What can a self-employed roofer claim?
Slates and tiles, felt and battens, the lead, the scaffold that gets you up there, the harness that keeps you there, the roof ladders in the van and the insurance a job at height demands all come off your profit before tax. Here is who deducts CIS on the scaffold, when a storm repair has tax taken off it and when it is paid in full, how a wet winter and a dry summer land in one tax year, and a worked year that ends with a January bill in the quietest month.
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What a self-employed roofer can claim
Slates, tiles, felt and lead
Natural slate and concrete tiles, ridge and hip tiles, breathable felt, treated battens, lead for the flashings and valleys, dry verge and dry ridge kits, torch-on felt, EPDM and GRP for a flat roof, and the clout nails, hooks and screws that hold it all down are materials. They stay on the customer's roof, so they are recorded as Goods for resale, the box HMRC calls goods used, and what you bill for them is part of your turnover, mark-up or none. A pallet of slates bought ahead of a spring job is still deductible in the year you pay the merchant.
Scaffold: three ways it reaches your books
Most re-roofs need a scaffold, and how you get one decides where the cost goes. Pay a scaffolding firm to erect, adapt and strike it and you are paying for construction work: deduct CIS from them and record the gross payment as Construction industry - payments to subcontractors. Hire a tower, a cherry picker or edge protection delivered to the kerb with nobody to put it up and it is plain hire, in Other expenses with the delivery charge. On a developer's site the main contractor's scaffold is usually already up, and then there is nothing for you to record at all.
Towers, roof ladders and the kit you own
An alloy tower, roof ladders and ridge hooks, edge protection you keep rather than hire, a slate cutter and holing machine, lead dressers and bossing sticks, a tile cutter, a nail gun, a gas torch and a hoist all sit in Repairs and maintenance, which is where FileThat puts equipment. On the cash basis the whole price is deducted in the tax year you pay it, so a £1,100 tower bought in July comes off that year's profit in one go. Replacing a frayed hoist rope or a cracked ladder rung goes in the same box.
Harness, lanyards and fall-arrest kit
A harness, lanyards and a fall-arrest block, anchor points, a helmet with a chin strap, grippy boots, gloves and knee pads are there to keep you on the roof and in one piece, so they are protective and allowable, recorded as Other expenses. The periodic inspection of the harness and block that a site or your insurer asks for is a cost of keeping that kit in service and counts the same way. Discs for the cutter, gas for the torch, silicone and lead sealant are consumables and go in the same box.
Old lead, scrap and the skip
What comes off a roof has value or a cost. Lead stripped from valleys and flashings, copper and old cast-iron guttering weighed in at the yard are income of the trade, recorded as a sale, however small the ticket; in England and Wales a yard cannot pay you cash by law, so the bank transfer sits in your statement whether or not you record it. The skip for the old tiles and felt and the tip charges for the rest are costs of the job, in Other expenses; if you carry it off in your own van, the waste carrier registration that lets you goes there too.
Insurance at height, the phone and finding work
Public liability for a trade that works above people's heads costs more than it does on the ground, and a contractor will not let you on site without it; it goes in Insurance, as do cover for the kit left in the van overnight and employer's liability once a labourer works for you. The work share of your mobile, your accountant's fee and any job-management app are allowable too. A listing on a local directory, the van's signwriting and the leaflets through doors after a storm are Advertising costs.
The rules behind every claim: allowable expenses for sole traders.
The van, the weather and a changing list of roofs
Claim the van one of two ways and stay with your choice until you part with that van: 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 the real costs of running it, the diesel, insurance, tyres, servicing and repairs, recorded as Motor and fuel. Buy a van outright and the cash basis lets its price come off in the year you pay, with any private share taken out first, but a van deducted that way is then on real costs for good and the flat rate is closed to it. A car's price is never deducted in that way.
A roofer runs from home and goes where the leaks are: a re-roof in one town for a fortnight, a chimney in the next, a run of storm call-outs after a windy night, then the merchant for a pallet of slates. Every one of those drives is business travel. The pattern that changes it is a single site for most of the year: roofing plot after plot on one development for one developer can make that site count as the place the business is carried on, which turns the daily drive to it into ordinary commuting rather than business mileage. Rain changes nothing: a drive to a job that gets rained off is still a business journey.
Keep a note of the date, where you drove and the miles. In FileThat a mileage entry prices itself at the flat rates; for a van on real costs you give each running cost a business-use percentage and the private slice never reaches the return.
Both methods, the van and car rule and which journeys count: can I claim mileage.
CIS and VAT
Roofing for a contractor is CIS, repairs included
The scheme covers the construction, alteration, repair, extension and demolition of buildings, and HMRC's guide CIS340 says repair includes making good and replacing defective or damaged parts of a building or structure. A roof is part of the building, so re-roofing a new build for a developer, stripping and re-covering a roof for a builder and replacing broken tiles for a property maintenance company are all inside the scheme. They take 20% off your labour, or 30% if you are not registered, and never off materials. Your turnover is the gross figure before the deduction. Each month the contractor gives you a statement of what was paid and what was taken; type those figures into FileThat and the tax already sitting with HMRC is set against what you owe.
Who pays CIS on the scaffold
When a scaffolding firm erects and strikes a scaffold for you, CIS340 counts erecting and dismantling scaffolding as construction, and the scaffolders' work as within the scheme when it is preparatory to other construction work. That makes you the contractor: register as one with HMRC, verify the firm, take 20% or 30% off their labour unless HMRC has given them gross payment status, and send HMRC a monthly return. Because the firm's own scaffold is its plant rather than materials, the deduction is worked out on the whole bill unless it hires the tubes in from someone else. Hire of scaffold without labour is outside the scheme, and so is a tower or cherry picker delivered for you to put up yourself. FileThat records what you pay the firm; the monthly return goes through HMRC's online service or your accountant.
Storm damage and call-outs
A homeowner whose ridge tiles came down in the night is never a CIS contractor, however urgent the job or large the bill, so a storm repair for them is paid in full and the tax is settled through your return. A letting agent, a shop or a pub having its roof fixed is a business outside construction and is only a contractor if its construction spending has passed £3 million in any 12 months. Where a contractor does pay you for repairs, the manual draws a line worth knowing: it treats a broken gutter repaired on its own as normally excluded, but a single contract to repair the gutter and replace broken roof tiles is caught in full, because it includes making good to the building.
Materials, VAT and the reverse charge
Only materials you bought yourself come off before the deduction, so put the tiles, felt and lead on their own line at what they cost you and keep the merchant invoices; a contractor can ask for them, and with no line to go on they may put their own estimate on the materials and take 20% from everything above it. VAT registration is due once taxable turnover in a rolling 12 months passes £90,000, and turnover means the whole invoice including the slates you charged on and the gross CIS pay, so a roofer who supplies the covering reaches it well before a labour-only one. Once registered, a CIS job for a contractor who is VAT registered too is normally a domestic reverse charge sale: your invoice says so, the contractor deals with the VAT, and the category for it in FileThat is Construction industry - reverse charge sales.
See what you could get back: the CIS refund calculator.
A roofer's year: a wet winter, a long summer, and a bill in January
Take a roofer in England who works from home through 2026-27. Homeowner jobs, re-roofs, chimney repairs and storm call-outs, bring in £44,000 received during the year, £16,000 of it slates, felt, battens and lead charged on at cost, with the whole of it paid in full because a householder is never a CIS contractor. The money arrives unevenly: under £6,000 of it between December and February, when rain and short days keep them off the roof, and over half between May and September. A storm call-out finished on 30 March 2027 and paid on 9 April belongs to the following year, because on the cash basis income is counted when it is received. Over the same year they roof new builds for a developer who supplies the tiles and the scaffold, with £24,000 of labour and £3,000 of battens, felt and fixings shown on separate lines of the invoices and all of it received within the year. The developer deducts 20% of the labour, £4,800, and pays £22,200. Lead stripped from three old roofs fetches £900 at the yard by bank transfer. Turnover is £71,900.
Costs: £19,700 of materials (the £16,000 and £3,000 charged on, plus £700 of fixings and sealant absorbed into prices); £6,000 to a scaffolding firm for erecting and striking scaffolds on the homeowner re-roofs, the gross figure before the roofer took 20%, £1,200, and paid it to HMRC on the monthly returns; £1,900 on an alloy tower, roof ladders, edge protection, a nail gun and a slate cutter; £1,600 of cherry picker hire for a chimney and skips for the old coverings; £350 for a harness, lanyards, helmet and boots and the inspection of the fall-arrest kit; £1,100 of insurance; 8,000 miles between roofs, the merchant and the yard at the flat rate, £4,400; £240 of the mobile bill; £450 for an accountant who deals with the monthly CIS returns as well; and £300 on a directory listing and leaflets. Total £36,040, so the profit is £35,860.
After the £12,570 Personal Allowance, £23,290 is left: 20% Income Tax on it is £4,658, and 6% Class 4 National Insurance on the same amount is £1,397.40, so the year's tax comes to £6,055.40. HMRC already holds the developer's £4,800, leaving £1,255.40 to pay by 31 January 2028. That £4,800 is 79% of the year's tax, just under the 80% that would have switched payments on account off, and the balance is over £1,000, so two payments on account of £627.70 each towards 2027-28 fall due as well: £1,883.10 on 31 January 2028, in the roofer's quietest month, and £627.70 on 31 July. The £1,200 taken from the scaffolding firm is the firm's tax, sent on for them, and does not enter this sum. Putting a slice of each summer payment aside is how a roofer meets a January like that without a bridging loan.
Two sidelights. Had the developer's invoices shown no materials line, the deduction would have run on all £27,000, £5,400, and the balance would have fallen to £655.40 with no payments on account at all, because 89% of the tax would already have been taken: the same tax, with £600 more of it sitting at HMRC from the month it was deducted. And had none of the £36,040 of costs been recorded, the tax and National Insurance on a £71,900 profit would have been £18,886.60, with part of it at the higher rate. Scottish Income Tax bands differ, so a roofer in Scotland gets a slightly different answer.
What you cannot claim
Thermals and a beanie under the hi-vis
The hi-vis, the helmet, the harness and the grip boots protect you and count. The thermal base layers, the fleece, the beanie and the cargo trousers you wear under them against the cold are clothes anyone could wear on a winter walk, and the rules keep them private however many roofs they have seen.
Breakfast while the rain passes
A bacon roll and a coffee in the van waiting for a shower to clear is what you would have eaten on any morning, so it is a private cost. Food becomes allowable only when a job takes you outside your usual pattern, such as a re-roof far enough away that you stay over for the week.
Your own roof, your dad's garage
Slates for your own house, or a felt roof on a relative's garage done for nothing, are private even when the materials went through the merchant account and the tower came out of your van. Put them through the records flagged as disallowable and the profit is unaffected.
Rained-off weeks, fines and drawings
A week lost to weather is income you never earned, not an expense you can claim, so there is nothing to record for it. Nor are a ticket for parking the van on the pavement under the scaffold, interest HMRC charges when tax is paid late, what you take out of the business for yourself, or the Income Tax and Class 4 on the profit itself.
How each rule works: helmets, harnesses and the clothes beneath, meals when you work away and van mileage and parking fines.
Straight answers
Who pays the CIS on the scaffold, me or the scaffolding firm?
You deduct it from them. Erecting and dismantling scaffolding is a construction operation, so when you pay a scaffolding firm to put a scaffold up for your job you are a contractor under the scheme: you register with HMRC, verify the firm, take 20% or 30% off their labour unless HMRC has granted them gross payment status, and file a monthly return. Many scaffold firms do hold gross status, in which case nothing comes off but the payment still goes on your return. What you deduct is their tax, not yours. If instead you hire a tower or edge protection and put it up yourself, that is hire without labour, outside the scheme, with nothing to deduct.
Can I claim my harness and fall-arrest kit?
Yes. Gov.uk allows protective clothing needed for your work, giving safety boots and hard hats as its examples, and a harness, lanyards, a fall-arrest block and a helmet with a chin strap are protective in exactly that sense. Record them as Other expenses; under the cash basis the full price comes off in the year you buy them. The periodic inspection of the harness and block, and replacing a lanyard that has taken a fall or passed its date, are allowable in the same way. The thermals and fleece under the harness are not.
Is the lead I strip off old roofs and sell income?
Yes. Weighing in old lead, copper and cast iron is one of the ways a roofing business makes money, so the yard's payment is a sale and goes into your turnover, even when it is a few hundred pounds here and there. Scrap yards in England and Wales are barred by law from paying cash, so every weigh-in is a bank transfer that HMRC can match to your statement. The other side is allowable too: the skip, the tip charges and the waste carrier registration that get rid of what has no scrap value all come off the profit, so record both sides in full rather than the difference.
Can I claim the roof ladder and tower I bought this year?
Yes, in full. A roof ladder, an alloy tower, edge protection, a hoist and a slate cutter count as equipment, which FileThat files under Repairs and maintenance, and the cash basis takes the whole price off the year the money leaves your account, with no spreading across years. Spend more on kit than the year made and the result is a loss, which can go against other income you have or forward against later profits, so a big spend in a thin year is not wasted. Hiring the same kit for one job is Other expenses instead, and the two can sit side by side in the same year.
A letting agent pays me for storm repairs on its landlords' roofs. Is that CIS?
Usually not, because of who is paying rather than what the work is. Repairing a roof is a construction operation, but a letting agent, like a shop or a pub, is a business outside construction and only becomes a contractor once it has spent more than £3 million on construction in any 12 months, which few agents do. A builder or a property maintenance company paying you for the same repairs is a contractor, and the deduction applies. HMRC's manual adds one more wrinkle: a gutter repair on its own is normally outside the scheme, but a single contract to repair the gutter and replace broken tiles is inside in full, because it makes good the building.
My winter is dead and my summer is flat out. Can I do anything about the January bill?
Two things. First, the tax is on the whole year's profit, so money received in a busy July is taxed at the same rate as money received in a quiet January; the cash basis simply counts each payment in the tax year it arrives, which means a job finished in March but paid in April moves to the next year. Second, payments on account are set at half of last year's bill, and if you expect next year to be worse you can ask HMRC to reduce them, online or on form SA303, stating what you expect to owe. Pitch the estimate too low and HMRC charges interest on the shortfall, so reduce them only when you have real grounds. Setting aside a share of each summer payment is the plainer answer.
Do self-employed roofers have to use Making Tax Digital?
Once qualifying income passes the threshold, yes. That threshold has been £50,000 since 6 April 2026, and falls to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. Qualifying income means turnover before a single cost comes off, adding any rental income to the trade, so the slates and lead you charged on, the gross CIS pay before the developer's deduction and the scrap you sold all count, and a wet year with a thin profit can still sit over the line. HMRC reads it from a return you have already filed, so a turnover like the worked example brings a roofer in from a later April, never part way through the year it was earned.
Keep every claim, file it with HMRC
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