People earning extra money from wedding businesses or other side hustles are being reminded to check whether they need to register for Self Assessment as the busy summer wedding season gets underway.
HM Revenue and Customs is urging anyone making more than £1,000 a year from additional income to check their tax responsibilities, warning that many people may not realise the threshold applies to all side hustle earnings combined.
The reminder comes as growing numbers of people turn hobbies and specialist skills into successful businesses, from wedding photography and videography to cake making, stationery design, content creation and handmade gifts.
HMRC says anyone whose combined side hustle income exceeds £1,000 during a tax year may need to register for Self Assessment and declare that income.
The tax free trading allowance covers all additional trading income rather than each individual activity, meaning someone earning £600 from wedding photography and £500 from social media content, for example, would exceed the threshold.
Kevin Hubbard, HMRC’s Director of Small Business and Individuals, said:
“For many people, a side hustle is a valuable source of extra income.
“If you’re earning more than £1,000 a year from your side hustle it’s important to understand your tax responsibilities, and HMRC wants to make that as straightforward as possible.
“You can check if you need to do a Self Assessment tax return by using the tool on GOV.UK.
“It takes minutes to use, tells you exactly what you need to do and means no unexpected tax bills later.”
Not all extra income needs to be declared.
HMRC says selling unwanted personal possessions, such as clearing out clothes or household items, will not normally create a tax liability, while regularly selling goods for profit or providing paid services is likely to count as trading.
Anyone registering for Self Assessment for the first time for the 2025 to 2026 tax year must do so by 5 October 2026, with online tax returns and any tax due needing to be submitted by 31 January 2027.
Among those encouraging others to understand their obligations is wedding content creator Lianna Dickson, who launched her business after her own wedding and quickly found demand growing.
After almost 50 wedding bookings in her first year, she realised her income had exceeded the trading allowance and registered for Self Assessment.
She said:
“As soon as I started booking in a number of weddings I knew this was going to be a decent amount of extra money.
“I read a lot of information on GOV.UK and HMRC’s website.
“Once I realised my income was over the £1,000 trading allowance, I knew I’d need to complete a Self Assessment tax return.
“Everything online was super easy to understand.”
She added that keeping accurate records throughout the year made completing her tax return much easier than she had expected.
Lianna explains how her side hustle started on YouTube
HMRC is encouraging anyone in a similar position, whether filming weddings, photographing events, baking celebration cakes or selling handmade goods to use the Tax Help for Hustles guide or the free online HMRC tool to check whether they need to register.
