Employment intermediaries: reporting requirements

21 April 2016

Additions and changes have been made to the guidance for employment intermediary reporting from 6 April 2016.

HMRC has not provided any detail as to what exactly has been changed so if the guidance applies to you we would recommend that you review the reporting requirements.

An intermediary is any person who makes arrangements for an individual to work for a third party or be paid by the intermediary for work done for a third party. An employment intermediary is also commonly referred to as an agency.

Intermediaries must return details of all workers they place with clients where the intermediary doesn’t operate Pay As You Earn (PAYE) on the workers’ payments. The return is a report (or reports) that must be sent to HMRC at least once every 3 months. Intermediaries can decide how frequently you upload and send your reports. This could be weekly, monthly, once for each period, or whatever fits in best with how they work.

The intermediary that has the contract with the client is responsible for sending the report (or reports).

You must use HMRC’s report template to create the reports. HMRC has provided an online service for you to upload and send your reports.

You don’t have to send HMRC reports if all the following statement are true. You:

• are a UK employer
• supply workers to provide their services to end clients and nobody else is involved
• operate PAYE when you pay those workers.