Free resources for UK freelancers and contractors

Every free calculator, workbook, checklist and guide we have built for freelancers, contractors and consultants. Day rates, IR35, payments on account, VAT and Making Tax Digital. All of it free, none of it behind an email form, all of it on 2026/27 rates. Each section leads with the one worth opening first.

Format

30 resources, all free, no signup

Calculators

Work the number out on the page, then take the Excel version away.

Start hereFreelance Day Rate CalculatorA rate built from what you need out of the year and the days you can actually bill, which is nearer 167 than 260. Your rate has to carry holiday, sick days, the time you spend finding work, and the tax on all of it.£64,000 over 167 billable days is £383 a day, not £246Charge the £246 and the year finishes £22,892 short167 days out of 261 weekdays is 64 per cent utilisationCalculator plus Excel Employed vs Freelance CalculatorA salary and a day rate compared on the same basis. A £55,000 salary costs an employer £64,150 once employer National Insurance and the minimum pension are in, which is £384 a day.Calculator plus Excel Sole Trader or Limited CalculatorBoth routes run on 2026/27 rates, including the dividend rates that rose to 10.75, 35.75 and 39.35 per cent. Drawing everything out, the sole trader keeps more at almost every level of profit.Calculator plus Excel Off-Payroll Status CheckerWho decides your IR35 status, you or the client. The small company thresholds rose on 6 April 2025, so some clients stopped issuing determinations and the risk moved back to contractors.Calculator plus Excel Inside IR35 Take-Home CalculatorWhat an inside engagement is really worth. On an assignment rate the employer National Insurance comes out before anything counts as your pay, so £83,500 becomes a deemed payment of £73,261.Calculator plus Excel Payments on Account CalculatorWhat falls due on 31 January and 31 July, and why the first January is 150 per cent of a year's tax rather than one year's worth.Calculator plus Excel VAT Flat Rate Scheme CheckerWhether the flat rate scheme is worth joining. Spend under 2 per cent of turnover on goods and your rate is forced to 16.5 per cent, which hands back almost everything the scheme offered.Calculator plus Excel Late Payment Interest CalculatorWhat a late commercial invoice is actually worth to you. Base rate plus eight per cent, plus a fixed sum of £40, £70 or £100 depending on the size of the invoice.Calculator plus Excel Retainer vs Project CalculatorThe most you should discount a retainer, which is exactly your utilisation. Below that floor you are better off keeping the hours free.Calculator plus Excel Scope Creep CalculatorWhat overrun costs on a fixed price. The effective rate falls by exactly the quoted hours over the actual hours, so 40 hours quoted and 58 spent turns £80 an hour into £55.Calculator plus Excel

Workbooks and trackers

Excel files that keep working after you close the tab.

Start hereFreelance Bookkeeping TemplateTwelve months of profit and loss built for a sole trader rather than adapted from a company template, with drawings kept below the profit line where they belong.Six cost lines, twelve columns, a year total ready to hand overDeduct your drawings and a £55,000 profit reads £16,600Which hides £10,741 of tax you still oweExcel workbook Utilisation and Time LogTwelve months of hours in five columns, so your rate rests on the utilisation you achieve rather than the one you assume. The demo year runs at 66.6 per cent and August at 53.2.Excel workbook Invoice and Payment TrackerEvery invoice, how long it took, and which clients treat your terms as an opening offer. Average days to pay by client is the number that changes how you quote.Excel workbook 13 Week Cash Flow for FreelancersThirteen weeks of money in and money out, built on when clients actually pay rather than when you invoiced. Long enough to see an invoice land, short enough to fill in.Excel workbook Client Profitability TrackerFees against hours by client, because the biggest client and the best one are rarely the same. In the demo the largest by fees pays £57.35 an hour against a £65 target.Excel workbook Expenses and Home Office LogThe simplified flat rate against a proper share of your actual costs, plus a plain list of what else is deductible and what never is.Excel workbook Tax Reserve TrackerTurns your profit into the share of every invoice worth moving aside. On £55,000 of profit that is 18.4 per cent of invoices, not the 21.4 per cent of profit people quote at themselves.Excel workbook Equipment and Software RegisterWhat you own, what you claimed for it, and the balancing charge that falls due when you sell it on. Capped at what you claimed, and subscriptions never create one.Excel workbook MTD Quarterly Update WorkbookWhether you are in scope, from when, and the four dates you will be filing to. Both standard and calendar quarter tables, with identical deadlines either way.Excel workbook

Checklists

Printable, timed, and ordered so nothing depends on something later.

Start hereNew Client Onboarding ChecklistA new client is the only moment you have leverage. After the first invoice you are asking for a favour, and everything on this list is harder to ask for once the work has started.Twenty checks, almost all before you send a priceThe client size question that decides who carries your IR35 riskFour warning signs worth walking away fromPrintable, 30 minutes Making Tax Digital Readiness ChecklistWhether you are in scope, on the gross figure most people never check, and what has to be working before the first quarterly update rather than after it.Printable, 35 minutes Going Limited ChecklistThe arithmetic before the paperwork, so you find out which of them you actually have. The first ten minutes decide whether the other thirty are worth doing.Printable, 40 minutes Quarterly Routine ChecklistOne routine covering the bookkeeping, the filing and the questions about your own business, built around the Making Tax Digital deadlines.Printable, 55 minutes Year-End Checklist for FreelancersThe decisions that expire on 5 April, placed first. Equipment, pension contributions and bad debts all stop being available the moment the date passes.Printable, 90 minutes

Guides and e-books

The longer reads, with worked examples on current rates.

Start hereThe Freelancer's UK Tax HandbookTen chapters on what the tax system does to a freelance business, on 2026/27 rates. Written for a sole trader who draws what they earn, and says so when the answer changes for a company.The sole trader against company comparison, on current ratesWhy your first January is 150 per cent of a year's taxOne worked year running through every chapterE-book, ten chapters IR35 and Off-Payroll ExplainedWho decides your status, what it costs to be inside, and what changed on 6 April 2025 when the small company thresholds rose and the liability moved with them.E-book, eight chapters Making Tax Digital for Income TaxFour updates a year instead of one return. The first phase started on 6 April 2026 for gross income over £50,000, so for a lot of people this is already in force rather than coming.E-book, nine chapters Pricing Freelance WorkBuilding a rate from what you need and the days you can actually bill, rather than from what everyone else charges. Eight chapters around one worked year.E-book, eight chapters

Look it up

For when you need one word or one answer rather than a tool.

Freelancer GlossaryThe words a freelance business runs into, from qualifying income to the deemed employment payment, each with the free tool that deals with it.48 terms Ask an Accountant: Freelancers and ContractorsThe questions freelancers actually ask, answered the way they would be answered on a call: the short answer first, then why, then the free tool if there is one.38 questions

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