What goes in it?
If your company lets out a property, HMRC treats that letting as its own little business inside your company, called a property business. Box 190 holds that business's profit for the year: the rent you received, minus the allowable costs of the letting.
Here is a simple example. Say your company rents out one flat:
- Rent received in the year: £12,000
- Letting agent's fees: £1,000
- Repairs (fixing the boiler, repainting after a tenant left): £800
- Landlord insurance: £400
Rent minus costs is £12,000 less £2,200, so £9,800 goes in box 190.
A cost only counts if it was spent entirely on the letting. Day-to-day costs like repairs, agent fees and insurance are fine. Money spent improving the property, like adding an extension, is treated differently: it is not a day-to-day cost, so it does not come off the rent here.
One more thing the form's own guide points out: rent from land and buildings outside the UK goes in box 190 too.
What usually goes wrong?
The classic mistake is putting rent in box 145, the turnover box. Box 145's official label is "Total turnover from trade", and renting out property does not count as a trade on this form. Rent has its own home, and it is box 190.
It is an easy trap to fall into. Rent lands in the company bank account just like sales do, so it feels like turnover. But HMRC keeps the two apart because different rules apply to each. The clearest example is losses: if your letting costs beat your rent in a bad year, a loss on a UK letting goes in its own box (box 250, which is just for UK property losses) and follows its own rules. Box 190 never shows a minus number.
Putting rent in the wrong box means your turnover looks bigger than it really is and your property income looks like it is missing. Neither is a good look on a tax return, and it can mean the wrong figures flow through the rest of the form.
If your company both trades and lets out a property, you need both: sales in the turnover boxes, rent in box 190, each worked out separately.
Do I have to work this out myself?
On paper, yes: someone has to split the rent from the sales, take off the right costs, and put the result in the right box. In practice your filing software should do the sums for you.
SimpleReturns reads your company bank statement, spots rental income and routes it to the property track automatically, so rent lands in box 190 and never in your turnover, and one £99 fee covers both filings: the tax return to HMRC and the accounts to Companies House. You review every figure before anything is sent.
Honesty corner: if your company is part of a group, or its property setup is genuinely complicated, an accountant is the right call, and there is no shame in that.