{"id":4170,"date":"2018-03-24T16:13:08","date_gmt":"2018-03-24T16:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/glossary\/what-is-vat\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T11:36:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T11:36:41","slug":"what-is-vat","status":"publish","type":"sage_glossary","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/glossary\/what-is-vat\/","title":{"rendered":"What is VAT?"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header has-dark-background-color entry-header--has-illustration entry-header--has-illustration--generic\">\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__row row align-center\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"col col-lg-7 col-xlg-6 entry-header__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"component component-single-header\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__misc text--subtitle text--uppercase text--small\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/glossary\/\" class=\"entry-header__link\">Glossary definition<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-title-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"entry-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat is VAT?\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<div class=\"single-post-details container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"col\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"reading-time\"> min read<\/span>\n\t\t<button\n\t\t\ttype=\"button\"\n\t\t\tclass=\"social-share-button button button--icon button--secondary js-social-share-button\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-title=\"What is VAT?\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-url=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/glossary\/what-is-vat\/\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-text=\"Please read this interesting article\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__share-label\">Share<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-label\" hidden>Copy Link<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-tooltip\" aria-hidden=\"true\" hidden>Copied<\/span>\n\t\t<\/button>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n<p>Value Added Tax (VAT) is a tax added to products and services by businesses who are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/how-to-manage-vat\/\">VAT<\/a> registered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>VAT registration is mandatory for UK businesses whose VAT taxable turnover is more than a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/vat-registration-thresholds\">certain amount<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s also possible to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/register-for-vat-online\/\">register for VAT<\/a> voluntarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are three levels of VAT:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Standard (20%) for most products and services<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reduced (5%) for some things, such as kids car seats and home energy<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Zero (0%) for items such as newspapers, children\u2019s clothes and crash helmets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/what-is-vat-uk-vat-basics-from-sage\/\">VAT<\/a> thresholds and rates are sometimes revised by the UK government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Value Added Tax (VAT) is a tax added to products and services by businesses who are VAT registered. VAT registration is mandatory for UK businesses whose VAT taxable turnover is more than a certain amount. It\u2019s also possible to register for VAT voluntarily. There are three levels of VAT: VAT thresholds and rates are sometimes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_sage_video":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[27,28],"class_list":["post-4170","sage_glossary","type-sage_glossary","status-publish","hentry","tag-tax","tag-vat"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Sage Advice UK","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/sage_glossary\/4170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/sage_glossary"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/sage_glossary"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/sage_glossary\/4170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}