Guide
Payrolling benefits registration: closed, and reopening November 2026
Updated
This one catches employers out because nothing announced it loudly: the old registration service stopped taking new registrations, and the replacement is a year away.
Question 1
Which taxable benefits do you provide to employees or directors?
Pick the one that matters most to you. You can run the checker again for the others.
Email me this result
We will send you these figures and a link back to them. One email, nothing else unless you tick the box.
The current position
HMRC's guidance on the payrolling benefits and expenses online service now says plainly:
- you can only use it if you registered to payroll benefits and expenses before 6 April 2026;
- you can no longer use it to register or to cancel a registration;
- you cannot change how you report benefits and expenses for the current tax year;
- you can only payroll benefits you registered before 6 April 2026 (gov.uk).
What you can and cannot do right now
- Already registered: you can view the benefits registered for the current tax year, view excluded employees, and exclude an employee from a payrolled benefit for the current year. Once excluded, that employee cannot be added back to that benefit.
- Not registered: you carry on with P11Ds until 6 April 2027, when the phase 1 benefits become payrolled by default with no registration required.
- Loans and accommodation: cannot be payrolled today at all, and can only be payrolled voluntarily from April 2027 if you register in the new service.
- Payrolled benefits still need a P11D(b). Even where a benefit is payrolled under the current rules, Class 1A is still worked out and reported on form P11D(b).
The dates that matter
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| Current voluntary registration service closed | 5 April 2026 |
| Phased introduction announced | June 2026 |
| Draft primary legislation published on L Day | July 2026 |
| Registration opens for voluntary payrolling of non-mandatory benefits | November 2026 |
| Draft secondary legislation published | Autumn Budget 2026 |
| Deadline to register for voluntary payrolling for 2027 to 2028 | 5 April 2027 |
| Phase 1 goes live: cars, car fuel, vans, van fuel, medical | April 2027 |
| Phase 2: most other benefits | April 2028 |
What to do in November 2026
HMRC encourages employers who want to register voluntarily for non-mandatory benefits to do so as soon as the service goes live.
The reason to bother is simplicity: with loans or accommodation alongside cars, one reporting process replaces two. The reason not to is the complexity of valuing those benefits in year. Decide before November, not on 4 April 2027.
Whichever route you take, the mandated benefits need no registration. If a supplier tells you otherwise, check the guidance: HMRC's wording is that employers "will not need to register in order to payroll mandatory BiKs".