More people in the UK shop for clothes on Vinted than with almost any other fashion brand; only Primark and Next remain more popular than the online marketplace! With 17.4 million people scrolling their Vinted feeds for their next favourite outfit, it’s no wonder that lots of them are also selling on the platform as well. But what happens when your side-hustle starts to turn a profit? When do you have to start paying Vinted taxes?
UK sellers on Vinted are now having to contend with new laws around tax and online selling. According to government legislation, once you’ve made 30 sales on Vinted or earned over £1,700 in a year, Vinted is legally required to provide HMRC with a record of your transactions. You’ll probably be hit with a pop-up notification, too, asking you to fill in tax details such as your name, address, and National Insurance (NI) number.
But what if you’re just selling old clothes and jewellery? What if you’re using Vinted to clear out your wardrobe? What if you’ve bought clothes from a charity shop and resold them for a profit? Do the same rules apply?
In this super simple guide to Vinted tax, I’ll be using my 40+ years of experience as a tax advisor at UWM Accountants to explain exactly how the Vinted tax rules work, when they apply to you, and what you can do about them.
Contents
- What are Vinted taxes?
- Types of Vinted tax
- Different types of Vinted seller and how tax applies to each
- What to do if you’ve received a Vinted notification or HMRC nudge letter about tax
What are Vinted taxes?
‘Vinted taxes’ aren’t actually exclusive to Vinted. What we usually mean when we talk about tax relating to online marketplaces is a tax on the income you make from selling your stuff through the app. So really, Vinted tax is the same as eBay tax or Etsy tax—it’s just regular old Income Tax but applied to sales made through online marketplaces.
The question is, when does income tax apply to your Vinted earnings?
Thankfully, most sellers on Vinted will not have to worry about paying tax. If you use Vinted only occasionally, and then to sell old, unwanted items—such as clothes which no longer suit your style or charity shop finds which don’t fit right—then you won’t be taxed on your earnings.
Tax only comes into play when your sales on Vinted start to turn a profit; in other words, when you stop being a seller and start being a trader. A trader is someone who buys and sells items to make a profit, either in addition to income from their other job, or as a full-time gig.
Once you make 30 sales or earn £1,700 in the same year on Vinted, you’ll be prompted to enter your tax information through the app. This is because this is the threshold at which Vinted must legally start reporting your transactions to HMRC. Passing this threshold doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be taxed—again, this depends on the nature of your sales: selling vs trading—but it does mean you’re now on HMRC’s radar.
HMRC’s Badges of Trade
HMRC has what it calls its ‘Badges of Trade’. These badges are markers of sales activity which separate the seller from the trader. If your selling activity on Vinted triggers any of these badges, HMRC may get in touch to make sure you’re not avoiding tax.
HMRC Badges of Trade include:
- The intention to turn a profit on a sale
- High numbers of, or high-quantity transactions
- The similarity of your sales to those of other known traders on a given site
- Changing or modifying products to raise their sale value
- Borrowing or receiving money from investors before selling
- Little time between purchase or receipt of a product and its sale
Types of Vinted tax
It’s important at this point to get familiar with the types of tax which could apply to your Vinted income.
Trading income tax
When you trade goods and services, like reselling clothes on Vinted for profit, you’ll be taxed on your earnings at your income tax band rate. Your tax rate depends on your total income for the year, with low-income earners being taxed at 0-20% and the highest earners taxed at 45% (note that these rates apply to England, Wales and N. Ireland, but may differ in Scotland).
However, all UK taxpayers are afforded an annual tax-free trading allowance of £1,000, meaning that the first £1,000 you make trading clothes and items on Vinted will not be taxed. For example, if you buy and resell vintage jeans on Vinted and make £3,000 in the 2026/27 tax year, you would only need to pay tax on £2,000 of those earnings.
Capital Gains Tax (CGT)
Another type of tax which might apply to your Vinted sales is Capital Gains Tax. CGT is a type of tax applied to the sale of assets sold for £6k or more on which you turn a profit. Capital Gains Tax can apply to even the casual seller if they sell an item on Vinted for £6k+.
For example, if you sell an old designer jacket of yours on Vinted for £6,200, you might have to report the sale and pay a percentage of Capital Gains Tax on the profit, or ‘gains’, made from the sale. The good news is that just like your annual trading allowance of £1,000, you also have an annual CGT allowance of £3,000.
Value Added Tax (VAT)
In exceptional circumstances, some Vinted online sellers may also have to register for VAT and collect VAT on their Vinted sales.
Value Added Tax is a type of tax added to the sale of products and services sold by VAT-registered businesses. A business (including freelance sole traders) must register for VAT as soon as their annual turnover exceeds the VAT threshold of £90,000. Once registered, you must collect VAT on each Vinted sale from your buyers and pass this on to HMRC by your personal VAT deadline.
Thankfully, most independent Vinted traders—even if you’ve managed to make your Vinted business a full-time job—are unlikely to surpass the VAT threshold. Still, you can always voluntarily register for VAT if you think it would be useful, like for claiming back the VAT on a camera you bought to photograph the items you sell.
Different types of Vinted seller and how tax applies to each
Now that we’ve gone over the different types of tax which can apply to Vinted earnings, let’s take a look at how these Vinted tax rules apply to different types of online sellers.
The casual seller of second-hand clothes
Most Vinted users only have a seller account to get rid of unwanted clothes and items from their wardrobe. In other words, they use Vinted as a way to earn a little bit of money from things they no longer want.
This type of seller is not selling on Vinted for profit—in fact, they are more likely to sell their clothes for less than they paid for them originally. As a casual seller of unwanted second-hand items on Vinted, you won’t need to report or pay tax on your earnings, even if your transactions are reported to HMRC by the Vinted app.
The casual seller of high-value items
Another type of casual seller, using Vinted to clear out their wardrobe, might be more likely to incur tax on their Vinted sales. This is the casual seller of unique, high-value items.
Let’s say your wardrobe contains some really fancy clothes and shoes, like designer Louis Vuitton’s and a Prada coat. If you were to sell these on Vinted and make more than £6,000 from a single sale, you would be liable for tax.
Because you’re not trading—i.e., you didn’t buy the Prada coat with the specific intention of turning a profit, instead you’re selling it many years after buying it—you won’t be charged income tax on the £6k+ sale. However, you may owe Capital Gains Tax on a percentage of the profit made.
The side-hustler
The most common type of seller concerned with Vinted tax is the side-hustler. This is someone who has a full-time or other part-time jobs, but buys and sells clothes on Vinted for profit—i.e., uses Vinted as a side hustle to pull in a little extra income on top of their other earnings.
For example, you might go hunting for hidden gems in charity shops on your weekend, then wash, iron, photograph and upload them to sell for profit on Vinted. Alternatively, you might make jewellery or customise clothing items to sell them for more than they cost you to make/modify.
These types of sales would be deemed ‘trade’ by HMRC for their profit-making motives. As such, your earnings on Vinted would no longer be deemed ‘casual’ and would become taxable.
You’d have to register for Self-Assessment if you hadn’t already, and then pay tax on your trading income above the £1,000 tax-free allowance (or after your expenses are deducted: more on this later!). You may have to report your earnings on a quarterly rather than yearly basis through HMRC’s new Making Tax Digital initiative, depending on your income level and other criteria.
At present, you must submit a Self-Assessment tax return as soon as your trading income passes £1,000. However, the government has introduced plans to increase this threshold to £3,000 by 2029, so that small side-hustle earners can pay tax on earnings between £1k and £3k via a different online portal.
The full-time Vinted trader
Last but not least, there’s the full-time Vinted trader. This is the type of seller whose full-time job is selling clothes and items on Vinted and other online marketplaces like Etsy and eBay. Perhaps their clothes modification side-hustle took off, or they decided to take a Vintage clothes store from the high street to the app store.
However they got there, a full-time Vinted trader will almost definitely have to pay tax on their Vinted earnings. As a full-time trader, it’s unlikely that their Vinted sales earn them below £1,000 a year. As such, they’ll have to pay Income Tax on their earnings via a yearly Self-Assessment tax return.
The full-time trader can use both their £1,000 tax-free trading allowance or expenses, as well as their £12,570 personal income allowance, to reduce their Vinted tax bill as much as possible.
What to do if you’ve received a Vinted notification or HMRC nudge letter about tax
As I mentioned before, if you make more than 30 sales or £1,700 in a single year on Vinted or any other online marketplace, HMRC will almost certainly get in touch—either via a ‘Nudge Letter’ or through the Vinted app—to request tax details from you.
First steps: Don’t avoid HMRC’s request for your information
If you’ve received a letter or notification, it’s important not to ignore it. You are required by law at this point to provide the requested information, even if you think you should be exempt from tax (either because of low earnings or because you are a casual seller, not a trader).
Once you’ve filled in the information form through the Vinted app, it’s worth reviewing your transactions to see whether you might owe HMRC tax. Remember, if you’re just selling casually, you should be okay, but if you’ve been intentionally selling on Vinted for profit, you will need to file a Self-Assessment tax return as soon as you earn more than your £1,000 trading allowance.
Next steps: Registering for self-assessment
You can register for self-assessment at any time, but you must complete your tax return and pay any Vinted tax you owe by 31 January the year following the tax year in which you made your taxable earnings. (For example, 31 January 2027 for Vinted sales made between 6 April 2025 and 5 April 2026).
It’s important to keep clear and accurate records of your Vinted transactions, as well as of any expenses incurred—such as receipts for the clothes you bought to resell. When it comes time to calculate what tax you owe on your Vinted earnings, you might find that your annual expenses come to more than your £1,000 trading allowance. In which case, you should deduct your expenses, not your trading allowance, from your total Vinted income to calculate the final taxable amount.
Paying tax can be stressful and it’s important to get it right, so don’t be afraid to reach out to a local UK accountant for guidance if you’re feeling in over your head.
