CIS, the VAT reverse charge, gross payment status, Making Tax Digital and payroll for Belfast trade businesses. We only act for trades, and we work with you remotely.
Read this first. Two of the regimes most often described as UK-wide are not. The Building Safety Levy is imposed by an England statutory instrument (SI 2025/1236) and does not apply to a site in Belfast. The dutyholder and competence duties come from The Building Regulations etc. (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023, SI 2023/911, and do not extend here either. Your CIS and VAT position, by contrast, is identical to an English trade's — and the income tax on your profit is same as england: 20% / 40% / 45%.
For a Northern Ireland trade business the useful summary is short: the tax is England's, the building safety instruments are not.
On tax, there is nothing to adjust. Income tax on your profit runs on the same rates as England and Wales — 20%, 40% and 45%, with the higher rate starting at £50,270 on a full personal allowance, and the personal allowance and £37,700 basic rate limit both frozen to 5 April 2031. Class 4 NIC is 6% then 2%, Class 2 is treated as paid at or above the £7,105 Small Profits Threshold, employer Class 1 is 15% above £5,000 with a £10,500 Employment Allowance, and corporation tax is 25% and 19% with marginal relief between £50,000 and £250,000.
CIS is UK-wide and unchanged here. Twenty per cent standard, thirty per cent higher, the return by the 19th, the money by the 22nd electronically, and from 6 April 2026 a nil return or inactivity notification in any month a mainstream contractor pays no subcontractors. The anti-fraud package applies in full, including the 30% penalty chargeable to directors personally and the five-year bar on reapplying for gross payment status after immediate removal.
So does the VAT domestic reverse charge under section 55A, the £90,000 registration threshold, Making Tax Digital on its £50,000 / £30,000 / £20,000 thresholds, the £1,000,000 annual investment allowance and the new 40% first-year allowance, and the 55p mileage rate.
What does not apply: the Building Safety Levy, which is imposed by an England instrument (SI 2025/1236) and does not reach Northern Ireland, and the dutyholder and competence duties in SI 2023/911, which are likewise England only. One caution about goods, rather than services: VAT on goods moving to and from Northern Ireland operates under the Windsor Framework, which is a separate subject from the construction services rules on this site and one worth taking specific advice on if you are importing materials.
The same work whichever trade you are in, because the problems are the scheme's rather than the trade's. We run the monthly CIS return and verification cycle, apply for and protect gross payment status, get the reverse charge right on your invoices and get end user notifications on file, put your records on software that satisfies Making Tax Digital, run payroll with the CIS offset claimed monthly through the employer payment summary, and prepare the accounts and tax return.
Two things we do that a general accountant usually does not. We reconcile your CIS suffered to the payment and deduction statements every month rather than once a year, which is where under-claimed materials and missing statements turn up — see the records guide. And we treat your VAT compliance as part of your CIS position, because since 6 April 2024 it literally is: VAT joined CIS, PAYE, income tax and corporation tax in the gross payment status compliance test.
We write for each trade separately, because the scope questions differ. An electrician is inside CIS on power, lighting and fire protection and outside it on burglar alarms and CCTV. A steel fabricator is outside the scheme on manufacture and delivery to site and inside it on erection. A scaffolder is inside CIS, and separately hired scaffolding is standard rated for VAT even on a zero-rated new build. There are pages for plumbers, roofers, groundworkers, joiners, bricklayers, plasterers and every other trade we act for.
Three free calculators, no email required: the CIS deduction calculator shows what materials do to a deduction, the gross payment status checker tests you against all three statutory tests, and the reverse charge checker works through the six conditions on a specific job.
Not on any of the figures on this site. Income tax runs on the same rates as England and Wales — 20%, 40% and 45%, with the higher rate starting at £50,270 on a full personal allowance, and both the personal allowance and the £37,700 basic rate limit frozen to 5 April 2031. National Insurance, corporation tax, dividend tax, the annual investment allowance, VAT registration at £90,000, the VAT domestic reverse charge, Making Tax Digital and the 55p mileage rate are all identical. Where Northern Ireland does differ is in the England-only building safety instruments, and in VAT on goods moving to and from Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework.
No. It is imposed by The Building Safety Levy (England) Regulations 2025, SI 2025/1236, which as the title shows is an England instrument, and it commences on 1 October 2026 in England only. A development in Belfast does not attract it, and neither do the dutyholder and competence duties created by The Building Regulations etc. (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023, SI 2023/911, which apply to building work in England. If a supplier or adviser has quoted you for levy liability or competence declarations on a Northern Ireland scheme, check which nation the instrument names before you budget for it.
Less than most trades expect, and not the things they expect. Belfast is in Northern Ireland, and the Construction Industry Scheme is UK-wide: 20% standard rate, 30% higher rate, the monthly return due by the 19th and the money by the 22nd. The VAT domestic reverse charge, the £90,000 registration threshold, Making Tax Digital, National Insurance, corporation tax and the £1,000,000 annual investment allowance are identical too. What changes is building safety — the Building Safety Levy is England only, so it does not apply to a Northern Ireland site at all, and SI 2023/911 is an England instrument, so the dutyholder and competence duties it creates do not extend here — and the income tax on your profit, which is the same rates as England — 20%, 40% and 45%, with the higher rate starting at £50,270 on a full personal allowance.
No. We act for trade businesses in Belfast and across the UK remotely — phone, WhatsApp, video and email, with records and approvals handled online. That is deliberate rather than a limitation, because what decides a trade's tax position is not local knowledge but knowing the scheme: whether the work is a construction operation within CIS, whether the payment is CIS-reportable, whether your customer has notified end user status in writing, whether the materials figure on your invoice will stand up, and whether you should have gross payment status. None of that is answered by being twenty minutes down the road. What being in Northern Ireland does change is building safety and, on income tax, same as england: 20% / 40% / 45% — and we take that into account without needing an office here. The calculators on this site are free and need no conversation at all.
A free call about your CIS position, your VAT treatment and what is actually locked up. If we cannot save you anything, we will say so.
One short email: what has changed in CIS and construction VAT, the dates coming up, and one number worth checking on your own invoices. No spam, unsubscribe any time.