Free tool · 2026/27 rates
VAT threshold tracker: are you about to cross £90,000?
VAT registration becomes compulsory when your taxable turnover in any rolling twelve-month period exceeds £90,000, not when your turnover in a tax year or financial year does. That rolling test is why businesses cross the threshold without noticing: a strong month twelve months ago drops out of the window as a strong month today drops in. This tracker takes your monthly taxable turnover for the last twelve months and shows the rolling total, the headroom left, and the month in which the total first exceeded £90,000 if it already has, together with the registration deadline that follows. It also applies the forward-looking test, where you must register if you expect to exceed £90,000 in the next thirty days alone.
How the test works
The backward-looking test adds up your VAT-taxable turnover over the previous twelve calendar months, checked at the end of every month. Taxable turnover includes standard, reduced and zero-rated sales and excludes exempt supplies such as insurance, most finance, residential letting and education by eligible bodies, and excludes sales of capital assets. If the total exceeds £90,000, you must tell HMRC within 30 days of the end of that month, and your registration takes effect from the first day of the second month after it. A business crossing in March must notify by 30 April and is registered from 1 May.
The forward-looking test is separate: if at any point you expect taxable turnover in the next 30 days alone to exceed £90,000, for example because of a single large contract, you must register within those 30 days, and registration takes effect from the date the expectation arose.
What crossing the threshold means
From the effective date you must charge VAT on taxable sales, even if the VAT number has not yet arrived, keep digital records and file returns through Making Tax Digital software, usually quarterly. You can reclaim VAT on goods still held that were bought in the previous four years and on services received in the previous six months. The choice of scheme, standard, flat rate, cash accounting or annual accounting, is made at registration and affects what you pay; our registration service includes the recommendation.
What this tracker does not do
It uses the figures you type and cannot check whether they are taxable turnover correctly defined. It does not account for the deregistration rules in detail, VAT groups, or the different rules for businesses with no UK establishment, which must register from their first sale. The output is an estimate under the thresholds in force for 2026/27 and is not advice; see the advice disclaimer.
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