Tax for eBay sellers, and how to import your eBay sales

Are you trading?

Selling your own unwanted things is not trading, and there is normally no Income Tax on it. Buying items to sell at a profit, or making things to sell, usually is. HMRC looks at the pattern: how often you sell, whether you bought the items in order to resell them, and whether you improve them first.

If your trading income is £1,000 or less in a tax year, the trading allowance covers it and you don’t need to tell HMRC. Above that you register for Self Assessment and report your profit. Trading income here means sales before costs, so a seller with £1,400 of sales and £900 of stock costs is over the line.

What eBay tells HMRC

Since 1 January 2024, eBay sends HMRC details of sellers who make 30 or more sales, or about £1,700 or more of sales, in a calendar year. You get a copy. The report shows your gross sales, so HMRC already knows the top line. What it doesn’t know is what you paid for your stock, which is why your own records matter.

The figures that count

• Sales: what buyers paid you, including the postage they paid. Tax that eBay collects from overseas buyers isn’t yours and stays out.
• Refunds: these reduce your sales.
• eBay fees: anything eBay keeps, such as final value fees, the international fee, insertion fees and promoted listings, is an allowable expense.
• Postage you pay for, including labels bought through eBay.
• Cost of stock: what you paid for the items you sell. For most resellers it’s the biggest expense by far, and it’s the one most often left out.

Payouts to your bank are not income. They’re the same money as the sales, less fees, moving to your account. Counting both would tax you twice.

Making Tax Digital

MTD for Income Tax applies once your qualifying income is over £50,000 from April 2026, £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. Qualifying income is your gross sales plus any rental income, before costs. Below the thresholds you can still keep your records in MTD software and file your tax return from it. The self-employed guide has the details.

Importing your eBay transaction report

1. In eBay Seller Hub, open Payments, then Reports, and create a transaction report for the dates you want.
2. Download it as CSV.
3. In Quarterwise, open Imports and upload the file as it is.
4. Choose your self-employment business, check the preview, and confirm.

Quarterwise recognises the eBay report and reads it like this:

• Each order becomes a sale at the amount the buyer paid, with what eBay kept recorded beside it as a fee.
• Orders with several items count once, described by the items in them.
• Refunds reduce your sales. Fees eBay gives back on a refund reduce your fees.
• Insertion fees, promoted listings and postage labels come in as expenses.
• Holds and payouts are left out, because no money was earned or spent.

Upload the same report again later, or one that overlaps it, and orders already imported are skipped.

Adding what you paid for your stock

eBay’s report doesn’t know what your stock cost you. If you keep a note of what you paid for each item, add a column to the report called Item cost before uploading, and fill it in on each item’s row. Quarterwise records each figure as cost of goods on the date of the sale.

The other way is to record your stock purchases as you make them, in Quarterwise or in a spreadsheet you import. That’s the stricter reading of the cash basis, which most sole traders use, where stock counts when you pay for it. Pick one method, not both, or the same stock gets counted twice.

Common questions

Last updated 3 November 2026. Quarterwise is software, not a tax adviser — if you’re unsure how the rules apply to you, check with HMRC or a qualified accountant.