Uber, Bolt and Deliveroo income and tax: mixing platform work with your own private hire business
If you top up your own taxi work with Uber, Bolt or Deliveroo jobs, here's how it all gets taxed, and what HMRC's new platform reporting rules mean for you.
Plenty of drivers we work with don’t run just one thing - a bit of their own private hire work, a bit of Uber or Bolt when it’s quiet, maybe some Deliveroo on the side. It’s a sensible way to smooth out a slow week. Here’s how it all actually gets taxed.
Worker status and tax status are two different questions
You may have heard about the Uber BV v Aslam Supreme Court case, which found Uber drivers were “workers” entitled to minimum wage and holiday pay. That’s an important employment law ruling, but it answers an employment question, not a tax one. UK tax law doesn’t have a “worker” category at all - for HMRC’s purposes, you’re either employed or self-employed, and that ruling didn’t change which one applies to you. In practice, for the vast majority of drivers, platform work and your own private hire jobs are both self-employed income, taxed the same way, unless a specific platform has actually put you on its payroll - which is unusual, and would be an obvious, separate arrangement, not something that happens automatically.
HMRC already sees your platform earnings
Since 1 January 2024, digital platforms - including ride-hailing apps and food delivery services - have been required to collect information on their drivers and couriers and report annual earnings directly to HMRC. The first reports, covering all of 2024, were due by the end of January 2025, and it happens every year from here. There’s a small carve-out for people casually selling a handful of secondhand goods, but it doesn’t apply to driving or delivery work - every pound you earn through a platform is reportable, regardless of the amount. Practically, that means any gap between what a platform reports and what you declare is far easier for HMRC to notice than it used to be.
One business, one Self Assessment return
Whatever mix of your own jobs, Uber, Bolt, and Deliveroo you do, it’s all the same trade for tax purposes - driving people or things around for a living. It all goes on one Self Assessment return, not a separate return per platform. That said, keeping your records organised by source is still worth doing, so you can see at a glance what came from where, and so any question from HMRC is quick to answer.
The £1,000 trading allowance is a total, not a per-platform figure
If you’re doing a small amount of platform work, you might think you’re under the radar because no single platform paid you very much. The £1,000 trading allowance is calculated across all of your self-employment income combined - your own jobs plus every platform - not £1,000 per platform. Add it all up before deciding whether it applies to you.
One thing you almost certainly don’t need to worry about
VAT registration only becomes relevant once your total business turnover passes £90,000 in a rolling 12-month period. Very few individual drivers get anywhere near that, but it exists, and it’s worth knowing the figure if your work ever scales up significantly.
Keep it simple: log by source, declare as one
The practical answer is straightforward - keep your income logged by where it came from, but don’t overthink the tax treatment: it’s all one business. If you’d like us to take a look at how your mix of work is currently being recorded and declared, give Michael a ring on 07799 414972 for a free, confidential chat.