Register as a Sole Trader Today Join the 3.4 million sole traders in the UK & run your own business as an individual - with Online Filings it's fast, easy, affordable and done right.

If you’re a sole trader, you run your own business as an individual and are self-employed.
You can keep all your business’s profits after you’ve paid tax on them. You’re personally responsible for any losses your business makes.

Yes, absolutely! You just need to make sure you are registered within 3 months of trading.

You’ll need to:

- Keep records of your business’s sales and expenses
- Send a Self Assessment tax return every year
- Pay Income Tax on your profits and Class 2 and Class 4 National Insurance
- You’ll need to apply for a National Insurance number if you’re moving to the UK to set up a business.

You’ll need to supply information such as:

- National Insurance (NI) number
- Name
- Date of birth
- Postal address
- Name of business
- What type of work you do
- Start date

Depending on your package, we process applications to register you as self-employed with HMRC between 1 to 7 business days. Once you have completed our online simplified registration form, your application will be submitted to HMRC for review. HMRC will then issue your Unique Tax Reference Reference (UTR). UTR are confidential numbers and can only be sent by post by HMRC. HMRC takes approximately 6 weeks to send the URT, however you can start trading before receiving your UTR as long as you are registered within 3 months of trading.

As a sole trader, you can either trade under your own name or use a business name. If you use a business name, It can’t be the same name as that of an existing business. You can protect someone else from registering the name of your business

Say for example, you chose to call your business Myfirstbusiness . The business is booming and starts making a name for itself in its sector but one year later someone else registers this name at Companies House. That person can legally force you to stop trading under Myfirstbusiness name.

We'll register a dormant limited company with a name of your choice available to register at Companies House. A dormant company is one that is not trading (sic code 99999). This limited company is created solely to protect someone else for using your name. You will remain a sole trader and be able to trade as such. You will be the director of the dormant company meaning that the name is now yours