As an artist or artworker, you might do a mix of the following kinds of things:
- Get paid for a service you provide – e.g. running or assisting at a creative workshop, giving a presentation, doing online content creation, curating an exhibition or event, initiating or managing creative projects, setting up online art courses
- Make items that you hope to sell for a profit – e.g. artworks, merch, books, other physical or digital items
- Sell items on a regular basis – e.g. online, face-to-face, through galleries or shops
- Take paid commissions for artworks or other products – e.g. making art for a specific customer, exhibition, organisation or project
- Charging other people for using your equipment or tools – e.g. hire out camera, sound, projection or lighting equipment you own to people you know (or to strangers)
- Run a business where you work for yourself at your own pace – e.g. designing and selling print-on-demand t-shirt designs
If you have earned (or are likely to earn) £1,000 or more in income from any mix of sales or trading (like the examples above) in a single tax year (e.g. 6th April 2024 – 5th April 2025), you MUST to register with HMRC as Self-Employed.
If you’re not sure what counts as self-employment (and what doesn’t), here’s a set of questions that might help define and make sense of it all!
LINK: Am I Self Employed (slides) – Rachel Dobbs
But being an artist (or artworker) isn’t my main job?
Being self-employed doesn’t always mean that the work you do as an artist is your “main job”. You can be both employed and self-employed at the same time – for example you may have a job in a pub where you are paid hourly (employed via PAYE) AND get paid to run workshops with a local organisation (self-employed).
The vast majority of artists and artworkers have a range of different streams of income – e.g. a mix of some employed work, and different one-off or regular creative ‘gigs’.
- Check whether the work you are considering doing for an organisation or individual should be considered as employed or self-employed with HMRC’S Check Employment Status for Tax tool
What if I do lots of different things? It’s not really a “business”…
If there are major differences between the types of work you do that count as being “Self-Employed” – for example, sometimes you get paid to do specialist plumbing work and at other times you are selling artworks online – you’ll need to register each of these as separate self-employed trades with HMRC. You can add extra trades once you have set up your initial account and registration.
Is being self- employed the only option as an artist or artworker?
Being self-employed isn’t the only way in which you can choose to work for yourself. Sometimes, being a “sole trader” (ie working on your own) also isn’t always the most logical way to be legally setup – for example if you work in a long-term creative collaboration where you work with one or more people who share money and resources.
You can also choose to work for yourself by doing any of the following:
- Setup a Limited Company or a CIC (Community Interest Company)
- Setup a Business Partnership (when working over the long-term with one or more other people)
Just like being able to be both employed and self-employed at the same time, you can also be employed and/or self-employed, AND part of one or more business partnerships, AND be a director of one or more Limited Companies or CICs.
Just bear in mind that you will need to process paperwork for each of these ‘legal entities’ every year (tax returns and accounts), and be mindful about keeping clear (and seperate) records about which streams of income and expenditure are attached to each form of employment, self-employment, company or partnership.
What if I’m likely to have less than £1,000 in income from Self-Employed work during the tax year?
If you have earned (or are likely to earn) less than £1,000 in income from any mix of sales or trading (like the examples at the top of this post) in a single tax year (e.g. 6th April 2024 – 5th April 2025), you don’t need to register with HMRC as Self-Employed or complete a yearly Tax Return.
There may still be circumstances where you choose to complete a tax return even if your income is £1,000 or less:
- you’ve made a loss (ie spent out more in Allowable Expenses than the income you have received) and want to claim relief on a tax return in future (if you carry on the same trade/type of work)
- you want to pay voluntary Class 2 National Insurance contributions to help qualify for State Pension & some benefits
- you want to claim Tax Free Childcare for childcare costs based on your self employment income
- you want to claim Maternity Allowance, based on your self-employment
You can find out more about these circumstances on the HRMC site via the link below
How to register as Self-Employed – setting up as a sole trader
HMRC have an easy step-by-step process to register as Self-Employed here
If you’re not sure what counts as self-employment (and what doesn’t), here’s a set of questions that might help define and make sense of it all!
LINK: Am I Self Employed (slides) – Rachel Dobbs
If you find these resources useful, let me know via Instagram – @RachelDobbs1. All of the resources I produce are available to download for FREE, but if you’d like to contribute to my future projects, say thank you or just do something nice for a fellow creative practitioner, feel free to donate by clicking the button below…