MTD for online marketplace sellers
Etsy, eBay, Vinted and Depop have reported seller data to HMRC since January 2024, so the figures you file should match theirs. QuarterFile keeps the digital records MTD now requires and files your quarterly update (the four-times-a-year summary HMRC now wants) from your bank statement. You just confirm the categories: fees, refunds and postage included.
HMRC recognition is in progress: filing opens for the 7 February 2027 quarter, and you can check your MTD date and join the reminder list today.
An illustration of the QuarterFile dashboard showing the current quarter, Q2, running from 6 July 2026 to 5 October 2026, with a filing deadline of 7 November 2026. It shows confirmed income and expense totals, a checklist confirming the quarter is ready, and a single button to review and file. The figures shown are examples.
What counts as trading
Selling your own things isn’t trading
Clearing out a wardrobe on Vinted for less than you paid isn’t taxable, and the marketplace reporting rules created no new tax. Buying, making or sourcing things to sell at a profit is trading, and that income counts. Where a particular kind of selling falls is a question for your accountant or HMRC, not a guess.
How MTD works for marketplace sellersEvery channel, one business
MTD looks at your gross income (the total before expenses) across everywhere you sell:
- Handmade and craft: Etsy, Folksy
- Resale and auction: eBay, Vinted, Depop
- Your own shop: Shopify, Squarespace, direct sales
- Print-on-demand and dropshipping payouts
- Marketplace fees, postage and stock costs
The sale price, not the payout
A £40 sale that arrives as £31 after fees and postage is £40 of income and £9 of expenses, not £31 of income. Recording it the netted-off way understates your gross figure, which is the number the MTD thresholds use. What you paid for stock goes in “Goods and materials”.
Built for high transaction counts
Selling generates a lot of small lines: payouts, fees, postage labels, stock buys. That’s exactly the job CSV import and suggested categories exist for, at £12.50 a quarter with the first one free. Or type the lines in yourself: QuarterFile Free does the same filings, forever.
See pricingSeller questions
What sellers ask first
I’m clearing out my wardrobe on Vinted. Do I have to file anything?
No. Selling your own used possessions, usually for less than you paid, isn’t trading, isn’t taxable income and doesn’t count towards MTD at all. What counts is buying, making or sourcing things in order to sell them at a profit. The marketplace reporting rules changed neither of those, and where an unusual case falls is a question for your accountant or HMRC rather than a guess.
Does the £1,000 trading allowance mean I can ignore MTD?
If your gross trading income for a tax year is £1,000 or less you can normally use the trading allowance and have nothing to report for that trade, which keeps it out of MTD too. Above £1,000 you’re into ordinary self-employment reporting, and MTD itself starts when your combined self-employment and property income is more than £50,000 (April 2026), more than £30,000 (April 2027) or more than £20,000 (April 2028). The two-minute checker gives you your date.
Etsy and eBay report me to HMRC. Does that mean I owe tax?
Not by itself. Since January 2024 marketplaces have reported seller details and payouts to HMRC once a year for sellers who make 30 or more sales in a year, or are paid about £1,700 or more, and they send you a copy. It created no new tax and it doesn’t decide whether you’re trading. It does mean the figures you report and the figures HMRC already holds should match, which is what keeping records as you sell is for.
Your shop, your quarter
Payouts in, fees out, figures that match.
The platforms already tell HMRC what they paid you. Four times a year you tell HMRC what you made. The figures should match.
Just want the deadlines?
One email, 7 days before each quarterly deadline. No account, no software sign-up, nothing else ever.
We store your email address to send one reminder before each quarterly deadline, until you unsubscribe. Nothing else. How we handle your data.