How Long Does It Take To Get Vat Registered

If you have registered for VAT, you may well have to wait a month, or more earlier your application has been candy, and you receive a VAT registration number. A ordinarily asked question by many business owners is how to account for VAT and issue invoices in the interim?

VAT registration wait

How long does it take to receive a VAT registration document?

In one case you lot have registered for VAT, either online or using the paper form VAT1, HMRC states that you lot can expect to receive your VAT registration certificate, which contains your VAT number, in around 1 month from the date of submission. Information technology expects to process lxx% of applications within only 10 working days.

Unfortunately, over the by few years, in that location take been several instances where backlogs have caused meaning delays in issuing VAT numbers, and several businesses we piece of work with at Visitor Bug take waited many months earlier receiving a response from HMRC. Thankfully, almost of the time, things exercise appear to run fairly smoothly.

How to account for VAT if you haven't received your VAT registration number?

Y'all must start accounting for VAT from the appointment you decided to register for VAT voluntarily, or the date from which y'all were obliged to annals (due to your business organisation turnover exceeding £85,000 during the previous 12 months – 2018/19 tax yr threshold).

Make sure y'all keep records of all the invoices you take received since registering for VAT, as you will be able to reclaim whatsoever VAT your company has paid out to suppliers.

HMRC states that you should not accuse VAT on any invoices y'all issue to clients or customer in the meantime.

Instead, businesses "should increase the amount they accuse past the prevailing VAT rate (twenty%), explaining to clients and customers that you volition reissue the invoices with the VAT-able amount once you receive your VAT number."

Whether or not you lot're in the position where y'all can issue invoices on this basis will depend on the relationship you have with your clients. If it is non like shooting fish in a barrel to do and so, yous may decide to wait until you lot accept your registration number and issue invoices a little later on than usual.

More on express company invoices and VAT registration for limited companies.