I've had a letter from HMRC about my online sales

Why you got it

Since the 2024 calendar year, platforms like Vinted, eBay, Etsy and Depop have had to collect information about sellers and, above a threshold, report it to HMRC — roughly 30 sales or about £1,700 (€2,000) in a year. If you've sold enough to cross that threshold, your details may simply have been included in a report the platform sent HMRC. That's it. It's not an accusation, and it's not a bill.

What it doesn't mean

A letter like this doesn't mean HMRC has decided you owe tax. It means HMRC has some figures about your selling activity and, in many cases, is simply prompting you to check your own position — the same way you'd want to check it anyway. If you were only selling your own unwanted possessions — clothes, furniture, electronics you'd genuinely owned and used — that's not trading, and it's normally not taxable, whatever the total comes to across the year.

What actually decides it

The real question is whether you were trading: buying things specifically to resell, buying in bulk, selling regularly with a view to profit, or holding items only briefly before selling them on. None of that is about the platform or the letter — it's about what you were actually doing. There's a separate rule, too: a single personal item sold for more than £6,000 can attract Capital Gains Tax on the gain, with an annual exempt amount of £3,000 before any tax is due, regardless of whether you're trading at all.

If you do need to register

If it turns out you are trading and your gross income from it is over the £1,000 trading allowance for the tax year, you'll need to register for Self Assessment by 5 October after the end of that tax year, then file and pay online by the following 31 January. Missing those dates is what actually causes problems — the letter itself isn't the problem.

The fastest way to know where you stand is to answer a few honest questions about what you sold, why, and how much you took — not to guess from a letter alone.

What to do this week

Start by gathering a rough picture: which platforms you sold on, roughly how much you took in total over the tax year, and whether any of it involved buying things specifically to resell rather than clearing out your own belongings. You don't need perfect figures to begin — an honest estimate is enough to work out which category you're in. If you conclude you are trading and over the allowance, register sooner rather than later; there's no penalty for registering early, but there can be one for registering late, so it's worth getting ahead of the 5 October deadline rather than leaving it until the following January.