The short answer
Depop has two very different kinds of seller, and the tax answer is different for each:
- Clearing out your own wardrobe: clothes, trainers and bags you bought to wear. These are personal possessions, and HMRC says you "probably do not have to pay Income Tax on these", however many you sell. Nothing to register, nothing to pay.
- Reselling: buying from charity shops, car boots, vintage kilos or wholesale, or making things, to sell on for more. That's trading. If your gross trading income is £1,000 or less in a tax year (6 April to 5 April), the trading allowance covers it. Over £1,000, you register for Self Assessment and pay tax on your profit.
Plenty of Depop sellers start as the first kind and drift into the second. HMRC's own example describes exactly that: "After earning some money from selling unwanted clothes, you start buying items from car boot sales and charity shops ... with the intention of selling them for more money than you paid for them. This is something you do regularly." That person may need to tell HMRC.
Quick check: your Depop year
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Own clothes or reselling? Four questions
HMRC looks at why you got the item, not how often you sell or which app you use. For each thing you sell, ask:
- Did I buy it to wear or use? Then it's a personal possession, even if you sell it for more than you paid (unless it's over £6,000, below).
- Did I buy it intending to sell it for a profit? Thrifted bundles, vintage kilos, sale-rack flips, restocks bought to resell: trading.
- Did I make or customise it to sell? Reworked denim, crochet tops, hand-painted trainers: HMRC counts items "you make for a hobby" as trading too.
- Is it a pattern? Regular sourcing trips and a steady flow of stock point to a trade. One flip doesn't make you a business; a habit of buying to resell does.
Many people have a mixed shop. That's fine: count only the resold or made items as trading income, and keep a note of which is which.
£1,000 of what? Sales, not profit
The trading allowance is tested against gross trading income: what buyers paid you, including any postage they paid you, before Depop's fees and before what you paid for the stock. A reseller who takes £1,300 from items that cost £700 is over the limit, though they only made £600. Add other trading together too (a Vinted or eBay resale side, a market stall): there's one £1,000 allowance per person, not one per app.
Depop's fees (UK)
Depop dropped its 10% selling fee for UK sellers in 2024. According to Depop's UK fee page (last checked 25 October 2026), UK sellers now pay:
- Selling fee: £0.
- Payment processing: 2.9% + £0.30 per order, on the item price plus shipping.
- Boosted listings (optional): 12% of the item price on sales that came from a boost.
So a reseller taking £8,000 from 300 orders pays about £322 in processing (£232 + 300 × £0.30), plus any Boost fees. Those are allowable costs. Depop's fees can change, so check your own sales history for the real figures.
What Depop resellers can claim
If your real costs are more than £1,000, claim them instead of the allowance. For resellers they usually are, because the stock itself is a cost:
- Stock: what you paid for the items you sold, from charity shops, car boots, vintage wholesalers or other apps. HMRC lists stock as an allowable cost. Keep receipts, or a dated note with a photo for cash buys.
- Postage you paid to send orders. If the buyer paid you for postage, that's in your sales; your courier or Royal Mail cost is the expense.
- Packaging: mailers, tissue, tape, stickers.
- Depop's fees and Boost.
- Getting stock ready: cleaning, steaming, small repairs, and travel to sourcing trips (the business part only).
- Working from home: if you spend 25 hours or more a month on the shop at home, HMRC's flat rate is £10 a month (25–50 hours), £18 (51–100) or £26 (101+).
Not allowable: your own time, and clothes you keep and wear yourself. And it's one or the other: real costs or the £1,000 allowance, not both.
Four Depop sellers, worked through
Illustrative, using 2025/26 rules and the fee model above:
- Ellie clears her wardrobe. 45 sales, £1,900, all her own clothes. Not trading: no tax, nothing to register. Depop will probably report her to HMRC (45 sales is over 30), but that report doesn't create a bill.
- Jordan flips car-boot finds. £850 from 34 orders. He's trading, but under the £1,000 allowance, so it's covered. He doesn't need to register. He keeps his list of sales in case HMRC asks about Depop's report.
- Lena sells reworked tops. £1,400 from 50 orders; £250 of materials and £150 of postage, plus about £55.60 of Depop processing, alongside a £22,000 salary. Her real costs (£455.60) are under £1,000, so the allowance wins: profit £400, about £80 Income Tax. She's over £1,000 in sales, so she registers for Self Assessment.
- Aisha runs a vintage shop. £8,000 from 300 orders, alongside a £27,000 salary. Costs: stock £2,600, postage £1,050, packaging £150, Boost £240 and Depop processing £322, so £4,362. That beats the allowance, so her profit is £3,638: about £727.60 Income Tax at 20%, and no Class 4 National Insurance because her profit is under £12,570. Using the allowance instead would have taxed £7,000.
A full-time reseller with no other income pays Income Tax only on profit above the £12,570 Personal Allowance, plus Class 4 National Insurance at 6% on profit between £12,570 and £50,270. On £30,000 of sales and £14,800 profit that's about £446 Income Tax and £133.80 Class 4.
"Depop asked for my National Insurance number"
Since 1 January 2024, platforms including Depop must collect sellers' details (name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number) and report to HMRC any seller who makes 30 or more sales or receives about £1,700 (€2,000) or more in a calendar year. The first reports, for 2024, went to HMRC by 31 January 2025.
HMRC's guidance says a report "does not automatically mean that you owe tax". Three things to know about it:
- It covers the calendar year, in quarters. Your tax return uses the tax year (6 April to 5 April).
- It shows your earnings "less any fees, commission or taxes deducted by the platform". It knows nothing about what you paid for stock, so it can't tell HMRC whether you made a profit, or whether the items were your own.
- HMRC says reports "do not replace your normal business records". A simple list of what you sold, and whether it was your own or bought to resell, is your best answer if HMRC asks.
Had a letter already? See what to do if HMRC writes to you about your online sales, including how to put earlier years right.
Designer pieces over £6,000
A personal possession sold for more than £6,000 (or a set sold together, like a matching collection) may bring in Capital Gains Tax, even though it's not trading. Few Depop sales get near that, but a high-end bag or watch might. See gov.uk's Capital Gains Tax on personal possessions guidance if that's you.
If you're over £1,000: what to do next
- Register for Self Assessment by 5 October after the tax year ends (5 October 2026 for 2025/26). Missed it? Register now: see our guide to registering. Your UTR can take a few weeks to arrive, so don't leave it to January.
- File and pay by 31 January 2027 for 2025/26. Can't pay it all at once? See Time to Pay. If the bill is £1,000 or more you may also face payments on account.
- Late? See what it costs in our late penalties guide.
Keeping records
Resellers win or lose at tax time on one thing: knowing what each item cost. Depop's sales history shows what you sold for; only you know what you paid. Note the cost when you list each item (a column in a spreadsheet, or in the listing's private notes), and split the year at 5 April. If you'd rather not build that yourself, our bookkeeping spreadsheet for Etsy, eBay, Vinted and Depop sellers (£12.99, Excel or Google Sheets) works out each sale's Depop fee with the same fee model as this page and totals your tax year. It's made by the same people as this site, and it's optional: the calculator and guides stay free.
Prefer to ask an AI? Our free Seller Skills pack for ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude sorts a year of sales into tax-year totals and flags whether you look like a trader, writes listings and drafts buyer replies. The Pro pack (£12) adds pricing after fees per item, dispute evidence, and help with an HMRC letter. Both give estimates, not advice.
The same trading test and £1,000 allowance apply on every platform. See also our Vinted, eBay and Etsy tax guides.