Yes, you still get your CIS deductions back, and it still happens once a year. If you're a self-employed subcontractor and your gross pay for 2025/26 was over £30,000, you'll be in Making Tax Digital from 6 April 2027. You'll send HMRC an update every three months, but those updates don't ask about CIS at all. The 20% your contractors took off gets credited at the end of the year, in the tax return. HMRC now calls it the final declaration. If you were over £50,000 in 2024/25, you've been in since this April.

So the refund works the way it always has. The risk is in the record-keeping, because that's where deductions go missing.

What lands in the bank isn't your turnover

Say you did a week of groundworks and the statement says £1,000 gross, £200 CIS deducted. £800 lands in your account on Friday. In your quarterly update, your turnover is £1,000.

If you build your records from the banking app, every payment from the main contractor shows the £800. Put £800 in and two things go wrong. Your turnover is too low, which HMRC won't like. And the £200 isn't in your records, so you've nothing to check HMRC's figure against.

The gross figure is also the one HMRC uses for the £30,000 test. If it's all labour, £26,000 in the bank is £32,500 gross, and that's over the line.

Contractors only deduct from labour. Plasterboard or cable you bought for the job should show separately on the statement, with nothing taken off.

What happens to the 20% under MTD?

Each contractor reports your deductions to HMRC on their monthly CIS return. Under MTD you can see that record in your HMRC account or your software, any time.

Most of the time it's right. But a contractor can file late or put in the wrong amount. Some go bust before filing. If HMRC's figure is lower than what was taken off you, your tax return gives you credit for the lower figure, unless you fix it.

You get a window to do that, after your fourth quarterly update and before the tax return. You enter the figure you think is correct. HMRC can ask for evidence, and if you can't give it by their deadline, they change your claim to what they have on record.

If you've stopped trading, you may be able to claim back this year's deductions early, on form CIS40. Everyone else waits for the tax return, due by 31 January after the tax year ends. If your first MTD year is 2027/28, that's 31 January 2029.

How to keep your statements so nothing goes missing

Your contractor has to give you a payment and deduction statement within 14 days of the end of each tax month. Tax months end on the 5th, so that's by the 19th. In real life it's a PDF in an email, a photo on WhatsApp, or nothing until you ask.

  • Ask every month, and chase it if it hasn't come by the 19th
  • Check gross pay, materials and the deduction against your invoice and the money that arrived
  • Save it next to the bank payment it matches, named by contractor and month. A folder on your phone is fine if it's backed up
  • Before the end of the year, compare your statements with what HMRC shows. A gap usually means a contractor hasn't reported something

If a contractor has gone out of business and you can't get a copy, gov.uk says you can check what was reported in your MTD account. If you're not signed up yet, you write to HMRC with your name, address and UTR, plus the contractor's name and address. Keep your bank statements and invoices. HMRC will want to see them.

If you'd rather not chase statements every month, that's part of our CIS work for subcontractors. We log every deduction as it happens, so the figure on your tax return matches the paperwork. The Making Tax Digital page has all the dates. Send us a photo of your last statement and get in touch, and Alex or Anca will tell you which April applies to you.

Sources: HMRC, Find out if and when you need to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, Work out your qualifying income for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, Send quarterly updates, What you must do as a CIS subcontractor: get paid, Pay tax and claim back deductions and the HMRC developer guide Making updates at the end of a tax year. Correct as at October 2026.