Written for owners of UK cleaning businesses: contract cleaners for offices, schools, healthcare and soft FM subcontracts, domestic cleaning firms, agencies and apps, and specialists in after-builders, end-of-tenancy, window, carpet and biohazard cleaning.
The short version
- Register for CIS before the first builders' clean.Builders' cleans fall under CIS. Keep receipts: only materials you paid for on that job, and can prove, reduce the deduction.
- Invoice without VAT when the reverse charge applies.It applies when the clean falls under CIS, you are both VAT registered, and the builder is not an end user or intermediary supplier.
- Check the Flat Rate Scheme before you join.Labour-only cleaners buy few goods, so the higher limited cost rate usually applies, and they usually pay more VAT, not less. Ask an accountant.
A builders' or sparkle clean for a main contractor sits inside the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS), even though routine cleaning does not: the contractor must verify you with HMRC and, unless you hold gross payment status, deduct tax from what it pays you.
Builders' cleans are construction operations
Internal cleaning of buildings in the course of their construction, alteration, repair, extension or restoration is a construction operation for CIS; routine office or home cleaning is not. The contractor applies the deduction HMRC verifies: 20% if you are registered for net payment, 30% if HMRC cannot verify you, and nothing if you hold gross payment status. As of Oct 2026.
Finance Act 2004 s.74(2)(d)
- Register before the first job.Register with HMRC as a CIS subcontractor before your first builders' clean, or the 30% rate applies. As of Oct 2026.
- Know what the deduction is taken from.The payment excluding VAT, less the allowable materials cost you can substantiate as actually paid for that contract. A line labelled "materials" or "non-labour" is not automatically deductible, and marked-up invoice values do not count.
- Aim for gross payment status as you grow.It needs the business, turnover and compliance tests: for a sole trader, at least £30,000 of construction turnover, net of VAT and materials, in the 12 months before applying, with returns and payments made on time. As of Oct 2026.
- Paying subcontract cleaners on the job makes you a contractor too.Register as a contractor, verify each one, deduct, give them statements, file the monthly return by the 19th, and pay by the 22nd electronically or by the 19th otherwise.
| Paid to you, registered for net payment | £3,700 |
| CIS deducted by the contractor: 20% x (£4,500 less £500 materials) | £800 |
| Your invoice, excluding VAT | £4,500 |
| Paid to you if HMRC cannot verify you | £3,300 |
£4,500 less 30% x £4,000 (£1,200)The £500 is assumed to be substantiated materials cost actually paid for this contract. If the reverse charge applies, the invoice states VAT of £900 for the customer to account for, and you do not collect it.
Only substantiated, allowable materials cost actually paid for the contract comes off the deduction base. A label on the invoice does not.
The invoice: the domestic reverse charge
When you invoice without VAT
If the clean is reportable under CIS, you and the customer are both VAT registered, and the customer is not an end user or an intermediary supplier, invoice without VAT and state "reverse charge: customer to account for the VAT". An end user is a VAT and CIS registered business that does not supply construction services on to anyone else, such as a developer that sells or lets the finished building; a builder that bills the work on to its own client is not one. An intermediary supplier is connected to an end user, such as its landlord or a company in the same group, and passes the work on to it without materially changing it. Either is treated as outside the reverse charge only once it has told you so in writing; without that, the reverse charge applies. It does not apply to a homeowner either. It has applied since 1 March 2021. As of Oct 2026.
VAT Act 1994 s.55A; SI 2019/892
The Construction Act applies too
Because a builders' clean is a construction operation, payment notices, pay less notices, suspension and adjudication are available, and a pay-when-paid clause is ineffective unless a party up the chain is insolvent. A homeowner who engages you directly for their own home is outside it.
Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 ss.105(1)(d), 106 and 113
Why the Flat Rate Scheme rarely suits a cleaning firm
Cleaning is standard-rated at 20% for households and businesses alike; there is no reduced rate. On the Flat Rate Scheme, cleaning falls under "business services not listed elsewhere" at 12%, but a labour-only firm buys few goods, so the limited cost business rate of 16.5% usually applies. That is when relevant goods are under 2% of VAT-inclusive turnover, or under £1,000 a year. As of Oct 2026.
| VAT under normal accounting: £12,000 output less £1,500 input | £10,500 |
| Extra cost of the Flat Rate Scheme | £1,380 |
| Flat Rate Scheme: 16.5% x £72,000 (£60,000 plus VAT) | £11,880 |
Ask an accountant before joining or leaving the scheme.
Tax figures here were rechecked against Budget 2026 (28 October 2026). As of Oct 2026.
Asked in Greymill
The deduction:
£4,500 less £500 materials = £4,000
CIS at 20% (As of Oct 2026) x £4,000 = £800 taken off
Paid to you: £3,700
Why £2,000 fails: only materials you actually paid for on this job, and can prove, come off. Calling a line "materials" does not make it deductible, and marked-up figures do not count.
Watch the VAT too: if the builder is VAT registered and is not an end user or an intermediary supplier, invoice without VAT and write "reverse charge: customer to account for the VAT". The builder then accounts for the £900 of VAT (As of Oct 2026), not you.
Happy to draft the invoice wording now.
Ask it about your own business
Paste this into Greymill with your own figures, and Tax & Bookkeeping works it through for your business.
I run a cleaning business in the UK. A main contractor, [name], wants an after-builders clean for [price ex VAT], with about [amount] of materials I can show receipts for. I am [registered for CIS or not] and [VAT registered or not], and they say they are [an end user, not an end user, or not sure]. Tell me what CIS they should deduct, whether the reverse charge applies, and draft the invoice wording. Then check whether the Flat Rate Scheme is costing me money on sales of [annual sales] with [goods bought a year].
More for cleaning and facilities in the UK
- Pricing a cleaning contract that still pays after holidays, on-costs and next April's riseBuild a contract cleaning price up from the specification, so holiday weeks, employer costs, supervision, margin and next year's wage rise are paid for rather than absorbed.Read the lesson
- Paying cleaners every week while clients take 45 days to payWhy a growing contract cleaner runs short of cash, how much working capital the wage gap needs, and the forecast, payment terms and funding that close it.Read the lesson
- The safety, waste and key rules that apply on every cleaning siteThere is no licence to clean in the UK, but chemicals, work at height, sharps, asbestos, waste and keys all carry rules, and an accident or a lost key is when you find out whether you followed them.Read the lesson
- Winning or losing a contract when the cleaners come with itWhen a cleaning contract changes hands, TUPE usually moves the cleaners with it on their existing terms and history, so your bid, your timetable and the contract all have to allow for them.Read the lesson
- Paying cleaners for every minute the minimum wage countsTravel between houses, unpaid set-up minutes, uniform deductions and the wrong kind of holiday pay are how cleaning firms underpay without meaning to.Read the lesson
- Bidding for school, council and NHS cleaning when the tender is scored, not just pricedPublic and facilities work is won on a scored tender: registration on the Central Digital Platform, social value you can prove, the standards buyers check and an answer library kept ready.Read the lesson
- HMRC says VAT is due on the whole fee, and a cleaner says she was a workerA domestic cleaning agency or app that sets the price, takes the money and promises the clean is usually the principal and often the employer, whatever the paperwork says, and the VAT and pay bills follow.Read the lesson
Open the interactive lesson · Every cleaning and facilities lesson · What Greymill knows about the trade
Sources
The primary sources behind this lesson, checked Oct 2026.
- www.legislation.gov.uk (After-builders cleans: CIS, the construction act and the reverse charge)
- CIS 340 (After-builders cleans: CIS, the construction act and the reverse charge)
- s.64 and Sch 11 (After-builders cleans: CIS, the construction act and the reverse charge)
- s.105(1)(d); ss.106, 113 (After-builders cleans: CIS, the construction act and the reverse charge)
- reg 15 (After-builders cleans: CIS, the construction act and the reverse charge)
- FA 2004 s.61; CISR15060, deductions for materials and allowable costs (After-builders cleans: CIS, the construction act and the reverse charge)
- s.2 (VAT and tax points)
- FRS7200 A to Z by trade (VAT and tax points)
- Limited cost business (VAT and tax points)
- ITEPA s.230(2) table as substituted for 2026-27 by Taxation (Energy and Vehicles) Act 2026 s.2 (VAT and tax points)
- s.155 (VAT and tax points)
- Who needs to sign up (VAT and tax points)
- Uber [2021] UKSC 5; Autoclenz [2011] UKSC 41 (Hard cases: pay, tax, domestic and site)
- regs 30(b), 36, 39(1) (Hard cases: pay, tax, domestic and site)
- reg 16A (Hard cases: pay, tax, domestic and site)
- regs 4(2), 9(b) (Hard cases: pay, tax, domestic and site)
- WAHR 2005; RIDDOR reg 4 (Hard cases: pay, tax, domestic and site)
- Civil penalties (Hard cases: pay, tax, domestic and site)
- Rynda (UK) Ltd v Rhijnsburger [2015] EWCA Civ 75 (Pitfalls that embarrass the product)
- reg 18 (Pitfalls that embarrass the product)
- reg 2 (definition of work at height) (Pitfalls that embarrass the product)
- s.3 (Pitfalls that embarrass the product)
- Gangmasters Licensing (Exclusions) Regulations 2013 Sch Part 1 para 3 (Pitfalls that embarrass the product)