Hamster blog

Do I need to pay tax on Vinted, eBay or Depop sales?

Published 1 October 2026 · Figures are for the 2026–27 tax year

Selling your own stuff is not trading

Clearing out your wardrobe, selling an old phone or passing on the kids' outgrown clothes is not a business. You are getting back some of what you paid, not making a profit, and HMRC says it is unlikely you will need to tell them or pay any tax on it. That holds however many items you sell.

The one exception is a valuable single item. If you sell a personal possession for more than £6,000, you may have to pay Capital Gains Tax on the gain.

When selling becomes trading

It becomes a side hustle, and taxable, when you are selling to make a profit. HMRC says you are likely to be trading if you:

• buy things in order to resell them, such as charity-shop finds, car-boot hauls or wholesale stock
• make things to sell
• sell regularly to make a profit
• earn commission selling things for other people

It is what you are doing that matters, not which app you use. One person can do both: your own old clothes on Vinted are not trading, while the vintage pieces you buy to flip on Depop are.

The £1,000 trading allowance

If you are trading, the first £1,000 of trading income in each tax year is covered by the trading allowance.

• £1,000 or less in sales: no tax, and no need to tell HMRC.
• More than £1,000 in sales: you must register for Self Assessment and report the income.

Two details catch people out. The limit is on your sales, not your profit, so £1,200 of sales with £900 of costs is still over it. And it is one allowance for all your trading income, so reselling plus a bit of delivery work are added together.

How much tax you pay

You pay tax on your profit, not your sales. To work out profit you take off either the flat £1,000 trading allowance or your actual costs (stock, postage, packaging, platform fees). You pick whichever is bigger, and you cannot use both.

That profit is then added on top of your other income. For the 2026–27 tax year:

• Income Tax: 0% within your £12,570 Personal Allowance, 20% up to £50,270 of total income, 40% up to £125,140 and 45% above that. (Scotland has its own bands.)
• Class 4 National Insurance: 6% on self-employed profits between £12,570 and £50,270, and 2% above.

A worked example

You earn £28,000 in your day job and sell £3,000 of thrifted clothes on Vinted and Depop. Stock, postage and fees come to £1,400.

• Your costs (£1,400) beat the £1,000 allowance, so you deduct those: £1,600 profit.
• Your salary has already used your Personal Allowance, so the profit is taxed at 20%: £320 of Income Tax.
• Your profit is under £12,570, so there is no Class 4 National Insurance.

If your costs had only been £400, you would use the £1,000 allowance instead, giving £2,000 of profit and £400 of tax.

Will the platform tell HMRC about me?

Since January 2024, platforms such as Vinted, eBay, Depop and Etsy have had to collect seller details and report them to HMRC. Under the reporting rules, they do not report sellers of goods who make fewer than 30 sales a year and receive 2,000 euros (about £1,700) or less.

Being reported is not a tax bill. The rules on what is taxable did not change, and someone who sells 40 of their own old items is still not trading. It does mean that HMRC can see your sales, so if you are trading it is worth keeping a record of what you sold and what it cost you.

Keeping track

The hard part of a reselling side hustle is rarely the tax itself. It is knowing, in March, what you sold and spent back in May. Hamster is a free Android app that logs your sales and costs as you go and shows what to set aside for tax, so the numbers are ready when you need them.

This is general information, not personal tax advice. Rules and rates change — check the linked GOV.UK pages or speak to an accountant about your own situation.