SimpleReturns

Company tax returns for private therapists and healthcare practitioners

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. Treating patients instead of selling products does not change that, even in a year you made a loss. What is different is your version of the story: session and treatment fees, plus money insurers pay you, on the income side, and indemnity cover, registration fees, courses, room hire and equipment on the costs side. There is also one thing about VAT that is genuinely different for health work, and we flag it plainly below.

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 for treating people, however the money arrives. That means one-to-one session and treatment fees, block courses of treatment paid up front, and money a private medical insurer pays your company for seeing one of their members. If a booking platform takes a slice as commission, the full amount before that slice is your company's income, and the commission goes on the costs side instead.

Two things catch practitioners out. First, an insurer payment is income just like a fee paid by the client at the desk; it does not become something else because it came from Bupa or a similar insurer rather than the person on the couch. Second, quiet years still count. If the company made very little, or made a loss, it still has to send the return.

One point that trips up people who used to work as a sole trader: the money in the company is the company's, not yours. You take it out as a wage, as a dividend when there is profit, or as a director's loan, and each has its own rules. Paying for your weekly shop from the company card is not "drawings" like it was when you were self-employed; it is money taken out that has to be recorded properly.

What can your company claim?

One test decides it: was the money spent purely to run the practice? If yes, the cost comes off your income before Corporation Tax is worked out, so it is money you do not pay tax on. A company cost has to be for the business, though: if something is part personal, keep it out of the company rather than putting a share through, because personal use of company money or an asset creates an extra personal charge (a "benefit in kind") or counts as money taken out, not a part-claim. These are the costs private practitioners genuinely tend to have.

  • Professional indemnity insurance. The cover you must hold to treat clients safely. A clean cost of doing the work.
  • Registration and regulator fees. What your company pays to keep you registered with the body that lets you practise. A cost of being allowed to do the job.
  • Room or clinic hire. What you pay for the room, chair or clinic space you treat clients in, whether that is a monthly rent or a per-session fee.
  • Equipment and consumables. A treatment couch, a machine, gloves, dressings, needles, the everyday supplies a session uses up. For the day-to-day supplies the cost simply comes off your profit. For bigger equipment, the full price usually comes straight off your profit in the year you buy it, up to a very high yearly limit.
  • Courses and CPD. Training that keeps the skills you already sell up to date, or adds skills within the work your company already does, sits on safe ground: a refresher, a new technique in your field, the continuing development your regulator expects. The company can fund work-related training like that with no extra personal tax for you. The one to check with an accountant is a genuinely different discipline, for example an aesthetic practitioner training into a new field that is really a separate business.
  • Practice software. The booking system, secure notes software, and tools you pay for purely to run the practice. Be honest here: a subscription you would pay for anyway at home does not become a business cost just because you also use it for work.

The trap in this trade: health work has its own VAT rules

Here is the one that is genuinely different for healthcare, and it is easy to get wrong by assuming your company works like any other. Health services provided by registered health professionals are treated as VAT-exempt, which is not the same thing as being charged VAT at zero, and it changes how the usual "register for VAT once your takings pass a threshold" story works for you.

So do not just reach for the normal rule of thumb. For most trades, once a company's takings go over £90,000 in any 12 months it has to register for VAT. For health work the exempt treatment means it is not that simple, and some treatments (cosmetic or aesthetic work that is not mainly about someone's health) can sit outside the exemption. If your practice is anywhere near that level of takings, or you offer a mix of treatments, get an accountant to look at your VAT position rather than guessing. We will not pretend software can answer that one for you.

Alongside VAT, keep your income clean and complete. Your company's records must cover all the money it received, from clients and from insurers, not just what landed in one account. A return built from a partial picture understates your income, and HMRC can fine a company £3,000 just for poor records, before any question about the tax itself.

What does filing look like with SimpleReturns?

You upload your company's bank statement and answer a few plain-English questions. We use your answers to sort the year into income and costs, apply the rules above, work out the profit and the Corporation Tax on it, and build your accounts and your CT600. Most one-practitioner companies sit comfortably in the small profits band, where the rate is 19 percent. You check every figure, 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

Is money an insurer pays my company income?

Yes. An insurer payment is income just like a fee paid by the client at the desk. It does not become something else because it came from a private medical insurer rather than the person on the couch.

If a booking platform takes commission, what is my income?

The full amount before the platform's slice is your company's income, and the commission goes on the costs side instead.

Do the usual VAT rules apply to my health practice?

Not in the usual way. Health services provided by registered health professionals are treated as VAT-exempt, which is different from being charged VAT at zero, and some cosmetic or aesthetic work can sit outside the exemption. If your takings are near the threshold or you offer a mix of treatments, get an accountant to look at your VAT position.

Can I take money out of the company like drawings?

No. The money in the company is the company's, not yours. You take it out as a wage, as a dividend when there is profit, or as a director's loan, and each has its own rules that must be recorded properly.

Want your practice's return filed for you?

You upload your company's bank statement and answer a few plain-English questions. We sort the year into income and costs, work out the profit and the Corporation Tax, and build your accounts and your CT600. You check every figure, then we file to HMRC and Companies House for you. One flat £99 for the submission, free to start, no card needed.

Start your return

And if your company registers for VAT, or you run a mix of health and non-health treatments, that VAT question is one for an accountant, and we will say so plainly rather than pretend otherwise.

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.