The VAT reverse charge on construction workNew
When you charge no VAT at all, what the invoice has to say, and the two questions only your customer can answer.
Written 6 October 2026
What is said in this recording
Since March 2021 most construction work between two VAT-registered businesses is invoiced with no VAT on it. The customer accounts for the VAT to HMRC instead. It travels with CIS — nearly every business that deducts CIS is in scope for this too — and getting it wrong on either side causes real trouble.
Step by step
- 1
Answer the two questions on the contractor’s customer record.
Are they VAT-registered, and have they confirmed in writing that they are the end user? Both appear once you have set a CIS rate against them.
- 2
Raise the invoice as normal.
If the charge applies, no VAT is added, the total is the net figure, and the invoice states the VAT the customer must account for without including it in what they owe you.
Worth knowing
The charge applies by default — a declaration is what stops it
Once the other conditions are met, HMRC treats the reverse charge as applying unless the customer has told you in writing that they are an end user. Being told nothing entitles you to assume it applies. So an empty declaration box is an answer, not a gap.
VAT registration is the one we do ask about
The charge only runs between two VAT-registered businesses, and nothing decides that for you, so until you say, the invoice charges VAT exactly as it did before.
What an end user is
Somebody having the work done for themselves rather than supplying construction services on — a developer building to let, for instance. The charge does not apply to them, but only once they have said so in writing. The notice can be a letter, an email, or a clause in the contract.
What is not covered here
Connected businesses and intermediary suppliers are treated as end users and are left to you, because deciding them needs facts about the group structure that TaskMyJob does not hold. Record the customer as an end user if either applies.
Zero-rated work is outside it
Most new-build housing is zero-rated and keeps billing exactly as it does now.
One invoice, one VAT rate — split mixed work into two
TaskMyJob carries a single VAT rate on an invoice, and the reverse charge follows it across the whole document. So a month that mixes zero-rated new-build work with standard-rated work has to go out as two invoices, one at each rate. There is no way to put both on one here, and because no individual line carries a rate of its own, nothing can warn you that you tried — which is why it says so beside the VAT box on every contractor's invoice and quote. If you are not sure where the line between the two falls on a particular site, that is a question for your accountant rather than for the software.