What can a self-employed kitchen or bathroom fitter claim?
Fitting for a kitchen or bathroom showroom one week and straight for a homeowner the next changes what lands in your bank and what HMRC already holds. Here is which of your costs come off before tax, from the worktop jig to the skip for the old units, why a retailer that sells and fits must deduct CIS from your labour while a householder pays you in full, what to do about a door you damaged, and a worked year that mixes the two kinds of work.
HMRC-recognised
CIS deductions handled
No monthly subscription
What a self-employed kitchen fitter can claim
Units, worktops and appliances you buy and charge on
When the kitchen, or part of it, comes through your own trade account, the carcasses and doors, worktop blanks, sink and tap, hob and oven, end panels, plinths, cornice and handles pass through your hands on their way to the customer. Record what you paid as Goods for resale, the box HMRC's form calls goods used, and treat every pound the customer pays you for them as turnover, even when you pass them on at cost. A stone fabricator's templating and supply charge that you settle and bill on goes in the same box. When the customer has bought the kitchen from the showroom themselves, nothing sits here at all: your income on that job is the fitting fee and nothing else.
Worktop jig, router and track saw
A worktop jig and the half-inch router that runs in it, a track saw and its rails, a mitre saw, a multi-tool for the plinth cuts, a laser level for the first run of base units, cordless drills and drivers, clamps, a dust extractor and a pair of worktop supports are the kit a fitter owns. In FileThat equipment belongs under Repairs and maintenance, and because the cash basis counts a purchase when it is paid, the whole price comes off in the tax year the money leaves, so a £700 jig-and-router set bought in October is a £700 deduction for that year. A tool sent away for repair lands in that box too; hiring a stone lifter or a tile saw for a single job is a hire charge, recorded as Other expenses.
Cutters, blades, silicone and what the job eats
Router cutters blunt, saw blades dull, and every kitchen uses up hole saws, colour-matched silicone, worktop jointing compound and bolts, edging strip, glue, screws and fixings, sanding pads and masking tape. These are consumables rather than equipment, so Other expenses is where they belong, deductible as soon as they are paid for. On a job a retailer pays you for they also count as materials you paid for, which matters for the CIS sums further down.
Rip-out, old appliances and the skip
The old kitchen has to leave before the new one arrives. Skip hire for the carcasses and tiles, a charge from a collection firm for the old fridge and oven, and tip fees for anything you carry away in the van are charges of the job, which belong in Other expenses, and if you carry waste yourself the waste carrier registration is a trading cost that goes there as well. Where you charge the customer for the skip, everything they pay you is turnover and the hire invoice is set against it; where the retailer arranges the rip-out and the skip, none of it touches your books.
The gas fitter, electrician and plasterer you bring in
Most kitchens need a hob connected, sockets moved and a wall made good, and when you engage those trades and pay them, what you pay is your expense. Enter the gross figure, with nothing knocked off for the CIS you deducted, under Construction industry - payments to subcontractors. Once you pay another trade for work inside your kitchen contract you are a contractor under the scheme as well, with registration, verifying each person, deductions and a monthly return through HMRC's online service or your accountant. The tax you take off them is theirs, not a cost of yours. If the homeowner books and pays the electrician directly, the electrician never appears in your records.
Callbacks, a door you damaged, and cover
A scratched door or a chipped worktop you replace at your own cost is an expense: the replacement goes in Goods for resale like any other material you bought for the job. The afternoon you spend going back to refit a drawer front for nothing is not, because you cannot deduct labour you never billed, and there is no income to record for it either. If a retailer charges you for the replacement rather than you buying it, that charge is an expense in the same way. Public liability, which most retailers insist on before they put you on their fitter list, and cover for the kit in the van are Insurance; the business part of your mobile bill and your accountant's fee have their own boxes, and the website or directory listing that brings in direct customers is Advertising costs.
The rules behind every claim: allowable expenses for sole traders.
The van, the showroom warehouse and a new address every week
The van is claimed one of two ways, and whichever you pick stays with that van for the whole time you have it. Either 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 proportion of its actual costs that is business: diesel, insurance, servicing, tyres and repairs, entered as Motor and fuel. Buy a van outright and the cash basis lets its price come off in the year you pay, minus whatever share is private, after which that van is on actual costs for good and the flat rate is closed to it. A car's price is never deducted like that.
A kitchen takes a few days to a fortnight, then the next one is in a different street or a different town, so a fitter working from home is on business travel from the moment the van leaves the drive, and the runs to the retailer's warehouse to collect the units, to the fabricator for the worktop and to the merchant for fixings count with it. The exception is the one long site: a year fitting kitchens plot after plot on a single housing development can be treated as where the business is carried on, so that each morning's drive is ordinary commuting.
Note the date, where you went and the mileage for every trip. A FileThat mileage entry prices those miles at the flat rates for you, and a van on actual costs takes a business-use percentage so only that proportion reaches the return.
The choice of method and the trips that count: can I claim mileage.
CIS and VAT
A showroom that sells and fits is a CIS contractor
HMRC's manual lists kitchen and bathroom fitting among the finishing operations inside the scheme, puts fitted kitchens under fixed furniture, and CIS340 adds installing prefabricated units under supply and fix arrangements. A business whose activities include carrying out construction operations for other people through subcontract labour is a contractor however little it spends, and a kitchen company that sells a homeowner a fitted kitchen and pays you to install it is doing exactly that. So it must verify you with HMRC and take 20% off your labour, or 30% if you are not registered, and never off materials. Your turnover is the figure before the deduction, and each monthly statement the retailer sends you is typed into FileThat, deduction included, so what they have paid HMRC on your behalf is set against what you owe.
A showroom that only introduces you is not
Plenty of showrooms sell the units, hand the customer a fitter's number and step back. Then your contract is with the householder, who pays you in full, because private householders are never contractors under the scheme and nothing is deducted. A landlord refitting a rental kitchen or a café owner replacing theirs runs a business, but not one that includes construction, and is a contractor only once its construction spend passes £3 million in any 12 months. The practical point is to keep retailer money and direct money in separate records, so the retailer statements add up on their own.
What comes off before the 20%
On retailer work the kitchen belongs to the retailer, so your invoice is mostly labour and the deduction bites on most of it. Anything you did pay for yourself comes off first: the silicone, bolts and fixings, an end panel you sourced when one arrived damaged, a templating fee you settled with the fabricator, plant you hired in. Show each on the invoice at what it cost you and keep the receipts, because the retailer can ask for them and, without them, has to put its own estimate on your materials and deduct from the remainder. That is money held by HMRC until your return goes in, not money lost, but it is yours in the meantime.
VAT arrives sooner when you supply the kitchen
Registration is compulsory once your taxable turnover for any 12-month stretch, counted monthly rather than by tax year, goes past £90,000, and that turnover includes every unit and worktop you bill on plus the retailer's gross figure before CIS. A fitter who supplies three or four kitchens a year alongside labour-only retailer work may pass it on a modest labour income, so watch the running total every month. Once registered, fitting for a VAT-registered retailer that pays you under CIS is usually a domestic reverse charge supply: the retailer deals with the VAT, and you file the sale under Construction industry - reverse charge sales. A homeowner's invoice carries VAT as normal.
See what you could get back: the CIS refund calculator.
A kitchen fitter's year: retailer work under CIS, direct work in full
Take a fitter in England whose 2026-27 splits two ways. A kitchen retailer books them for twenty installations, supplies every kitchen, and is billed £24,000 over the year, £1,200 of which is shown on the invoices as fixings and sundries bought at cost. The retailer deducts 20% of the £22,800 labour, £4,560, and pays £19,440. Alongside that, nine homeowners have kitchens supplied and fitted and one has their own kitchen fitted, bringing in £56,000 received in full, of which £30,000 is units, worktops, sinks, taps and appliances bought on the trade account and charged on at cost. The tenth customer's £9,000 kitchen, bought from the showroom themselves, never enters the books. Turnover is £24,000 plus £56,000, which is £80,000.
Costs for the year: £32,280 in Goods for resale, being the £30,000 charged on, the £1,200 of retailer sundries, £900 of silicone and fixings absorbed in the homeowner prices, and a £180 door replaced after a scratch; £6,000 to a self-employed gas fitter and electrician, the gross before the fitter took 20%, £1,200, and paid it over on the monthly returns; £1,150 for a worktop jig, router and track saw; £480 of cutters, blades and consumables; £1,400 of skips and appliance collection; £560 of insurance; 9,500 miles between houses, the warehouse and the fabricator at the flat rate, £5,225; £240 for the business part of the phone bill; £300 for the website; and £350 for the accountant. That is £47,985, so the profit is £32,015.
After the £12,570 Personal Allowance, £19,445 is taxable. Income Tax on that at 20% comes to £3,889, and Class 4 National Insurance, 6% of the £19,445, is £1,166.70, a year's tax of £5,055.70. HMRC already holds the retailer's £4,560, leaving £495.70 to settle by 31 January 2028. That is under £1,000, and the retailer's deductions covered about 90% of the tax, so neither test for payments on account towards 2027-28 is met and none are asked for. The £1,200 taken from the gas fitter and electrician is their tax and is nowhere in this sum.
Suppose instead the showroom had only introduced the fitter and all twenty of those customers had paid direct. The tax is identical at £5,055.70, but nothing was taken at source, so the whole of it is due on 31 January 2028 together with a first payment on account of £2,527.85, a total of £7,583.55, with another £2,527.85 by 31 July 2028: the same tax, arriving in one lump instead of twenty slices. Leave the £47,985 of costs unrecorded and tax plus National Insurance on £80,000 would be £22,288.60. Scottish Income Tax rates are different, so a fitter in Scotland ends up with slightly different figures.
What you cannot claim
Joggers under the knee pads
Knee pads, safety boots, cut-resistant gloves and a polo shirt with your business name on it are allowable. The joggers, plain polo and trainers beneath them are everyday clothing and stay private, however much silicone and dust they pick up in a week of fits.
A meal deal on a two-day fit
Lunch from the supermarket round the corner from the job is a meal you would have eaten whatever you were doing, so it stays personal. Food becomes a business cost only where the work pulls you out of your usual routine, say a run of fits in another city with nights away.
Your own kitchen at trade price
Units and a worktop bought through your trade account for your own house, or fitted for your sister at cost, are private purchases however cheap they were. Put them through as disallowable and the profit is unaffected.
Fines, drawings and the tax on your profit
A ticket for parking outside a terrace with nowhere else to stop, interest charged because tax went in late, what you take out to live on, and the Income Tax and Class 4 on the year's profit never reduce it.
Each rule in detail: knee pads, boots and the clothes under them, lunch between fits and the van, tolls and fines.
Straight answers
Does a kitchen showroom have to take CIS off my fitting invoice?
If the showroom pays you to fit the kitchens it sells, yes. HMRC's manual lists kitchen and bathroom fitting as a finishing operation within the scheme, and a business that includes carrying out construction operations for its customers through subcontract labour is a contractor regardless of how much it spends, so it should verify you and deduct 20%, or 30% for an unregistered fitter, from the labour element. A showroom that fails to deduct is answerable to HMRC for the shortfall as the contractor. If the showroom only sells the units and the customer engages you directly, there is no contractor in the chain and you are paid in full.
My customer bought the kitchen themselves. Is any of it my income?
No. Money the homeowner paid the showroom went nowhere near your business, so it is not your turnover and not your expense, and it adds nothing to the VAT threshold or Making Tax Digital. Your income on that job is your fitting fee. The one thing that does go through your books is anything you bought for it on your own account, such as a replacement end panel or a bag of worktop bolts you then charged on, which is Goods for resale on your side and part of what the customer pays you on the other.
Can I claim a worktop jig, a router and a track saw?
Yes, all three. Each is equipment used only for the trade, filed in FileThat under Repairs and maintenance, and on the cash basis the whole price comes off in the year the money leaves, so a £1,150 spend on a jig, router and track saw is a £1,150 deduction that year. The cutters, blades and rails that wear out are consumables, Other expenses, and a repair to the router goes back in Repairs and maintenance. Hiring a stone lifter for one heavy worktop is a hire charge for that job, allowable in the same way.
I damaged a door. Who pays for it, and can I claim it?
Who pays depends on your contract with the retailer or the customer, but the tax treatment is simple either way. A replacement you buy is a material bought for the job, so it goes in Goods for resale. If the retailer supplies the new door and sets its cost against your next payment, record the gross figure on the CIS statement as your income and the charge as an expense, so the statement still reconciles and the profit is the same. The excess you pay when public liability covers a bigger mistake is a business cost as well. Your own unpaid hours putting it right are never deductible.
The retailer pays a fixed fee per kitchen. Is CIS 20% of the whole fee?
Of the labour, yes, and a fixed fee is still labour however it is priced, so if the retailer supplied everything the deduction is 20% of all of it. What comes off first is anything you paid for yourself: fixings, silicone, a templating fee, plant hired in, each shown on your invoice at cost with a receipt behind it. Where you show nothing, the retailer must put a figure on your materials itself and deduct from what remains. Either way the money is not lost: it counts against your tax when you file and the surplus comes back.
I bring in a gas fitter for the hob. Does that make me a CIS contractor?
If you pay them, yes. Their work is part of your kitchen installation contract, which is a construction operation, so you become a contractor as well as a subcontractor: register with HMRC as one before the first payment, verify the gas fitter, deduct 20% or 30% from their labour and file the monthly return through HMRC's online service or your accountant. Their gross pay is your expense under Construction industry - payments to subcontractors. If you would rather not run that, have the homeowner book and pay the gas fitter directly and keep them out of your books.
Do self-employed kitchen fitters have to use Making Tax Digital?
Only once qualifying income is above the threshold. It has been £50,000 since 6 April 2026, and falls to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. It is measured on turnover, not profit, so the units and worktops you charge on and the retailer's gross figure before CIS both count, while a kitchen the customer bought themselves never does. HMRC reads the figure from a return you have already filed, so a year like the one above pulls a fitter in from a later April, not the year it happens.
Keep every claim, file it with HMRC
The income and expenses ledger is free all year, built for kitchen and bathroom fitters working from a phone on site. Each new quarterly update costs from £3.99, with 4 free credits to start and no monthly subscription.
Get started free