Every stream in one place
Ads, sponsorships, subscriptions, affiliates, tips and merch reconciled together rather than guessed at from a bank feed.
Creators and influencers
You built the audience. The tax should be the easy part
Ad revenue, brand deals, free products, affiliate links, subscriptions and merch. A working creator has five sorts of income before breakfast and only some of them arrive as money. We put the lot into one set of books and keep both HMRC and the US taxman off your back.
What you get
- Every place you get paid, in one set of books
- Free products you were sent, valued and recorded
- The US tax off your American views, claimed back
- Brand deal invoices sent out and chased
- Your tax return or company accounts included
- One fixed monthly fee, FreeAgent included
The numbers that decide it
Four figures worth knowing by heart
Four numbers govern a creator year, and the first one is the one nobody expects.
Market valueWhat a gifted product is taxed on
Up to 30%The US takes this off American views
£1,000Trading allowance — gross, and gifts count
£90,000VAT threshold, reached fast once you sell product
2026/27 figures. See key tax dates and the calculators for the full picture.
Your year
Five dates, and one habit that has to happen all year
Every date here is an obligation you can meet late at some cost. The second line is the only one that cannot be reconstructed after the fact.
6 AprilNew tax year. Everything earned from here belongs to the next return.
As it arrivesGifted items logged at market value, with the obligation noted. This is the one that cannot be done later.
5 OctoberRegister for Self Assessment by this date after your first year over the trading allowance.
31 JanuaryReturn, balancing payment and first payment on account.
31 JulySecond payment on account.
April 2026 onwardsQuarterly MTD updates once qualifying income passes £50,000.
Source: gov.uk Self Assessment, trading allowance and Making Tax Digital guidance, checked July 2026.
The thing that makes it different
Half your income never arrives as money
Every other trade on this site gets paid in pounds. A creator gets paid in pounds, in dollars, in gifted product, in press trips, in affiliate commission that lands two months later, and in platform credit that is not quite either. All of it can be taxable and only some of it turns up in a bank account.
That is the whole problem in one sentence. A brand sends £6,000 of product in return for coverage; HMRC treats that as £6,000 of income at market value; the tax on it has to be paid in cash you were never sent. Nobody warns you, and it is not in the bank statement you would hand an accountant in January.
The second difference is that the money is lumpy and the deadlines are not. A quarter with three brand deals and a quarter with none produce the same January bill, and the payment on account that follows is calculated on the good year.
The detail that decides it
What actually moves the numbers for a creator
These are the five that decide whether a creator year is straightforward or a mess. None of them are exotic, and all of them are easier to handle in advance than to unpick afterwards.
- Gifted products and press trips
- If something arrived with an obligation attached — a post, a story, a mention, agreed formally or not — it is generally taxable at market value. A genuinely unsolicited gift with no strings usually is not. The deciding factor is the obligation, and the thing that settles an enquiry is whether you wrote it down at the time rather than reconstructed it two years later.
- US withholding on platform earnings
- Google and Amazon must apply US withholding to the share of your earnings that comes from US viewers, and without valid tax information on file that can be up to 30%. A UK creator who completes the platform tax interview and claims the UK–US treaty normally brings withholding on those royalties down to nil. It is ten minutes of form-filling and it is the most expensive thing on this page to leave undone.
- The £1,000 trading allowance, and what counts towards it
- Total trading income under £1,000 in a tax year generally means nothing to register and nothing to file. Two traps: it is measured on gross income rather than profit, and the market value of gifted goods counts towards it. Plenty of people who think they are under it are not.
- VAT arrives sooner if you sell things
- The £90,000 registration threshold counts turnover, not profit. A creator earning from ads and sponsorship takes a long time to reach it. A creator who starts shifting merch or selling through TikTok Shop can get there in a single good quarter, because every sale counts even though most of it is cost of goods.
- Payments on account, after the first good year
- The first strong year produces a tax bill and then, in the same January, the first payment on account of the next one — 150% of the tax in a single month. For an income that arrives in lumps, that is the single most common cash shock, and knowing it is coming a year ahead is the entire fix.
The number nobody works out
The tax on the things that were never money
A £40,000 year, £6,000 of which arrived as product
A sole trader creator: brand deals invoiced in cash, platform payouts, affiliate commission, and gifted items received in return for coverage, valued at what they retail for.
- Brand deals invoiced
- £22,000
- Platform payouts — ads, subscriptions, tips
- £9,500
- Affiliate commission
- £2,500
- Gifted product and press trips, at market value
- £6,000
- Total trading income
- £40,000
- Kit, software, props, home studio and travel
- −£7,400
- Taxable profit
- £32,600
- Income tax — 20% on £20,030 above the allowance
- £4,006
- Class 4 National Insurance — 6% on the same £20,030
- £1,202
- Tax and National Insurance due
- £5,208
Of that bill, about £1,560 is tax on the £6,000 of product — money you have to find from somewhere else, because nobody ever sent it to you. That is the number this page exists for. Set aside against the gifted value as it arrives and January is a transfer; ignore it and January is a problem.
Worked through at 2026/27 rates from our own calculators, which follow gov.uk guidance checked in July 2026. An example, not advice — your figures will differ.
What we do about it
Creator money, minded properly
A gifted-items record that holds up
Valued and logged as it arrives, with the obligation noted, so the taxable half is separated from the free half at the time.
US withholding claimed back
The treaty paperwork completed properly so your American views stop paying American tax.
Brand deals invoiced and chased
Paperwork agencies take seriously, and reminders that go out without you having to be the awkward one.
A set-aside percentage
Worked from your own figures and applied to gifted value too, so the lumpy year funds its own January.
The company question, when it is real
Modelled on what you need to draw, not on what you invoice — and not before it earns its place.
Questions
What people in this trade ask us
How much does it cost?
You get a fixed monthly figure in writing after a 30-minute call. For a creator business the drivers are how many income streams there are, whether any of them are in dollars, whether you sell physical product (which brings stock and VAT with it), and whether you are a sole trader or a company. There is no creator premium and FreeAgent is included. Most creators start on our sole trader package and move up when the company makes sense.
I earn under £1,000 from content. Do I need to do anything?
Probably not. The £1,000 trading allowance means that if your total trading income for the tax year is under £1,000 you generally do not need to register or file. Two things to watch: it is gross income, not profit, and the value of gifted products you received in return for content counts towards it. Once you go over, you register by 5 October after the end of that tax year.
Is a gifted product really taxable?
If it came with an obligation — a post, a story, a mention, anything agreed formally or informally — it is generally taxable at its market value, and that is true whether or not any money changed hands. A genuinely unsolicited gift with no strings usually is not. The line is the obligation, not the value, and the thing that decides an enquiry is whether you kept a record at the time.
Why is YouTube or Twitch taking US tax off my earnings?
US withholding applies to the share of your earnings that comes from US viewers. Without valid tax information on file the platform can withhold up to 30%. UK creators who complete the platform's tax interview and claim the UK–US treaty normally reduce withholding on those royalties to nil. It is a form, it takes about ten minutes, and it is one of the most expensive things to leave undone.
When should I set up a limited company?
Later than most people are told. Since the 2025 employer National Insurance rise and the higher dividend rates, a company is no longer a headline saving on money you take straight out — on full extraction it can be slightly worse. It earns its place for a different set of reasons: limited liability when you are signing brand contracts, profit left in the business at corporation tax rates, pension contributions, splitting income with a spouse who genuinely works in it, and being taken seriously by agencies. We model it on what you actually need to draw.
Does HMRC know about my platform income?
Assume yes. Since January 2024 digital platforms have had to collect seller and creator information and report it to HMRC — that covers the marketplaces, and it covers the platforms that pay creators. Declared income with properly claimed expenses is now comfortably the cheapest position to be in.
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