The Best CIS Accounting App for
UK Subcontractors
Construction subcontractors lose 20% to 30% of their labour pay at source under CIS, and most are owed a refund. Here is an honest look at the apps that get it back, and how MTD changes things from 2026.
Estimate your self-employed tax in seconds
See what you would owe for the year, then file the real figures with TapTax in a couple of taps.
Total turnover before expenses
Under £1,000 we use the trading allowance automatically
Estimated tax bill
£6,872
15.3% effective rate for 2026/27
- Income tax
- £5,286
- Class 4 NI
- £1,586
Take-home pay
£32,128
after tax, NI and expenses
This is an estimate using HMRC-confirmed rates for 2026/27, not your official tax calculation. TapTax is MTD-compatible, so you can connect to HMRC and file the real figures in a couple of taps.
CIS makes construction one of the few trades where the tax system takes its cut before you even see the money. Every time a contractor pays you, they hold back 20% of your labour (30% if you are not registered) and send it to HMRC. By the time your Self Assessment is worked out, you have usually overpaid, and you are owed a refund. The right app is the one that captures every deduction and every allowable expense so that refund is as large, and as easy to claim, as it should be.
- Subcontractors lose 20% (registered) or 30% (unregistered) of labour pay to CIS at source, and most are owed a Self Assessment refund.
- Pie files Self Assessment free, though it did not appear on the HMRC MTD directory at our 9 August 2026 scrape, with paid one-off add-ons for checks and done-for-you returns.
- Kletta is listed on the HMRC MTD software directory and graded ready on the CIS return item; self-serve software is £19 to £29/mo, and the £49 Care tier is the one that adds a human UK bookkeeper.
- TapTax is low-cost freemium (£0/£4.99/£9.99) with open-banking import, AI categorisation, receipt scanning and mileage, and is MTD-ready (recognition pending).
- MTD for Income Tax starts April 2026 above £50,000 gross, so CIS subcontractors near that line must go digital and quarterly.
Which MTD products can actually file CIS
This matters more than any feature list, because the Construction Industry Scheme is one of the 16 tax-return items HMRC grades separately on its software directory. A product that cannot complete the CIS item can still file your quarterly updates, but it is not graded able to put your CIS deductions on your return, which is how a subcontractor gets the refund.
We scraped all 127 listings on 9 August 2026. Most cannot:
89of 127 (70%)cannot complete a single tax-return itemHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 9 August 2026Narrow that to the row a subcontractor actually needs and the field gets smaller again. Only 27 of 127 (21%) of the directory are graded ready on the Construction Industry Scheme item. So roughly four in five products on HMRC's own list cannot put your CIS deductions on your return today, however good their bookkeeping is.
27of 127 (21%)can complete the Construction Industry Scheme return itemHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 9 August 2026Here are products graded ready on the Construction Industry Scheme item, with their free-version and mobile status alongside:
| Product | Free | Construction Industry Scheme | Sole trader | UK property | Mobile app | Return items |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clear Books Free | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Android; Apple iOS | 15/16 |
| FreeAgent | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Android; Apple iOS | 15/16 |
| QuickBooks (Intuit) | Not included | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Android; Apple iOS | 15/16 |
| RentalBux Free | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Android; Apple iOS | 15/16 |
| TaxHeaven | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Not listed | 15/16 |
| My Tax Digital (Free) | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Not listed | 15/16 |
| untied | Not included | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Android; Apple iOS | 15/16 |
| Kletta | Not included | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Android; Apple iOS | 15/16 |
| MTD 4 Income Tax | Not included | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Android; Apple iOS | 16/16 |
| Self Assessment Direct | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Android; Apple iOS | 9/16 |
| VitalTax | Not included | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Android; Apple iOS | 9/16 |
| Forbes MTD | Not included | Ready now | Ready now | Ready now | Android | 15/16 |
HMRC lists what each vendor declares. Feature flags, mobile-app support in particular, are vendor claims rather than verified facts, and listings change. Check with the vendor before you buy. Data: HMRC find-MTD-software service (tax.service.gov.uk), scraped 9 August 2026.
Read that grid before you read any recommendation, including ours. If you are a CIS subcontractor and the product you are considering is not graded ready on the CIS row, you will need something else to finish the year.
TapTax's position stated plainly: CIS is on the roadmap and is not live yet, so TapTax is not in the grid above. TapTax is MTD-compatible and going through HMRC's recognition process, and it is strong on the quarterly cycle, open banking import, AI categorisation, receipts and mileage. For the CIS return item today, choose from the products graded ready on it.
You can filter the full list yourself in the MTD software directory, and the complete analysis is in our review of all 127 HMRC-listed MTD tools.
What a CIS subcontractor actually needs from an app
CIS is not like ordinary self-employment. A graphic designer or a consultant is taxed on profit at the end of the year and pays in one go. A construction subcontractor has tax skimmed off at source on every payment, then reconciles at Self Assessment. That single difference reshapes what good software has to do.
- Construction Industry Scheme (CIS)
- An HMRC scheme where contractors deduct 20% (registered subcontractors) or 30% (unregistered) from the labour element of subcontractor payments and pass it to HMRC as advance tax. Materials, VAT and plant are excluded. Subcontractors reconcile the deductions through Self Assessment, usually receiving a refund.
In practice, the app you choose has to do three things well. First, it must total your CIS deductions accurately across every contractor you worked for, because that figure is the tax you have already paid. Second, it must capture every allowable expense, because tools, fuel and insurance directly increase your refund. Third, it must produce a Self Assessment, or feed clean numbers into one, because that is where the deductions and expenses finally meet.
You can sanity-check your own position before choosing anything. The CIS tax refund calculator estimates what you are likely to get back from your deductions and income, and it is worth running a check on your tax code too, since a wrong code can quietly hold back money that should be sitting in your refund.
The contenders, compared honestly
There is no single "best" app for every subcontractor. The right choice depends on whether you want free filing, human help, or the cheapest possible automated bookkeeping. Here is where the main options genuinely sit.
| Pie (pie.tax) | Kletta | TapTax | |
|---|---|---|---|
| HMRC directory listing | Not listed at our 9 Aug 2026 scrape | Yes (live today) | Not listed; recognition pending |
| Core price | Free SA filing | £19 / £29 / £49 per month | £0 / £4.99 / £9.99 per month |
| Human support | Paid one-off add-ons | UK bookkeeper on paid tiers | None (software only) |
| CIS coverage | Via SA return | Yes, explicit CIS | CIS deduction tracking |
| Property income | SA105 + supplements | Yes | Add via multiple-income flow |
| Open-banking import | Limited | Yes | Yes |
| AI categorisation | Limited | Yes | Yes |
| Receipt scanning + mileage | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| Best for | Free direct filing | Hands-off, human-checked | Cheap, automated bookkeeping |
A few honest notes on that table. Pie's free Self Assessment filing is a real advantage, and it is built around the SA100 plus supplementary pages including rental and dividend income, with paid extras that, as checked in August 2026, are Tax Support at £89 a year and an accountant-handled MTD add-on at £199. It earned "Best Tax App UK 2025" recognition, and if your situation is straightforward, the price is hard to argue with.
Kletta is the premium option, Finnish-built and listed on the HMRC MTD software directory, with a human UK bookkeeper and a Self Assessment review on its paid tiers. It explicitly covers CIS, property income and capital allowances, and runs a two-sided accountant channel. If your books are chaotic, or you simply do not want to touch them, paying £29 a month for Duo, or £49 for the Care tier that adds a human bookkeeper, to have someone sort it is a legitimate trade.
TapTax is the low-cost, automation-first choice. It is freemium at £0, £4.99 and £9.99 a month, with open-banking auto-import, AI categorisation, receipt scanning and mileage, all behind a one-tap "Tap. File. Done." flow. It is built for Making Tax Digital and is MTD-compatible, but its HMRC production recognition is still pending, so today it shines as the cheapest way to keep accurate, refund-ready records rather than as your sole filing route.
Where TapTax genuinely wins, and where it does not
It is only fair to be specific, in both directions. TapTax is at the cheap end without being the cheapest: a free tier and a £4.99 paid tier sit well under Kletta's £19 self-serve floor, but several listed products file for £0, and on the CIS return item specifically Clear Books Free, TaxHeaven, My Tax Digital, Self Assessment Direct and RentalBux Free are all graded ready at zero cost while TapTax's CIS support is still on the roadmap. If CIS on the return is your deciding factor, those are ahead of us today. It wins on automation, because open-banking import plus AI categorisation means your contractor payments and expenses land and sort themselves with almost no manual entry, which matters when you are on site all day. And it wins on simplicity, because the whole app is oriented around getting to a filing, not around invoicing modules or payroll you will never use.
Where it does not win, today, is recognition and human support. Kletta is listed and can file direct to HMRC right now, and Pie files Self Assessment direct to HMRC although it did not appear on the directory at our 9 August 2026 scrape; TapTax's recognition is pending, so it is best paired with a recognised filing route until that lands. And Kletta's human bookkeeper is something no software-only tool replicates. If you want a person to check your CIS return, Kletta has the edge.
For a subcontractor, the cheapest accurate record-keeping usually beats the most expensive software, because the refund is driven by the numbers, not the brand on the app.
The expenses that grow your CIS refund
Because CIS deductions are taken on your labour before expenses, every allowable cost you record reduces taxable profit and pulls more of that deducted tax back to you. The common, defensible claims for construction subcontractors are tools and equipment, protective clothing and PPE, business mileage at 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles, materials you funded, public liability insurance, mobile phone, and a fair proportion of home-as-office admin costs.
This is exactly where automated capture earns its keep. A receipt for a £180 cordless drill or a tank of diesel on the way to a temporary site is worth real money at the margin, and the apps that scan receipts and import bank transactions lose far fewer of them than a shoebox ever did. If your work mixes site labour with other income, the sole trader tax calculator helps you see how expenses, the £12,570 personal allowance and Class 4 National Insurance at 6% combine to set your final bill, and therefore your refund.
MTD changes the calculation from April 2026
The biggest reason to pick your app deliberately now, rather than later, is Making Tax Digital. From April 2026, MTD for Income Tax is mandatory where combined self-employment and property income exceeds £50,000 of gross income. It extends to above £30,000 from April 2027 and above £20,000 from April 2028. Crucially, the test is on gross turnover, not profit, so a subcontractor invoicing £55,000 of labour and materials is in scope even if expenses bring taxable profit well below that.
Under MTD you keep digital records and send quarterly updates to HMRC instead of a single annual return. That suits CIS workers reasonably well, because the deductions and expenses you should already be tracking each quarter are exactly what the updates report. The plain-English MTD guide for sole traders sets out the timeline, the penalty regime and what each submission has to contain. The practical point is simple: an app that already imports your bank feed and categorises spend turns quarterly filing into a review rather than a scramble. A spreadsheet does not.
Who should pick what
If you want the cheapest possible accurate bookkeeping, with your contractor payments and tool receipts captured automatically and your CIS deductions tracked all year, TapTax's free or £4.99 tier is the most cost-effective starting point, and it is built for the MTD world you are about to enter. If you want a tool that files your Self Assessment free today and your affairs are simple, Pie is an excellent, genuinely free option, though it did not appear on the HMRC MTD directory at our 9 August 2026 scrape. If your records are a mess, or you would rather a human handled the CIS return entirely, Kletta's £49 Care tier buys you a UK bookkeeper and a reviewed return.
Heavier accounting platforms such as FreeAgent, QuickBooks Self-Employed and Coconut can also handle CIS, but they are broader, generally pricier or bank-bundled, and most subcontractors do not need that weight. For a one-person trade where the whole game is maximising a refund and meeting MTD cleanly, lighter and cheaper usually wins.
People also ask
Whichever you choose, the principle holds: capture every deduction, claim every genuine expense, and be ready for quarterly MTD. TapTax does that for free to start, connects to your bank, and is built for Making Tax Digital, so you can keep refund-ready records without paying a penny until you are sure. Tap. File. Done.
Frequently asked questions
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