Everything a sole trader’s invoice has to show, from your own name to the total owed. Fill it in, download the PDF and send it. No sign-up, and nothing leaves your device.
VAT, CIS and the reverse charge worked out to HMRC’s own rules and examples. Sales tax worked out to the cent, on US Letter paper. Your currency and your tax rate, on A4 paper.
If you trade under a name that is not your own, the invoice must also show your own name and an address where legal documents can be delivered to you. That address has to be in the UK if you have a place of business here. One line covers the name: “Tom Hesketh trading as Hesketh Garden Care”.
Trading under your own surname, with only your first name or initials added, is not a business name for these rules.
Sources: gov.uk, Companies Act 2006 s.1202, s.1201, s.1192
Not VAT registered? Leave VAT off completely: no VAT line and no VAT number. Only a VAT-registered business can issue a VAT invoice, and HMRC can fine anyone who issues one without being registered.
Registration is compulsory when your taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000, or you expect it to in the next 30 days. If you went over in the last 12 months, register within 30 days of the end of the month you went over.
gov.uk asks only for a unique number. One sequence that never resets, 0001, 0002, 0003 through every tax year, makes your records simple to check. This template moves to the next number each time you start a new invoice.
Give the due date as a date, not just “14 days”, and put your bank details on the invoice itself. If a business customer pays late, you can add interest at 8% over Bank Rate and a fixed £40 to £100: the late payment interest calculator works it out.
Source: gov.uk: late commercial payments
Keep your invoices and records for at least five years after the 31 January deadline for the tax year they belong to. Invoices from the 2025 to 2026 tax year, filed by 31 January 2027, are kept until at least the end of January 2032.
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies to sole traders and landlords with qualifying income (turnover before expenses) over £50,000 from 6 April 2026, over £30,000 from 6 April 2027 and over £20,000 from 6 April 2028. This template makes invoices; it does not keep MTD records or send anything to HMRC.
Sources: gov.uk: how long to keep records, gov.uk: Making Tax Digital for Income Tax
There is no federal rule on what a US invoice must show. A business that pays you $2,000 or more in a calendar year, for payments made after 31 December 2025, files Form 1099-NEC and will ask for your Form W-9 first, so send the W-9 with your first invoice.
In New York State (work of $800 or more), California (over $250) and Illinois ($500 or more), freelance laws require the client to give you a written contract and to pay by the agreed date, or within 30 days of finishing if no date was set. More in the freelance invoice template.
Sources: IRS: Form 1099-NEC, IRS: Form W-9, New York Attorney General, California Governor's office, Illinois Department of Labor
Rules checked against the official sources linked above on 19 October 2026. Example prices are illustrative. This is general guidance, not legal or tax advice.
A unique number, your name and contact details, your customer’s name and address, a description of the work, the date of the work and of the invoice, the amounts and the total. Trading under a business name? Add your own name too, and an address where legal documents can be delivered to you.
Only once you are VAT registered. Registration is compulsory when your taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000, or you expect it to in the next 30 days. Until then, leave VAT off completely.
At least five years after the 31 January filing deadline for the tax year they belong to. For the 2025 to 2026 tax year, that means until at least the end of January 2032.
Yes. Make as many invoices as you like. The PDF is built in your browser and never sent to us.