I drive for Uber and Bolt (or more than one platform). How does my tax work?

You run one driving business, not several

If you drive for Uber, Bolt and FreeNow, you are not three separate businesses for tax purposes. You are one self-employed driver with three sources of fares.

On your Self Assessment return, you add the gross income from every platform together and report it as a single trade. You do the same with your expenses. There is no separate return for each app.

Adding your income together

Your taxable income is the gross fare paid by the passenger on every platform, not just the amount that lands in your bank account after commission. This is the same gross vs net rule that applies to single-platform drivers. See our page on what counts as income for the full explanation.

With multiple platforms, the only extra step is addition. Take the gross figure from each platform's annual earnings summary and add them together. That total is your business turnover for the year.

Commission deducted by each platform is claimed as a single combined expense line, not three separate ones. You don't need to split it out by platform on the return itself, though it's worth keeping the individual summaries in case HMRC ever asks how you arrived at the total.

Expenses cover the whole business, not each app

You don't allocate fuel, insurance or your phone bill between platforms. Your driving business has one set of expenses, regardless of how many apps you take bookings from.

The same applies to your vehicle costs. Whether you choose the mileage method or actual costs, you log all your business mileage across every platform together. You don't run a separate mileage calculation for Uber miles and Bolt miles.

For a full breakdown of what you can and can't claim, see our page on allowable expenses for private hire drivers. For help deciding between the mileage method and actual costs, see mileage vs actual costs.

The £90,000 VAT threshold applies to your combined turnover

The VAT registration threshold is £90,000 in any rolling 12-month period. This applies to your total gross turnover across all platforms, not to each platform individually.

A driver earning £55,000 from Uber and £40,000 from Bolt has a combined turnover of £95,000. That driver has crossed the threshold and needs to register for VAT, even though neither platform alone would have triggered it.

Monitor your combined gross turnover as you approach £90,000. Once you cross this threshold in a rolling 12-month period, you must register. For the full picture on VAT, including the London vs outside-London position, see our VAT registration page.

The MTD threshold also applies to your combined income

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (MTD) became a legal requirement from 6 April 2026 for anyone with qualifying income over £50,000. Qualifying income means your gross self-employment turnover, combined with any property income, before expenses are deducted.

If you drive for more than one platform, you add the gross income from all of them together when checking this threshold. A driver earning £28,000 from Uber and £24,000 from Bolt has qualifying income of £52,000, which is already over the £50,000 threshold.

From 6 April 2027 the threshold drops to £30,000, and from 6 April 2028 it drops again to £20,000. These figures apply to combined turnover or gross income from self-employment and property sources together, not profit. If you track each platform separately instead of keeping a combined running total, you can miss the moment you've crossed the threshold, even though you reached it at the same turnover level as a single-platform driver would have.

For the full detail on what MTD requires and the quarterly deadlines involved, see our Making Tax Digital page.

Keeping records across platforms

The most reliable way to establish your gross income is to work it out from your weekly statements directly, making the adjustments needed to align them to the UK tax year. The annual or monthly summaries each platform provides in its app or portal are not authoritative and should not be relied on alone. Keep your weekly statements from every platform together with your other business records.

1. 1
   Keep a running total from your weekly statements

   Update this as you go, rather than waiting until the year end to add everything up.

2. 2
   Add the gross figures together across platforms

   This is your total business turnover, before any expenses.

3. 3
   Check the running total against your VAT and MTD thresholds regularly

   £90,000 for VAT, £50,000 for MTD (falling to £30,000 from April 2027). Both apply to the combined figure, so check it as you go rather than only once a year.

4. 4
   Log mileage and expenses against the whole business

   Not platform by platform. One mileage log, one set of expense records.

Common questions

This page is general guidance, not advice for your own circumstances. It was correct as at the date shown at the top, and tax rules and rates change over time. Please take advice on your own position before acting on anything here.