Will Writer
Tax & MTD Guide

A self-employed will writer runs a deceptively simple business on paper: take instructions, draft the will, get it signed and witnessed, store it safely. But the tax shape of the trade has its own quirks. Most of your work happens at the kitchen tables and dining rooms of clients who would rather not travel, so mileage matters. You carry professional risk on every document you draft, so indemnity insurance is a fixed cost you cannot avoid. And your income tends to arrive as a series of modest fixed fees, sometimes with add-ons for lasting powers of attorney, trusts or document storage.

This guide is built around how a will writer actually earns and spends: fee-based profit, the mileage and home-office deductions that dominate the expense list, the insurance and membership costs that come with a regulated-feeling profession, and the timing of MTD for Income Tax. Get the recurring costs and the mileage log right and the annual return becomes straightforward.

How Tax Works for a Self-Employed Will Writer

As a sole trader you pay Income Tax on your profit, which is your total fee income minus allowable expenses. For 2025/26 the personal allowance covers the first GBP 12,570, then you pay 20% to GBP 50,270, 40% to GBP 125,140 and 45% above, with the personal allowance tapering away between GBP 100,000 and GBP 125,140 to create an effective 60% band. Class 4 National Insurance is 6% on profit between GBP 12,570 and GBP 50,270 and 2% above, with Class 2 NIC settled through Self Assessment.

Scottish will writers pay Scottish Income Tax on their profit through six bands (19%, 20%, 21%, 42%, 45% and a 48% top rate) and carry an S-prefixed tax code, while National Insurance stays UK-wide. Welsh writers have a C-coded tax code at rates currently matching the rest of the UK. If your code looks wrong, perhaps because a part-time PAYE job or a pension is distorting it, run it through the tax code checker.

The Trading Allowance and Starting Out

Many will writers begin part-time, often moving across from a legal, financial-advice or estate-agency background and building a client base around evenings and weekends. The GBP 1,000 trading allowance is built for exactly this start. If your gross self-employed income from all your will-writing and estate-planning work is GBP 1,000 or less in a tax year, it is tax-free and you do not need to register for Self Assessment for it. Since most will-writing fees alone are GBP 100 to GBP 300 a will, you will usually cross GBP 1,000 within a handful of jobs, at which point you must register and report the full amount.

Once over the threshold you have a choice each year. You can deduct the flat GBP 1,000 trading allowance from your income instead of working out actual expenses, or you can deduct your real allowable expenses if they come to more than GBP 1,000. You cannot do both. For a will writer carrying indemnity insurance, membership fees and meaningful mileage, actual expenses almost always beat the GBP 1,000 allowance, so total your costs and pick whichever leaves the lower profit. If will writing sits alongside other freelance work, our side-hustle income guide explains how it all comes together on one return.

Allowable Expenses for Will Writers

An expense is allowable when incurred wholly and exclusively for the business. The will writer's list is dominated by insurance, professional memberships, mileage and document handling rather than equipment or stock.

Mileage and Home Visits in Detail

Home visits define the will-writing trade, and the travel to them is usually your second-biggest deduction after insurance. The simplest approach is HMRC's simplified mileage rate: 45p per business mile for the first 10,000 miles in the tax year, then 25p above that. This single rate is designed to cover fuel, servicing, insurance, road tax and depreciation, so you cannot then also claim those running costs separately. Keep a contemporaneous log of each appointment with the date, the destination and the miles driven. A journey from your home base directly to a client visit is normally allowable; if you maintain a fixed office, travel between home and that office is ordinary commuting and is not. If your annual mileage is very high you can instead claim actual motoring costs and capital allowances on the vehicle, but for most will writers the flat 45p rate is both simpler and generous.

Home-Office and Storage Costs

Even with frequent home visits, most will writers run the admin side of the business from home: drafting, client records, invoicing and correspondence. You can claim HMRC's simplified flat rate based on the hours you work at home each month, or a fair proportion of actual household running costs such as heat, light and broadband based on the rooms used and time spent working. Document storage is a distinctive will-writing cost worth singling out: whether you vault originals yourself in fireproof storage or pay a third-party deeds-storage service, those costs are allowable running expenses of the trade.

What You Cannot Claim

The private share of dual-use broadband, mobile and devices must be excluded. Everyday clothing is never allowable, even a smart suit bought for client meetings. The cost of an initial qualification to enter will writing is not allowable because it brings a new skill into being rather than maintaining an existing trade, although CPD that keeps your knowledge current is fine. And entertaining clients, for example buying lunch on a home visit, is specifically disallowed.

Worked Example: A Will Writer on GBP 42,000

Take a full-time will writer doing home visits across a county, charging fixed fees for wills, lasting powers of attorney and storage, with GBP 42,000 of fee income for the year.

Income: GBP 42,000 (wills GBP 26,000, LPAs GBP 11,000, storage and add-ons GBP 5,000)

Allowable expenses:

• Professional indemnity insurance: GBP 1,200
• Society of Will Writers membership and CPD: GBP 700
• Drafting and case-management software: GBP 600
• Mileage: 8,000 business miles at 45p: GBP 3,600
• Document storage and stationery: GBP 900
• Home-office actual-cost proportion: GBP 1,100
• Laptop and printer (AIA, claimed in full): GBP 900
• Marketing and website: GBP 700
• Accountancy and bank fees: GBP 500
• Total expenses: GBP 10,200

Taxable profit: GBP 42,000 minus GBP 10,200 = GBP 31,800

Income Tax: GBP 31,800 minus GBP 12,570 = GBP 19,230 at 20% = GBP 3,846

Class 4 NIC: GBP 19,230 at 6% = GBP 1,154

Total tax and NIC: roughly GBP 5,000 for the year, before the small Class 2 amount settled through Self Assessment. Notice how the mileage and insurance together account for nearly half the expense total, which is typical for this trade. Run your own figures through the sole trader tax calculator to check what you should set aside.

Multiple Income Streams

Many will writers do not earn from wills alone. You might add lasting powers of attorney, simple trusts, funeral plans, or referral commission from solicitors and financial advisers. You may also keep a part-time PAYE role while building the practice, or hold rental property on the side. Each type of money has its own tax treatment, and where you have a mix the multiple-income tax calculator shows how the streams stack on top of one another.

The common trap is assuming a PAYE day job's personal allowance shelters your will-writing profit too. If employment already uses your GBP 12,570 allowance, every pound of will-writing profit is taxed from the basic rate up, so set money aside accordingly rather than assuming the first slice is tax-free. Referral commissions you receive are trading income; referral fees you pay out to introducers are an allowable expense.

VAT for Will Writers

You must register for VAT once your taxable turnover exceeds GBP 90,000 in any rolling 12-month period. Will-writing and estate-planning services are standard-rated, so once registered you add 20% VAT to your fees. Because most of your clients are private individuals arranging their own affairs, they cannot reclaim that VAT, so registration effectively raises your prices and can make you less competitive against unregistered local rivals. Keep a close eye on your rolling 12-month turnover as the practice grows, because the threshold is not measured on the tax year. Voluntary registration rarely helps a consumer-facing will writer, though it does let you reclaim VAT on software, storage and equipment if your client base is mostly VAT-registered businesses.

MTD for Income Tax: What Changes for Will Writers

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment replaces the once-a-year return with quarterly digital submissions and a year-end finalisation. The thresholds are based on gross income, not profit:

• April 2026: Combined trading and property income over GBP 50,000
• April 2027: Over GBP 30,000
• April 2028: Over GBP 20,000

For a will writer this means recording each fee and each expense digitally as it happens, then sending HMRC a summary every quarter using MTD-compatible software, rather than gathering a shoebox of receipts each January. The good news is that a business built on fixed fees and regular mileage is well suited to continuous record-keeping: log the visit, log the fee, log the miles, and the quarterly update is a quick confirmation. Our guide to MTD for sole traders walks through what the quarterly rhythm looks like in practice.

Common Mistakes Will Writers Make

Not registering once over GBP 1,000. The trading allowance is a threshold, not a free pass at any level. A few wills will take you past it, and then you must register for Self Assessment.

No mileage log. Claiming a round number of miles without a contemporaneous record is the kind of thing that unravels under HMRC scrutiny. Log every home visit as you make it.

Double-claiming vehicle costs. If you use the 45p simplified mileage rate you cannot also claim fuel, servicing or capital allowances on the same car. Pick one method and stick to it.

Forgetting recurring storage and insurance. Document storage and indemnity insurance are easy to overlook because they tick along in the background, yet together they are a major slice of allowable costs.

Assuming the PAYE allowance covers the practice. If a day job already uses your personal allowance, your will-writing profit is taxed from the basic rate up, so set aside more than you expect.

People also ask

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