Compliance · HMRC
Making Tax Digital and your till: what you actually have to keep
Restaurant owners often ask whether they need a "certified" till in the UK. The short answer is no — the United Kingdom has never required the kind of paid certification that France and Spain impose. What it does require is that your records are digital, kept, and capable of being handed over.
The two things that matter.
- VAT is 20 % on standard-rated sales, and VAT-registered businesses file through Making Tax Digital using compatible software.
- Records are kept for six years. That is the retention HMRC expects for VAT records.
This is a plain-language summary, not tax advice. Your accountant knows your situation; check anything that costs you money with them.
Why the UK is simpler than its neighbours
In France, a till has to satisfy article 286-I-3° bis of the tax code — unalterability, security, retention, archiving — with a certificate or an attestation behind it. In Spain, VeriFactu is arriving, and the law reaches the company that produces the software, not only the one that uses it.
The UK asks something different and, frankly, more sensible: keep a digital record you can produce. No certificate to buy, no annual fee to a certification body. That is money a UK restaurant does not have to spend, and it is worth knowing before someone sells you a "certified" till on the strength of a rule that does not apply here.
What that means for the system you choose
Whatever you use, it should be able to:
- record every sale digitally, with a date, a total and a VAT breakdown
- keep those records for six years without you having to think about it
- export cleanly, in a form your accountant can open — not a screenshot
- separate VAT by rate, because not everything on a menu is standard-rated
That is the whole list. Anything beyond that is a feature, not a legal requirement.
A word on what we do and do not claim
Our system keeps a digital, tamper-evident record of sales, with VAT split by rate, kept and exportable. It is not your accounting package, and we do not pretend it is. It gives your accountant clean data instead of a shoebox — that is the honest description.
See what it costs, written out in full: build your pack.
Who wrote this. Tiago, Ultras-Sites. I build restaurant websites and the system that runs behind them — till, orders, bookings, delivery — in Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom. One person to deal with, and prices written out in full: build your pack.