments to subcontractors. Someone you employ on the payroll is different: their wages go in Wages and salaries.
Cards, cover and the phone
Renewing the blue CSCS card is allowable; record it in Other expenses. Public liability, often a condition of a site, and cover for the saw and mixer in the van are Insurance. Boots, gloves, knee pads and eye protection are Other expenses, and the work share of your mobile and the accountant's fee each go in their own box.
The rules behind every claim: allowable expenses for sole traders.
Sites, the van and the gang's lift
There are two ways to claim the van, and you stay with the one you choose until the van goes: HMRC's flat mileage rates, 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in the tax year and 25p after that, or the business share of every real running cost, fuel and servicing through to insurance and tyres. Pay for a van outright and the cash basis lets you deduct it that year, but then the flat rate is off the table for that van; a car does not get the same.
Picking up the hod carrier on the way to site does not change the claim: the miles are yours, and giving them a lift costs you nothing extra to record. Working a string of separate jobs keeps the drive from home as travel for the business. A gang that spends a year on one big housing site can find that site treated as where the business is carried on, and the drive to it as ordinary commuting.
Log the date, the site and the miles for each trip. A mileage entry in FileThat turns them into the deduction at the flat rates.
Both methods, and which trips count: can I claim mileage.
CIS and VAT
Bricklaying for a contractor is CIS
Building walls is constructing a building, the heart of the scheme, so the developer or builder paying you must take 20% off your labour, or 30% if you are not registered, and never off materials. Price work, whether by the thousand bricks or by the plot, is still labour. Count the full amount before the deduction as turnover, and record what each contractor's monthly statement shows in FileThat so the tax they paid for you comes off your bill.
Pay a gang and you are a contractor too
A subcontractor who pays others for construction work becomes a contractor under CIS as well. Register with HMRC as one, check each gang member's status before you first pay them, take 20% or 30% off their labour, and send HMRC a monthly return by the 19th with what you paid and took. FileThat records what you pay them, but the monthly return goes through HMRC's own online service or your accountant.
Gross payment status
A gang leader has 20% taken off the whole gang's money, though much of it is paid straight out to the gang, so the deductions taken from you run well ahead of your own tax. HMRC can pay you gross instead if your construction turnover, after materials, is at least £30,000 a year as a sole trader, your business runs through a bank account, and your tax returns and payments have been on time.
Private walls, VAT and the reverse charge
A homeowner having a wall or an extension built is not a contractor, so nothing comes off. If you are VAT registered and lay bricks for a VAT-registered contractor under CIS, the domestic reverse charge usually applies: the invoice says so, the contractor deals with the VAT, and in FileThat the sale goes under Construction industry - reverse charge sales.
See what you could get back: the CIS refund calculator.
A gang leader's year on price work
Take a bricklayer in England who runs a two-man gang on new houses for one developer through 2026-27, following the work from one of its sites to the next. The developer supplies the materials and pays £68,000 for the gang's price work, all labour, so it takes 20%, £13,600, and pays out £54,400. The bricklayer pays a self-employed hod carrier £24,000, takes 20% of that, £4,800, and passes it to HMRC on the monthly returns, so the carrier receives £19,200.
Costs for the year: the £24,000 paid to the carrier, £600 of trowels and levels, £450 of diamond blades, £400 for a mixer, 8,000 miles at the flat rate (£4,400), £520 of insurance, £60 for the CSCS renewal, £300 of mobile, £180 of boots, gloves and masks, and £400 for an accountant who also handles the monthly returns. They total £31,310, so the profit is £36,690.
With £12,570 tax-free, £24,120 is taxed at 20%, £4,824, and Class 4 National Insurance at 6% of the same £24,120 is £1,447.20, a bill of £6,271.20. Against that HMRC holds the £13,600 the developer took, so £7,328.80 comes back after the return. The £4,800 taken from the carrier is the carrier's tax, not yours, and counts towards their bill.
Making Tax Digital looks at turnover on an earlier year's return, not profit, and £68,000 for the whole gang is over every threshold, so a year like this brings a gang leader in even though the profit is barely half that. In Scotland the Income Tax bands differ, so the figures there move a little.
What you cannot claim
Jeans and a fleece on site
Boots, gloves and hi-vis protect you and are allowable. Work trousers, a fleece and a beanie you could wear off site are ordinary clothes and stay private, whatever the mortar does to them.
The cafe run at break
Tea and a pasty from the site cafe are what you would eat anywhere. Food is a business cost only when the work keeps you away from home overnight or outside your usual pattern.
Your own garden wall
Bricks for your own house, or a barbecue built for your brother, are private even on the merchant account. Record them as disallowable so the profit is right.
Fines, drawings and tax
A ticket for parking on the pavement by a site, interest on tax paid late, what you take home for yourself, and your own Income Tax and National Insurance never reduce your profit.
Each rule in full: clothing for work, what counts as a business meal and driving and parking.
Straight answers
I run a gang. Do I have to register as a CIS contractor?
Yes, if you pay other people for construction work, even while you are a subcontractor yourself. You register with HMRC as a contractor, check each gang member's status before you first pay them, take 20% off the labour of those who are registered and 30% off those who are not, and file a return every month by the 19th. The money you take off is theirs, sent on to HMRC for them.
Why do I get so much back when I file?
Because the contractor took 20% of the whole gang's money, including the share you pass on to the others. Your own tax is worked out on your profit, after what you paid the gang and your other costs, so that 20% is usually far more than you owe. What you take off the gang is not part of it: that is their tax, sent on for them. Gross payment status stops the excess building up in the first place.
Can a bricklayer claim a cut-off saw and diamond blades?
Yes. A cut-off saw is equipment, recorded as Repairs and maintenance, and the cash basis that most sole traders use lets you deduct the whole cost in the year you buy it. Diamond blades are worn out by the work and go in Other expenses, as do the FFP3 masks you need for cutting brick and block.
Is my CSCS card tax deductible?
Yes. Most sites will not let you in without a valid card, so renewing it, and the CITB test you sit for it, is an allowable cost of trading. Record it in Other expenses and keep the receipt with it. Training to start a different trade is not allowable, because it is gaining a new skill rather than keeping up the one you have.
What do I have to keep for the hod carrier and the gang?
For each person you pay, keep the verification reference HMRC gives you, what you paid them, any materials, and what you took off. Each one must get a written statement of the payment and the deduction within 14 days of the end of every tax month, which ends on the 5th. Keep the records for at least three years after the end of the tax year.
Do self-employed bricklayers have to use Making Tax Digital?
If your qualifying income is over the threshold, yes. It has been £50,000 since 6 April 2026, and falls to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. Qualifying income is turnover, not profit, so a gang leader counts the gross paid for the whole gang's work before CIS, including the share passed on to the labourers.
Keep every claim, file it with HMRC
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