TITLE: Ecommerce Tax and VAT Deadlines: Week Commencing 5 October 2026
For the week commencing 5 October 2026, your priority is deadline control. UK sellers must address Self Assessment registration and VAT filing immediately, while Amazon sellers need to model Q4 fulfilment costs before festive fees begin. Cross-border businesses should also review US, EU, Canadian and Australian filing obligations.
1. Register today to avoid a personal tax compliance failure
Complete Self Assessment registration by 5 October 2026 if you need to file a 2025/26 return and have not registered before.
This may apply to:
- Company directors with untaxed income outside the company.
- Individuals receiving dividends, side-business income or other taxable income.
- Online sellers whose gross trading income exceeded £1,000 during 2025/26.
The £1,000 test uses gross income before stock, advertising, postage, platform fees and other costs. The obligation belongs to you personally, not automatically to your Limited Company.
Do not confuse company accounting with personal tax reporting. Keep company transactions separate from any sole-trader activity. This will reduce the risk of omitted income and help you prepare an accurate return later.
Read the latest guidance through HMRC’s Self Assessment service.
2. File your UK VAT return before the 7 October deadline
A UK VAT return for the quarter ending 31 August 2026 is due by 7 October 2026. You must submit the return and ensure cleared payment reaches HMRC by the same date.
The return must be filed through Making Tax Digital-compatible software. Before submission, complete this ecommerce reconciliation checklist:
- Match Amazon settlement reports to your bookkeeping records.
- Reconcile Shopify payouts against individual orders.
- Separate gross sales, refunds, chargebacks, discounts and payment fees.
- Review marketplace-collected VAT and prevent double counting.
- Confirm the customer’s location and VAT treatment.
- Check stock location and fulfilment country, particularly for FBA inventory.
- Investigate differences between order date, dispatch date and payout date.
- Post credit notes and refunds in the correct VAT period.
- Reconcile foreign currency settlements using consistent exchange-rate records.
The UK VAT registration threshold remains £90,000 of rolling 12-month taxable turnover, with the 30-day forward-look test also applying. The deregistration threshold remains £88,000.
Good ecommerce bookkeeping UK processes are essential here. A payout is not the same as a sale, and a settlement report is not a VAT return.
3. Prepare now for the next MTD expansion
HMRC announced today that Making Tax Digital for Income Tax will extend to sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £30,000 from 6 April 2027. This will bring approximately 1,077,000 more people into the system.
Sign-up is open now. Affected individuals will need to:
- Keep digital records.
- Use HMRC-recognised software.
- Send quarterly updates.
- Include gross self-employment and property income before allowances.
The threshold will reduce again to £20,000 from April 2028. Individuals with qualifying income above £50,000 have already entered the system, and their second quarterly update is due 7 November 2026.
Limited companies are not within MTD for Income Tax. However, if a company director also sells personally as a sole trader, those records must remain separate. Early preparation will make future quarterly reporting less disruptive.
4. Protect Q4 Amazon margins before peak fees start
Amazon’s festive peak fulfilment fee begins 15 October 2026 and runs until 14 January 2027. For eligible UK FBA orders, the average surcharge is approximately:
- £0.12 per small or standard parcel item.
- £0.07 per large or extra-large envelope item.
The charge applies to local UK FBA and Remote Fulfilment from the EU to the UK. Oversize, Low-Price FBA and apparel products are excluded. The 1.5% fuel and logistics surcharge continues to apply year-round, while storage fees for many categories roughly double from October to December.
Key Q4 dates include:
- 15 October: festive peak fee begins.
- 28 October: recommended UK inventory arrival for Black Friday Week.
- 18 November: Black Friday Week deal submissions close.
- 14 January 2027: peak fee ends.
Use Amazon’s Revenue Calculator and FBA Fee Preview report to model:
- Referral fees.
- Standard and peak FBA fees.
- Fuel surcharge.
- Storage and removal costs.
- Promotion fees.
- VAT.
- Settlement timing.
Promotion fees include £12 upfront per promotion plus 0.75% of promotional sales, with the variable element capped at £600.
A profitable sales forecast is not enough. Your Amazon FBA accounting UK model must include settlement deductions, fulfilment charges, storage and promotional costs. Otherwise, your forecast may show sales growth while cash margins deteriorate.
5. Fix Amazon FBM delivery performance before 30 October
From 30 September 2026, Amazon.co.uk FBM sellers must maintain a 90% business-hour delivery rate for Amazon Business customers. From 30 October, Amazon may deactivate listings for business customers where the rate is not met.
Review:
- Promised handling time versus actual dispatch time.
- Carrier performance by SKU.
- Inventory accuracy.
- Business-hour data in Seller Central.
- At-risk SKUs.
- Commercial-address delivery handling.
Check whether Automated Handling Time is active. It may apply where configured handling time differs from actual performance or has been exceeded for more than 30 days.
Correcting the data now can protect listings during the highest-value selling period.
6. Record UK EPR charges accurately
Amazon’s UK EPR Pay on Behalf service fee is now charged directly to the selling account within 30 days of enrolment for each reporting period. It is no longer taken from an account-level reserve.
Amazon invoices the following separately:
- The annual service fee, currently £20 per applicable category.
- The eco-contribution fee.
Sellers with a valid packaging registration number are not charged the service fee. Post the eco-contribution and service fee to separate accounts in your bookkeeping. This gives you a clearer view of regulatory costs and supports accurate expense reporting.
7. Keep VAT records while HMRC reviews marketplace rules
HMRC’s marketplace VAT consultation closed on 18 August 2026. There is no law change yet, so do not treat the consultation as legislation.
Continue retaining records of:
- Sales and refunds.
- Customer type.
- VAT treatment.
- Stock location.
- Marketplace and direct sales.
- Dispatch and delivery dates.
- VAT collected by the marketplace.
