If you take on someone to help with cleaning work, one of the first things to settle is whether that person is self-employed or whether you are employing them. It affects how they are paid and what you need to deduct, so it is worth working out before any booking starts.

Signs that point towards self-employment

GOV.UK sets out signs that, looked at together, suggest someone is self-employed. None of them settles the question on its own, but the more that apply, the stronger the case for self-employment.

• They can decide how, when and where the work gets done.
• They can send someone else to do the work in their place.
• They use their own equipment and pay to put right any mistakes themselves.
• They can lose money on a booking as well as make it.
• They work for more than one client.

Someone can meet some of these signs and still be treated as employed, because the question looks at the whole working arrangement.

Checking status with HMRC's tool

HMRC provides a tool called Check Employment Status for Tax, usually shortened to CEST, which asks a series of questions about the working arrangement and gives a result based on the answers entered.

HMRC stands behind that result as its view, provided the answers match what actually happens in practice. Put in different answers, or answer a question incorrectly, and the result can come out differently, so the result only reflects what is told to the tool.

When you take on someone to help with your cleaning work, it isn't you who decides whether they count as employed or self-employed. That depends on how the work actually happens day to day.

GOV.UK is clear that getting this wrong has a cost. If someone treated as self-employed turns out, in the eyes of the rules, to be employed, the business that took them on can end up owing the tax and National Insurance that should have been deducted from their pay, along with penalties on top (GOV.UK).

Why it isn't a one-off decision

Status can change as a working arrangement changes. Someone who starts out picking their own hours and using their own equipment might later be working set shifts under your direction, and the position shifts with it. It's worth checking status again whenever the way someone works for you changes.

Most cleaning work sits outside the construction industry entirely. But some of it does not, and the tax treatment is different if it does.

The Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) is the system HMRC uses to collect tax from payments made for certain building-related work. GOV.UK's list of work counted as construction under the scheme includes:

"cleaning the inside of buildings after construction work" (GOV.UK)

That means a contract to clean a building once the builders have left, clearing dust, debris and residue before it's handed back or opened, can fall under CIS rather than under the rules that apply to ordinary cleaning work. Routine domestic or commercial cleaning, with no construction work behind it, is not covered by this scheme.

Where CIS does apply, the payment arrangements and paperwork work differently from a standard cleaning contract, so it's worth checking which rules apply to a particular piece of work before it starts.