SimpleReturns

Company tax returns for photographers and videographers

Reviewed by Lee Jones, Founder · Updated 16 July 2026
The short answer

Your limited company has the same yearly job as every other company in the country: send HMRC a Company Tax Return (the CT600) with accounts, and send accounts to Companies House. Shooting weddings instead of laying bricks does not change that, even in a year you made a loss. What is different is your version of the story: shoot fees, day rates and licensing money on the income side, and cameras, lenses, editing software, studio hire, travel and second shooters on the costs side. Here is the standard filing duty, told for a photographer or videographer.

Official source. This guide is a plain-English summary of official GOV.UK guidance, not advice. The authoritative source is Company Tax Returns on gov.uk. Always rely on that over our summary.

What counts as your company's income?

Everything your company earns from making pictures, however it arrives. That means wedding and portrait shoot fees, day rates for commercial and video jobs, retainers a regular client pays you monthly, and print or album sales. It also means the money your existing pictures keep earning after the shoot is over: a licence fee when a magazine or brand pays to use one of your images, and royalties that trickle in from stock platforms. A £30 stock payout is company income just as much as a £1,500 wedding.

Two habits catch photographers out here. First, the trickle income. Small platform payouts feel like pocket money, but your company's records must cover all money it received, so they belong in the return with everything else. If a platform keeps a slice as commission, the full amount counts as income and the platform's slice goes on the costs side. Second, quiet years still count: even with a loss, the return still has to go in.

One to keep half an eye on as you grow: if your company's income goes over £90,000 across any rolling 12-month period, it must register for VAT, a separate job with its own rules and often the point to bring in an accountant.

What can your company claim?

One test decides it: was the money spent purely to run the business? If yes, the cost comes off your income before Corporation Tax is worked out, so it is money you do not pay tax on. If a cost is partly personal, only a clearly separate business part can go in. These are the costs photographers and videographers genuinely tend to have.

  • Cameras, lenses and the big kit. Camera bodies, lenses, lighting, gimbals, drones and the machine you edit on count as equipment, and for almost every small company the full cost comes straight off your profit in the year you buy it, up to a very high yearly limit. Big kit has one trap of its own, below.
  • Editing software subscriptions. The monthly photo and video editing subscriptions, your gallery delivery service, and the backup storage your archive lives on, when purely for the business. A subscription you mostly use for personal projects does not become a company cost because one client job passed through it.
  • Studio and location hire. Renting a studio for a portrait day, or paying for a location you needed for a shoot.
  • Insurance. Public liability cover for being on clients' premises, and the policy covering your kit against theft and drops.
  • Travel to shoots. If you drive your own car to a wedding, a client's office or a location, the company can pay you a set rate per business mile: 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles per tax year (6 April to 5 April), then 25p after that. The everyday drive to your own studio is a commute, not a business journey, so it does not count.
  • Second shooters and assistants. What you pay a freelance second shooter, an assistant or an editor to help deliver a booking is a business cost. One honest flag: if someone works for your company through their own limited company, and would really be an employee if you hired them directly, special rules called off-payroll working can apply, and that corner is a job for an accountant.

The trap in this trade: the £4,000 camera that meets the return differently

Here is the one that catches photographers most. A new camera body or fast lens is the biggest cheque your company writes all year, but it is not a normal running cost like a subscription. Equipment goes through the return by a separate route called capital allowances, which lets the item's value come off your profits before tax.

For most small companies the result is friendly: the full cost of qualifying kit comes off your profit in the year you bought it. But the route has real rules. The claim can only be made for the year you bought the item, so a £4,000 camera forgotten this year cannot simply be dropped into next year's claim. And kit you already owned personally before it came into the business, like the camera you shot on for years before setting up the company, does not qualify for that year-one full deduction and follows different, slower rules.

You should not need to know the route's name; you just say "I bought a camera in March for £4,000" and it lands in the right place. Our guide on claiming equipment through capital allowances goes deeper.

What does filing look like with SimpleReturns?

You upload your company's bank statement and answer a few plain-English questions, and one of them is about kit, asked straight: did you buy any equipment this year, and what did it cost? You tell us, and it goes through the right route without you touching a form.

Your answers sort each figure into income or a cost, and from there we apply the rules above, work out the profit and the Corporation Tax on it, and build your accounts and your CT600. Most small photography companies sit comfortably in the small profits band, where the rate is 19 percent. You check every figure before anything is sent, then we file to HMRC and Companies House for you. One flat £99 for the submission, free to start, no card needed.

One honest deadline note: the return is due 12 months after your company's year end, the tax is usually due earlier, at 9 months and 1 day, and a late return now costs £200 from the very first day. Filing early costs nothing and ends the worry.

Common questions

Do I have to file if my company made a loss this year?

Yes. Your company has the same yearly job as every other company: send HMRC a Company Tax Return with accounts, and send accounts to Companies House, even in a year you made a loss.

Are my stock and licensing payouts company income?

Yes. A licence fee when a brand uses your image, and the royalties that trickle in from stock platforms, are company income just like a wedding fee. A £30 stock payout counts just as much as a £1,500 wedding, and if a platform keeps a slice as commission the full amount still counts as income and the commission goes on the costs side.

Can my company claim a new camera in full?

For most small companies, yes: the full cost of qualifying kit comes off your profit in the year you bought it, through capital allowances. The claim can only be made for the year you bought it, and kit you owned personally before it came into the business follows different, slower rules.

Can I claim the drive to a wedding shoot?

Yes. If you drive your own car to a wedding, a client's office or a location, the company can pay you 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles per tax year, then 25p after that. The everyday drive to your own studio is a commute, so it does not count.

When is everything due?

The return is due 12 months after your company's year end, and the tax is usually due earlier, at 9 months and 1 day after the year end. A late return now costs £200 from the very first day, even if you owe no tax.

Ready to file your photography company's return?

You upload your company's bank statement and answer a few plain-English questions, including one about the kit you bought. We build your accounts and CT600, show you every figure to check, and file to HMRC and Companies House for £99, once.

Start your return

And if most of your year is long contracts inside one production company, where the off-payroll rules may reach you, an accountant may be the better fit for that part.

General guidance, not advice. This guide explains how the rules generally work for small UK limited companies. It isn't tax advice for your specific situation, if you're unsure, check with us or an accountant.