short term, casual work. should i register as self employed?

johannis

Good Morning. having taken redundancy at the end of last year i'm currently looking for work, but have been offered some casual work by a friend. Its a few days, at most £200-300. I don't expect to be doing this kind of thing regularly but until i've secured full time work it is possible that i'll pick up extra bits here and there. I realise that there is a £1000 threshold for declaring to HMRC.

Am I best registering as self employed now or waiting until i've passed the £1000 threshold?

I've trawled the HMRC site but i can't find much to cover casual work?

thanks for your time

EnPointe

are you actually going to be self employed ? i.e. meet that tests of Self Employment or are you going to be a casual employee of said friend and should be set up as a 'worker' or employee on their systems ?

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6658734/short-term-casual-work-should-i-register-as-self-employed

These days you have a long time to register, you need to do so by the 5th of October after the first financial year you are self employed with over £1k of revenue (not profit). So if you started today and hit 1k before the end of the month then it would be October this year, if you dont hit £1k this month but do hit £1k from Apr 2026 to Apr 2027 then you'd have to do it by Oct 2027.

Personally wouldnt leave it to the last minute as people have a tendency to forget whereas if you register when you know you have to then you will be reminded to do your self assessment.