Honest comparison

Free VAT return software

The nine boxes worked out from the spreadsheet you already keep, with every row behind every box, for nothing. It cannot submit them: under Making Tax Digital a VAT return has to go through software HMRC has recognised, and this is not on that list.

7 free tools linked from this page · 6 with no account at all · 1 AI tools that need one

There are two separate jobs hiding inside the phrase “VAT return software”, and most pages about it blur them together. The first is working out the nine boxes from your records. The second is submitting them to HMRC over their API. We do the first, free and in your browser. We do not do the second at all, and nothing on this site ever has.

That distinction is the whole page. Making Tax Digital for VAT has applied to every VAT-registered business since April 2022, which means digital records and submission through compatible software. So if you are VAT registered, the question is not whether to pay for filing software — it is which one, and whether you also want it doing the arithmetic.

What filing software does that we do not

Four of these are things no amount of good arithmetic on our side can make up for.

It submits the return. A VAT return under Making Tax Digital is an API call to HMRC made by software HMRC has recognised for the purpose. Ours makes no call to anybody: this is a static page and the work happens inside your browser.
It is on HMRC’s list. Recognition is an approval a vendor applies for and then keeps — registering, passing HMRC’s tests, and sending the fraud prevention headers HMRC requires on every call so they can see which device a submission came from. gov.uk publishes who holds it. We do not.
It keeps the digital link. This is the one people miss. Making Tax Digital does not only require the figures to arrive from software; it requires the journey from your records to those figures to be digital too, without anybody retyping in the middle. A tool that hands you nine numbers to copy into something else is, at that moment, the break in the chain — and that tool is us.
It can read back what HMRC holds. Your open periods, your obligations, what has been submitted and what is owed. Recognised software can fetch all of it. We cannot see any of it; you look it up yourself.
It keeps the records. Digital record keeping is an obligation with a retention period behind it. We store nothing whatsoever, so whatever you keep, you keep yourself.

Side by side

5 rows go their way and 4 go ours, and the ones they win are printed first. Nothing in the right-hand column is a claim about any particular product’s price or features — we have no way to check those, so we do not state them.

What you need	Here, free, in your browser	Recognised filing software
Submitting the return to HMRC	No. There is no connection to HMRC anywhere in this site.	Yes. That is what recognition is for.
Being on gov.uk’s compatible software list	Not on it.	Check the list itself before you buy, rather than taking any advert’s word for it.
An unbroken digital link from records to submission	Breaks at the moment you copy the figures off the screen.	Held, if you use one product end to end.
Seeing your open periods and what you owe	No.	Read back from HMRC.
Keeping the digital records themselves	Nothing is stored here, ever.	Stored, with the retention you are required to have.
Where your spreadsheet goes	Nowhere. It is read, added up and written back out by your own browser.	Depends entirely on the product. Ask before you upload a sales ledger.
Working the nine boxes out of a sheet you already keep	Standard accrual, cash accounting or the flat rate scheme, with the first-year discount and the limited cost trader rate as switches.	Varies: a bridging tool reads a sheet, a full package wants the records inside its own ledger first.
Seeing what a box is made of	Click “show rows” on any box and you get exactly the rows that made it, and what each one contributed. That is the part an accountant asks for when a box looks wrong.	A full package will drill into its own ledger; a bridging tool usually shows you a cell reference.
Catching a bad spreadsheet before you trust it	Rows where net plus VAT does not equal gross, VAT that is not the stated rate of the net, duplicate invoice references and rows dated outside the period — all listed by row number and reference, and nothing is quietly corrected.	Varies. A package that owns the records has less to check, because the records were never typed.
Cost	Free. No account, no card, no per-return charge.	Charged per return or per year. The vendor has the current figure; we do not, and will not guess.

When you should pay for filing software — which, if you are VAT registered, is now

This is not a page that ends with “so you do not need to buy anything”. If you are VAT registered you need recognised software, and this tool does not change that.

You are VAT registered. The return has to be submitted through compatible software, so the choice is between one paid product and another, not between them and us.
Your records already live in an accounting package. File from it. Adding a second tool to work out figures the package already has is work for nothing.
You need the digital link intact from the cell to the submission. Using one product for both ends is the simplest way to be able to say that you did.
You want somebody to ring when a submission is rejected. That is worth money on the seventh of the month, and it is not on offer here.
Where we might still fit: as the working. Produce the boxes here, open every one to check the rows behind it, then file through whatever you already use. The tool says exactly that on its own page.

What you can do here for nothing

Everything below runs in your browser unless it is marked “free to try”, which means an AI tool with an account and a monthly allowance. None of it files anything.

Work out what has to be filed

The figures, and the rows that made them.

VAT Return from a Spreadsheet (the nine boxes)Turn a spreadsheet of sales and purchases into the nine boxes of a UK VAT return — standard accrual, cash accounting or the flat rate scheme — with every box opened up to show the rows behind it, and the sheet checked for net-plus-VAT that does not equal gross, duplicate invoice numbers and rows outside the period. It computes the figures; it does not file them. Runs entirely in your browser.Free Making Tax Digital: Does It Apply to Me?Work out whether Making Tax Digital for Income Tax catches you, and from which April. It adds up your qualifying income the way HMRC defines it - gross income before expenses, across every trade and every property business - shows the sum, names the threshold that catches you, counts your quarterly updates, and gives you the first period and its deadline. Guidance as at 2026-09-20; gov.uk is the authority. Runs in your browser.Free MTD Quarterly Update BuilderTurn the income and expense spreadsheet you already keep into the figures a Making Tax Digital quarterly update asks for. It maps your own category names onto the standard self-employment or property headings, cuts the tax year into its four quarterly periods - standard or calendar - and gives the cumulative year-to-date total alongside the standalone quarter, with every unmatched row listed by name. It produces the figures; filing them needs software HMRC has recognised. Runs in your browser.Free

Keep the records the figures come from

Because “digital records” has to mean something in practice.

Bookkeeping: Trial Balance, P&L and Balance SheetBring a bank statement, a sales day book or a set of journals into a real double-entry ledger and get the trial balance, profit and loss, balance sheet, VAT or GST figures and every account’s ledger back. Charts of accounts for the UK and India. Runs in your browser — a client’s books are never uploaded.Free Bank ReconciliationMatch a bank statement against the bank ledger from your books — Tally, Zoho, QuickBooks or a spreadsheet — and get the unmatched entries on each side, the matched pairs, and the closing balances explained. Runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.Free Merge & Dedupe SpreadsheetsCombine up to ten Excel or CSV files into one sheet — columns matched by heading, rows stacked — then remove duplicates on the columns you choose, with every removed row listed by source file and row. Runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.Free Bank Statement CategoriserPaste or upload a bank statement and get every transaction categorised to a ledger head — rent, salaries, GST paid, a named customer — as a spreadsheet, or as Tally receipt and payment vouchers ready to import.Free to try

Frequently asked questions

Can I file a VAT return for free?

Not from here. Whether you can file free anywhere depends on which recognised products offer a free tier, and that changes — gov.uk publishes the list of compatible software and it can be filtered, which is a better answer than anything we could write down today and let go stale.

Is a spreadsheet still allowed under Making Tax Digital?

Keeping records in a spreadsheet is not the problem; the return arriving by hand is. The records have to be digital and the transfers between the pieces of software involved have to be digital links rather than somebody retyping. That is exactly the gap bridging software was invented to fill.

How reliable are the rates and thresholds in the tool?

Every rate, threshold and scheme rule sits in one marked block at the top of the engine file, with the date it was written on it, and the page prints when it was last checked and links to VAT Notice 700/12 and Notice 733. The tool tells you in its own tips to treat the figures as a calculation you still have to verify. We would rather say that than imply a freshness we cannot promise.

Does it handle cash accounting and the flat rate scheme?

Both. Cash accounting insists on a paid date column and refuses to run without one, rather than handing you accrual figures with a cash accounting label on them; map a paid amount as well and a part payment counts in proportion. Under the flat rate scheme you type your own sector percentage, because getting one of those fifty-odd percentages wrong would be worse than asking.

Does my sales ledger leave my computer?

No. It is read, added up and written back out by your own browser. Nothing is uploaded, queued or logged, which is what makes it safe to put a client’s books through.

The authorities, rather than us

gov.uk — Use Making Tax Digital for VAT — what Making Tax Digital for VAT actually requires
gov.uk — Find software compatible with Making Tax Digital for VAT — who may file a return — the list is the authority
gov.uk — VAT Notice 700/12: how to fill in and submit your VAT Return — what belongs in each of the nine boxes, and the rounding
gov.uk — VAT Notice 733: the flat rate scheme — the flat rate scheme, the sector percentages and the capital goods rule