Triple Trading Allowance Ebay Uk News 12/09/25

[suelel1968]

Hi, I think that despite current disillusionment with eBay this is something we can all support. Whether Private, Rogue Private or Small Business this would be good news for entrepreneurial spirit going forward. Ebay say this would  "encourage side hustles and support startups in their early stages". So lets support the initiative and also suggest that Ebay put their money where their mouths are and offer to remove listing fees for those very people that they want the Chancellor to support.

12-09-2025 2:59 PM
As the Government gears up towards its November Budget, eBay UK is stepping up its work advocating for small businesses and entrepreneurs. This week, we launched a campaign to treble the Trading Allowance from £1,000 to £3,000, joined by a cross-industry coalition of marketplaces like Vinted, Etsy, and Depop, as well as business groups including the Federation of Small Businesses, techUK, and Enterprise Nation.

While the Trading Allowance was designed to encourage side hustles and support startups in their early stages, it has not kept pace with inflation. We’re therefore urging the UK Chancellor to adopt the change in order to make it easier for more people to start and grow a business.

The need for support is clear: small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up for more than 99% of UK businesses and 16.6 million jobs, yet the UK has lost about 500,000 private companies since 2020. That’s why eBay UK is calling for policies that provide better support for startups and microbusinesses — because when small businesses succeed, so do local economies and our marketplace.

We encourage you, all of our sellers from businesses to side hustlers to write to your MPs and encourage them to support this change. Use your post code to find your MP’s contact details, and read the letter to the Chancellor here.

[papso22]

While I support the proposition, why oh why does eBay perpetuate the myth that side hustles are different to businesses?  By using the language they do, they run the risk of encouraging side hustlers to do their hustling on ebay private accounts.

Ebay's published policy is clear but neither ebay CS nor the publishing department seem to understand it.

[lucy_farmer]

'...why oh why does eBay perpetuate the myth that side hustles are different to businesses? '

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Ebay (and HMRC!) are trying to sound 'cool'  😎

They'd like to make the prosaic 'part-time, taxable, self-employment' sound as interesting and 'edgy' as fleecing people on a pool-table, or doing various other... er.... 'night time economy' stuff! 

[ett1954]

"Ebay (and HMRC!) are trying to sound 'cool' " - more a case of again trying to keep the waters muddied, as without clarification their message implies to those ignorant of consumer laws and tax laws that they are not a business entity.

The 'Trading Limit' is, as the name suggests, an income limit above which the 'Trader' is obliged to register for self-assessment with HMRC.  As such anyone using this should be registered as a business.  I would have thought the vast majority of Traders who would welcome the £3000 trading limit would find it in their financial interests to be registered for self assessment in order to offset business expenses; something the 'Trading Limit' doesn't allow.  I suspect the financial wizzkids at HMRC are currently calculating whether this proposed limit is in the government's interest financially, as it could well be with a large uptake not offsetting their legitimate expenses against their tax liability.

On a different note, It would certainly be of interest to see the 'official' definitions of what a 'side-hustle' is from both HMRC and eBay.  Would they concur?  🤔

[suelel1968]

The issue EBay should take on board is that if the limit were to triple and encourage sellers to become "flippers" is that any benefits the Chancellor agrees to would be soaked up as Ebay listing  fees & shop fees, particularly in the slow summer months and when ebay are crippling their own business with technical glitches and poor implementations.

Small or as they refer to them micro businesses cannot sustain listing fees and the Chancellor should not give away tax payer funds to supplement eBay listing fees. 

[nutrafituk]

So rather than start looking properly into or stop ignoring all those so-called 'private sellers', ebay wants to get them more space to get away with things? How about a petition for ebay to get scrutinised over their policies and UK regulations being not followed through? You already have link to your local MP.

Nothing against the idea as such however it is just nothing but hypocrisy and attempt to recover from losing the market due to its own greed - just an opinion.

[thevintagemart]

Regardless of eBay's motives of wanting the £1000 threshold increased to £3000 I think it it is a good idea.

£1000 is too little nowadays. It does not go very far.

A reasonable amount of free flowing cash benefits the economy. If hobby sellers make a few quid on the side they will spend it. Everyone benefits. Including the tax man.

HMRC need to concentrate on the obvious tax dodges not Joe Bloggs topping up is minimum wage with a little side hustle.

[thesmokingrunner]

I totally disagree @thevintagemart 

There is no such thing as a 'hobby seller', just as there is no such thing as a 'side hustle'. They are both just another term for trader and someone who trades, small time or otherwise, is a business.

By not declaring income Joe Bloggs topping up his minimum wage with, as you put it, a little side hustle is just the type of unregistered business that HMRC should be concentrating on because they are avoiding any potential tax liabilities.

It's not a question of whether or not someone should declare any additional income: there is a duty to disclose any non-PAYE income to HMRC. My father used to have two jobs; on the first he paid PAYE income tax whilst the second was taxed at Basic Rate. By your reckoning it appears that had he done the second job as a side hustle and been paid cash that would have been ok.

"A reasonable amount of free flowing cash benefits the economy". Hmmm. Ok, what if everyone did that - worked for cash and didn't declare it? The tax man certainly wouldn't benefit. And there'd be no money for public services.

HMRC certainly do need to concentrate on the obvious tax dodgers. Including Joe Bloggs.

[custom-giftsuk]

You all miss "why" eBay are wanting an increase to 3k. 

With the advent of "other" sites which take a lot more laissiez-faire attitude to the 1k limit and having multiple accounts, a lot of "casual" sellers have moved there.

If the limit is 3k, a lot of those sellers may move back to eBay, increasing sales and money for eBay. 

It doesn't require a lot of effort to say eBay and others want a 3k limit, on eBay's part and they look like their fighting for sellers, but I doubt UKGov would want to increase that limit, because it needs every penny they can get. If UKGov say that its 1k, eBay can wave its hands and say "we tried" with minimal effort. If UKGov increases the limit to 3k, eBay can say they were fighting for the rights of sellers. 

[suelel1968]

@custom-giftsuk exactly. Whether the limit is increased or not, EBAY seek to have people with only a minimal amount of items signing up to business accounts seeing any "opportunity" to get to tax payer status or make extra cash under trading allowance whittled away by 30 something pence a month listing fees.

As you can't offset fees under the trading allowance rules I think ebay should remove listing and relisting fees for upto the amount of the trading allowance at least.

If they want to help they don't need the Chancellor to do anything. 

[dch2112011]

Wow ebay are trying to steal  The Treasury and James Murray MP Tax Minister (Chief Secretary to the Treasury) thunder !

This was officially declared on the 11th March 2025  - I suppose better late than never as far as ebay are concerned - nothing new there then !

300000-people-to-be-taken-out-of-tax-returns-government-announces 

[sml192]

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@dch2112011 wrote:

Wow ebay are trying to steal  The Treasury and James Murray MP Tax Minister (Chief Secretary to the Treasury) thunder !

This was officially declared on the 11th March 2025  - I suppose better late than never as far as ebay are concerned - nothing new there then !

300000-people-to-be-taken-out-of-tax-returns-government-announces 

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The proposed change announced in March is only to the threshold for filing a full Self-Assessment tax return, not the actual Trading Allowance. 

[dch2112011]

True - but if the reporting threshold for self assesment is raised to 3K  then HMRC will not be aware of sales under 3k - in effect the same result - of course those who go above £1k  as before and now should self declare but pay under the proposed new simple payment system ! 

Of course this could mean that self reporting is raised to 3k but platform reporting remains at a lower level - it is unclear in the published statements - it seems the options are open !

However it raises the question as to what purpose would it be to have two thresholds - one personal and one for ebay and platforms ?

Especially as  this is hailed to include people trading clothes online - which would  sort of  make a nonsense of the proposed system if HMRC still gathered information from ebay at a lower level and used it to send a tax bill and tell people to simply pay up online ?  Still could be good news for car booters who would self declare !

I guess we will have to wait until 2009 before finding out what is actually planned !

In the meantime join the established existing lobby to raise the trading allowance to 3k and close the HMRC get out clause !

"the minister is expected to announce plans to increase the Income Tax Self Assessment (ITSA) reporting threshold for trading income, from £1,000 to £3,000 gross within this parliament."

ebay's official response  as reported by HMRC

Eve Williams, CEO of eBay UK, commented:

This will be welcome news for thousands of UK sellers for whom eBay is a side hustle and a means of supplementing their household income during challenging times. By removing the paperwork associated with selling online, hopefully we will help these side hustles grow into fully fledged small businesses.

[sml192]

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@dch2112011 wrote:

Of course this could mean that self reporting is raised to 3k but platform reporting remains at a lower level - it is unclear in the published statements - it seems the options are open !

However it raises the question as to what purpose would it be to have two thresholds - one personal and one for ebay and platforms ?

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That is a good point.  Having the threshold for submitting a full Self Assessment tax return higher than the Platform reporting threshold wouldn't be a problem.  However, having the Trading Allowance higher than the Platform reporting threshold would be a bit of an anomaly as it would effectively render any reports with a turnover figure under the Trading Allowance largely redundant.

Obviously, the Platform reporting thresholds are set by the OECD and any changes to those thresholds would need to be agreed by all the OECD member countries (currently 38 with a further 8 in accession), not just the UK, so they will always be separate to any personal thresholds set by the UK and highly unlikely to ever be at the same level. 

[papso22]

I think people are getting  confused here.

The platform reporting threshold is not set by HMRC or the Treasury.  It is not linked in any way to our tax laws or thresholds and cannot be changed by the UK acting alone.

The Treasury/HMRC have suggested raising the threshold for the full fat self assessment system  to £3,000, tax will still be due if over the £1,000 trading allowance but will be declared in a simpler way.  Sales would still need to be reported by ebay if over a platform reporting threshold.

Ebay has proposed raising the current trading allowance to £3,000.  This would mean that the self assessment and tax rules that currently apply to the £1,000 limit would apply to sales up to £3,000.  That would have a bigger financial impact than what HMRC proposes as it reduces the tax take.  Sales would still be reported under the platform reporting rules.

[dch2112011]

No real confusion, the lobby to increase the trading allowance has been gathering momentum for quite some time along with the lobby to increase tax thresholds, ebay are late to the party and are selling it as something they have had a light bulb moment with.

Having said that maybe ebay can persuade it's members to lobby their MP's  which may or may not add weight to the existing lobby.

The point is that the Government have announced changes to the reporting threshold to 3k which essentially means that traders will be left to decide whether or not they declare over the 1k allowance up to the UK threshold of 3k - which is almost what it always was before the platform reporting limits came into effect except their was no upper limit.

Noone complained before the platform reporting limits were introduced ? 

The loophole potentially is How and what HMRC do with the lower limits reported via ebay ?

A guess is nothing leaving it to the individual to declare because if HMRC use the lower platform limits to calculate tax due and issue tax bills it completely negates raising the reporting limit to 3k 

In effect it becomes a two tier system - those who trade online will have the lower reporting limit applied and those that don't have the higher limit applied !  In other words those who sell at car boots, markets etc are trusted to self declare up to 3k and those that trade online are not !

The Govt have declared that it will reduce self assesment tax returns by 300k and out of those individuals only 90k will have to tax on their side hustle !

This suggests that the majority of private sellers will be able to self declare the trading only sold items when they exceed £1000  leaving it to the individual to determine the trading sales.

The vast majority of personal sellers will not be scrutinised only those exceeding 3k in annual sales.

This begs the question as to whether you feel traders should be allowed 3k of sales before being liable for tax or not - it will not in reality make any difference to the vast majority of private sellers disposing of personal goods or with a small side hustle in trading