In this section:
- What you can and can't reclaim VAT on
- Purchases made before VAT registration: reclaiming the VAT
- Purchases for both business and private use: reclaiming VAT
- Business entertainment, business gifts and benefits
- Cars and motoring expenses: reclaiming VAT
- Travel and subsistence: when you can reclaim VAT
- Bad debts: how to reclaim the VAT
- Exempt and partially-exempt businesses for VAT purposes
- Capital assets - the Capital Goods Scheme for reclaiming VAT
- VAT receipts: what they have to show to be valid
Capital assets - the Capital Goods Scheme for reclaiming VAT
If you're a VAT-registered trader and you acquire or create an expensive capital asset, or you have one when you first register for VAT, you may have to use the Capital Goods Scheme to make adjustments, over several years, to how much input tax you initially reclaimed on the asset. The scheme applies when you spend, net of VAT:
- £250,000 or more on land or buildings, or on building or civil engineering works
- £50,000 or more on a single computer or piece of computer equipment
If your business has an asset and the extent to which you use it to make taxable supplies varies over the following five or ten years (depending on the asset), you'll have to adjust the amount of input tax you reclaim. You can reclaim more if the proportion of your taxable supplies increases, but you'll have to repay some if it decreases.
Your taxable supplies are your sales that you have to charge VAT on.
On this page:
- The Capital Goods Scheme - the basics
- Assets included in the Capital Goods Scheme
- How to work out the value of assets
- Assets not covered by the scheme
- Making adjustments under the Capital Goods Scheme
- Changes in your business circumstances
The Capital Goods Scheme - the basics
If you acquire or create an asset that you use or intend to use only for making taxable supplies, you can reclaim all of the input tax you've paid.
If you use or intend to use the asset partly for making
taxable supplies and partly for making exempt supplies, you can only
reclaim a proportion of the input tax using your partial
exemption method.
If the extent to which you use an expensive asset for making taxable
supplies varies over the years, you may have to adjust the amount of
input tax you reclaimed. And there are also rules for what to do if:
- you register or deregister for VAT
- you buy or sell a business
- your business moves into or out of a VAT group
- you sell an asset during its Capital Goods Scheme adjustment period
Assets included in the Capital Goods Scheme
The assets that are included in the scheme are:
- land and buildings
- refurbishment of buildings
- civil engineering works
- computers and computer equipment
Land and buildings
You'll have to use the Capital Goods Scheme if you spend £250,000 (excluding VAT) or more on:
- buying land, a building or part of a building
- constructing a building
- altering a building or constructing an extension or annex
The scheme applies to alterations, extensions and annexes if both of these are true:
- the cost of the alteration, or construction of an annex or extension, is £250,000 or more
- the extension adds at least 10 per cent to the existing floor space
You can find out more about assets included in the scheme in section 3 of VAT Notice 706/2.
Download VAT Notice 706/2 (PDF 130K)
Refurbishments
You'll have to use the Capital Goods Scheme if both the following are true:
- your capital expenditure on the refurbishment is £250,000 (excluding VAT) or more
- the expenditure is on supplies of services, or goods that are fixed to the building
If it is difficult or expensive for you to identify the value of goods fixed to the building separately from goods not fixed to the building, there is a concession which means you don't have to. If you use this concession it has to be used for all of your Capital Goods Scheme adjustments for the asset. You can find out more about this concession in section 4.12 of VAT Notice 706/2.
Download VAT Notice 706/2 (PDF 130K)
Civil engineering works
You'll have to use the Capital Goods Scheme for civil engineering works costing £250,000 (excluding VAT) or more. Civil engineering work includes things like roads, bridges, golf courses, running tracks and the installation of pipes for connecting to mains services.
Computers
The scheme only applies to individual computers, or items of computer equipment, that cost £50,000 (excluding VAT) or more. It doesn't cover something like a network where the total cost of the server and all the computers and printers is £50,000 or more but each individual item is less than £50,000. Nor does it cover computerised equipment (for example, a computerised telephone exchange or computer-controlled blast furnace) or computer software.
You can find out more about the way the scheme applies to computers and computer equipment at section 3.5 of Notice 706/2.
Download VAT Notice 706/2 (PDF 130K)
How to work out the value of assets
You'll need to know what to take into account to calculate the value of an asset so that you can:
- decide whether it should be included in the scheme
- work out any adjustment to the amount of input tax that you reclaimed
Section 4 of Notice 706/2 explains what you should take into account for valuing each type of asset covered by the scheme.
Download VAT Notice 706/2 (PDF 130K)
Assets not covered by the scheme
The scheme doesn't apply if:
- you acquire assets just for resale
- you spend money on assets that you acquired just for resale
- you acquire assets, or spend money on assets that you only use for non-business purposes
Making adjustments under the Capital Goods Scheme
The input tax you can reclaim on an asset covered by the scheme depends on the extent to which you use it to make taxable supplies during what's called the 'adjustment period'.
The adjustment period is made up of 'intervals' and the number of intervals making up an adjustment period depends on the type of asset.
Intervals
The first interval will usually be less than 12 months. It starts on whichever of these is the earliest:
- the date when you acquire the asset, or if the asset is constructed, altered, extended, refurbished or fitted out, the date you first use it
- the date you first register for VAT if you weren't registered when you first used the asset
It ends on the day before the start of your next partial exemption tax year.
The remaining intervals are normally in line with your partial exemption tax year but might be less than a year if your business circumstances change - see the section below on changes in your business circumstances.
Adjustment periods
The number of intervals that make up an adjustment period varies depending on the type of asset.
| Type of asset | Number of intervals in an adjustment period |
|---|---|
| Computers | 5 |
| An interest in land, buildings or civil engineering works you acquired when the interest (for example a lease) had less than ten years to run | 5 |
| All other assets | 10 |
Making adjustments
The input tax you initially recover on an asset is dealt with under the normal partial exemption rules. These rules mean that:
- you can reclaim all the input tax on assets you use or intend to use only for making taxable supplies
- you can't reclaim any of the input tax on assets you use or intend to use only for making exempt supplies
- you have to use a partial exemption method to work out the percentage of the input tax you can reclaim on assets you use or intend to use to make both taxable and exempt supplies
There are two methods for working out the percentage of the input tax you can reclaim when you make taxable and exempt supplies - the standard method and a special method. You can read about how to decide which method to use, and how to work out the percentage, in our guide on VAT exemption and partial exemption (see the link below).
You don't need to make a Capital Goods Scheme adjustment in the first interval, only in later ones.
You only need to make an adjustment to the amount of input tax you reclaimed when you first acquired the asset if the extent to which you use it to make taxable supplies during the adjustment period changes. So at annual intervals for up to five or ten years, depending on the asset, you'll need to review the extent to which you use the asset for making taxable supplies. If the taxable use of the asset increases or decreases during the adjustment period, you'll have to adjust the amount of the input tax you reclaim.
Once the final interval of the adjustment period has ended, you don't have to make any further adjustments for changes in use.
Section 6 of Notice 706/2 explains how to make adjustments under the Capital Goods Scheme.
Find out more about VAT exemption and partial exemption
Download VAT Notice 706/2 (PDF 130K)
Changes in your business circumstances
There are various changes to your business circumstances that might have an effect under the Capital Goods Scheme. These are when you:
- register for VAT and you already own an asset that falls within the Capital Goods Scheme
- leave or join a VAT group
- cancel your VAT registration
- buy or sell a business
- sell an asset during its Capital Goods Scheme adjustment period
- start to use an asset for non-business purposes or for purposes that are outside the scope of VAT - or start to use it to make exempt supplies
Sections 8, 9 and 10 of VAT Notice 706/2 explain what action you'll need to take in any of these circumstances.
