Musician Tax Return Guide 2026

Tax Return Guide for Self-Employed Musicians

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Do musicians pay tax?

Yes, they do. If you earn money from gigging, teaching, session work, composing or royalties, and nobody's putting you through PAYE for it, HMRC counts you as self-employed for that income. Doesn't matter if music is your full-time living or something you do on the side of another job – there's no earnings level below which you can just not bother telling HMRC.

This guide is aimed at musicians and music teachers, but it applies just as well to composers and other freelance creatives working the same way – actors, authors and entertainers follow pretty much the same rules.

How do you actually file taxes as a musician?

• Register with HMRC for Self Assessment as soon as you start earning self-employed money, and get yourself a Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) if you don't have one already.
• Keep hold of your records – fees, royalties, tips, every expense. Try to do this as you go along rather than trying to piece a whole year together in January.
• File online by 31 January, the deadline after the tax year ends (tax years run 6 April to 5 April), and pay whatever you owe by the same date.
• You're taxed on your profit, not your turnover – so income minus your allowable expenses.

Most self-employed musicians pay Income Tax on profit above the Personal Allowance (£12,570 for most people), plus Class 4 National Insurance on profit above the lower profits limit. Class 2 National Insurance isn't compulsory any more once you're above the small profits threshold, but if you're under it, you can choose to pay it voluntarily to keep your State Pension record going.

What if you've got income from more than one source?

Lots of musicians have a bit of everything going on in one year – gig fees, teaching, royalties, session work, maybe some merchandise sales too. It all goes on the same Self Assessment return as self-employment income (royalties can sometimes need separate treatment depending on how they reach you, so worth checking with your accountant if a collecting society pays you directly). You don't need separate returns for each type of income – just the one.

What can musicians actually claim on tax?

The rule HMRC works to is that you can deduct anything spent wholly and exclusively for your work as a musician. In practice that covers a lot of ground, so here's the full rundown, grouped by what it's for:

Instruments & performance costs

• Instrument purchase, hire, repair, tuning, and maintenance
• Strings, reeds, resin, and other consumable instrument parts
• Instrument insurance
• Sheet music, manuscript paper, and music reference books
• Rehearsal studio or venue hire
• Coaching and rehearsal costs for confirmed engagements
• Recording equipment and consumables (blank media, memory cards)
• Deputies and accompanists you pay for (not deputies covering an actual employment)

Travel and being away from home

• Car costs – either the real running costs (just the business-use share) or the flat mileage rate: 45p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles, 25p a mile after that
• Fares to gigs, auditions, festivals, music shops and libraries
• Hotels while you're on tour
• Meals: your full food costs when working abroad; just your evening meal on a UK tour, plus daytime meals you buy while travelling for work
• Travel insurance, visas and jabs needed for touring abroad

Wardrobe and appearance

• Hiring, cleaning and replacing your professional performance wear
• A specific costume the producer's asked for
• Hair, make-up and grooming, but only where it's specifically for a role or performance
• Contact lenses or glasses needed for the stage, as long as you've got an everyday pair as well

Home studio, equipment and admin

• A share of home costs if you've got a home studio, worked out by floor area – rent or mortgage interest, insurance, bills, repairs
• Computer, printer, software licences, web hosting
• Phone and internet, for the business portion
• Photocopying, stationery, postage
• Accountancy and bookkeeping fees
• Legal costs for sorting contracts
• Advertising, photos, business cards, promo material
• Agent's commission, and complimentary tickets you hand out
• Subscriptions to professional bodies
• Royalties you pay out, e.g. to PRS

Health costs, but only where they're purely for work

• Treatment you need specifically because of performing – physio or osteopathy, say – as long as there's no personal benefit as well
• Dental or throat treatment beyond what you'd need anyway, where it's directly down to the demands of performing

What can a music teacher claim?

If you teach privately, whether that's your whole income or you fit it in around performing, most of what's above still applies to you, plus a few things specific to teaching:

• Music you buy for pupils (as long as you don't hang on to it for more than two years)
• Exam fees and prizes for private pupils
• Travel to pupils' homes or wherever you teach
• Marketing to build up your teaching work
• The same home-studio cost-splitting if you teach from home

If you're on PAYE for some teaching – say, employed by a school – and self-employed for your own private pupils, it's only the self-employed side that goes on your Self Assessment return. The PAYE bit is already sorted by your employer.

What about bigger purchases – instruments, computers, that sort of thing?

Anything that'll last you more than a couple of years – an instrument, a computer, recording gear, office furniture, a car or van – gets treated a bit differently to a normal expense. This is where capital allowances come in.

• Annual Investment Allowance: lets you deduct the full cost, up to £1 million a year, in the year you buy it. This covers instruments, computers and recording equipment – basically most things other than a car. For most musicians, that means a new bit of kit can be written off in full straight away.
• Cars are different: they can't go through the AIA. Instead they sit in a pool and you claim a percentage each year based on CO2 emissions – 18% for lower-emission cars in 2025/26 (dropping to 14% from April 2026), 6% for higher-emission cars, or 100% in year one for a brand new zero-emission car.
• You can even claim for kit you already owned before you went self-employed, based on what it was worth when you started using it for work – even if you bought it years back.

Making Tax Digital – what's changing

If your gross self-employed income – before you take off any expenses – goes over certain amounts, HMRC will want digital records and quarterly updates instead of one return a year:

• From April 2026: kicks in above £50,000
• From April 2027: drops to £30,000
• From April 2028: drops again, to £20,000

If your income comes from a few different places – gigs, teaching, royalties – it's worth adding it all up now and checking against these figures, since it's your gross income that counts, not just what you're left with after expenses.

A rough worked example

• Performance fees, teaching income and royalties: £24,000
• Instrument upkeep, travel, wardrobe, studio costs: £5,200
• New laptop and recording interface, claimed in full: £1,800
• Taxable profit: £24,000 − £5,200 − £1,800 = £17,000
• Take off the Personal Allowance (£12,570): £4,430 left to tax
• Income Tax at 20%: £886
• Plus Class 4 National Insurance on top

Just a rough guide – your own figures will depend on what you earn, what you spend, and your own circumstances.