Total gross income — callouts + jobs (before van, tool, materials costs)
£
Any other self-employment or rental income
£
Use your gross figure — callout fees and job fees both count, before any expenses are deducted.
If you're a self-employed electrician, plumber, or heating engineer running your own business — answering callouts, fitting jobs, and emergency work alongside scheduled installs — MTD applies to your gross trading income the same way it does to any sole trader. A couple of things in this trade are worth clarifying specifically.
Your MTD Threshold
Tax Year Assessed
Threshold
MTD Start Date
2024–25
Over £50,000
6 April 2026 — mandatory now
2025–26
Over £30,000
6 April 2027
2026–27
Over £20,000
6 April 2028
Callout Fees and Emergency Work
If you charge a callout fee on top of your labour and parts charge — common for emergency or out-of-hours plumbing and electrical work — there is no special tax treatment for the callout portion. It is simply part of your total invoice for that job, and the whole amount counts towards your gross qualifying income.
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No separate emergency-work category exists in MTD reporting. Whether a job came in as a scheduled boiler service or a 2am burst pipe emergency, it all goes into the same self-employment income category in your quarterly update. The only thing that matters for MTD is the total gross amount invoiced or received across all your work.
Vans and Tools — Capital Allowances
A work van is typically your largest single business asset, and the way it's claimed is worth understanding clearly under MTD's digital tracking:
Purchase cost: usually claimed through the Annual Investment Allowance, letting you deduct the full purchase cost in the year you buy it, up to the annual AIA limit
Running costs: fuel, insurance, servicing, and repairs are claimed as ongoing allowable expenses each quarter, not as a one-off capital claim
Tools and testing equipment: larger purchases (multimeters, pipe-fitting equipment, power tools) generally follow the same capital allowances approach as the van; smaller consumables are claimed as standard expenses
None of this changes fundamentally under MTD — the allowances and rules are the same as under Self Assessment. The difference is that your MTD software needs this categorised correctly throughout the year rather than totted up once annually, so getting your software set up with the right expense categories from day one saves real time later.
Professional Registration Costs
Registration and accreditation fees required to legally practise your trade are fully allowable business expenses:
Trade
Typical Registration
Allowable?
Gas engineers
Gas Safe Register
Yes — fully allowable
Electricians
NICEIC, NAPIT, or similar
Yes — fully allowable
Plumbers (non-gas)
WaterSafe, trade body membership
Yes — fully allowable
All trades
Public liability insurance
Yes — fully allowable
Working Through an Agency or Booking Platform
If you take jobs through a trade booking platform or agency alongside your own direct client work, this matters for MTD in one specific way: your employment status with that platform determines whether the income counts.
If you are genuinely self-employed through the platform (you set your own prices, choose your own jobs, bear financial risk) — that income counts towards your MTD threshold, combined with your direct work
If the platform arrangement is actually closer to employment with PAYE deductions — that portion is excluded from MTD entirely, the same as any other PAYE income
Most trade booking platforms (Checkatrade-style lead generation, for example) operate on a genuinely self-employed basis where you simply pay for leads or a membership fee — in that case all the resulting job income is yours and counts in full.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. A callout fee and the job fee you charge on top are both part of your gross income from that job, and both count towards your MTD qualifying income. There is no separate treatment for callout charges versus labour charges — it is all gross self-employment income.
Yes. A van used for your trade is typically claimed through capital allowances, most commonly the Annual Investment Allowance, which lets you deduct the full cost in the year of purchase up to the annual limit. Running costs — fuel, insurance, servicing — are claimed as ongoing allowable expenses. This works the same way under MTD as it did under Self Assessment, just tracked digitally.
You need to record every invoice or payment received, including emergency callouts, but your MTD software does not require a separate category specifically for emergency work. Each job is simply logged as self-employment income, the same as any scheduled job.
Yes. Professional registration and accreditation fees that are required to legally carry out your trade — Gas Safe registration for gas engineers, NICEIC or similar for electricians — are allowable business expenses, claimed in the same way under MTD as previously.
If you are genuinely self-employed for both types of work, all the income combines towards your single MTD qualifying income threshold regardless of whether it comes via an agency or directly from clients. If agency work is actually employment (PAYE), that portion is excluded from MTD entirely — check your employment status carefully, as agency arrangements vary.
Check Your Full MTD Position
Our free calculator checks your exact threshold, gives you your deadlines, and recommends mobile-friendly software for tracking jobs between callouts.