Your monthly CIS statements under MTD: what to keep and why

acrenvo.com/guides/mtd-cis-payment-and-deduction-statements, last reviewed 12 October 2026

Jade is fictional. She is a self-employed electrician who works for three or four contractors over a year, and each of them pays her under the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS). Every month a statement arrives from each contractor, sometimes on paper and sometimes by email, and until now she has kept them in a folder for her accountant. Now that she uses Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax, she wants to know whether those statements still matter, what she should check on each one, and how they fit with the digital records she keeps in her software. This guide sets out what GOV.UK says.

What your contractor must give you each month

GOV.UK’s guidance on getting paid under CIS is short on this point. Each month, your contractor must give you a payment and deduction statement showing:

• what they’ve paid you
• deductions they’ve taken

They must give it to you within 14 days of the end of each tax month. If they do not, ask them for it. A tax month runs from the sixth of one month to the fifth of the next month so the statement must be provided by the 19th of the month. So if a statement has not reached Jade by then, she asks the contractor for it rather than waiting until the end of the year.

A statement does not have to be on paper. The statement may be issued by electronic means but only where the:

• contractor and subcontractor agree to this method
• statement is in a form that allows the subcontractor to store and print it

What each statement must show

HMRC’s guide to CIS for contractors and subcontractors goes into more detail. Contractors can choose the style of the statements but they must include the:

• contractor’s own name and employer tax reference
• end date of the tax month in which the payment was made, or the date of payment where the statement relates to a single payment
• subcontractor’s name and UTR
• personal verification number if the subcontractor could not be verified and a deduction at the higher rate has been made
• gross amount of the payments made to the subcontractor
• cost of any materials that has reduced the amount against which the deduction has been applied
• amount of the deduction

The verification number only appears when a contractor could not verify you and took deductions at the higher rate, and it matters if it does. The subcontractor will need this reference number later when seeking credit for any of the deductions made.

Materials are worth a closer look, because they change the figure the deduction is worked out on. Contractors will not take CIS deductions from amounts you charge on your invoice for:

• VAT
• equipment which is now unusable (‘consumable stores’)
• plant hired for the job
• manufacturing or prefabricating materials
• materials that you have paid for directly

Your contractor may ask for evidence of payments you have made for materials (for example, receipts). If you do not have any evidence, the contractor will estimate the cost of the materials. Jade keeps her receipts for materials for this reason as well as for her own records.

Why the statements still matter under MTD

The statements are your evidence of the tax already paid on your behalf. GOV.UK’s guidance on paying tax and claiming back deductions says: You’ll need the monthly payment and deduction statements your contractor has given you. Keep a record of your statements, as HMRC might ask for evidence of your deductions when you pay tax and claim back deductions.

They matter at the end of the year, too. When Jade comes to send her tax return through her MTD software, HMRC adds the CIS deductions it holds for her, and she must check that information before she submits. Adding up her own statements gives her a total to check it against. The guide to how MTD and CIS fit together explains that step.

If a statement is wrong or missing

If you think the figures are incorrect, speak to your contractor. If you lose any statements, ask your contractor for a replacement.

Sometimes a contractor cannot be reached at all. If you’re unable to get all of your statements (for example because your contractor has gone out of business), write to HMRC and give them the following information:

• your name, address and Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR)
• the name and address of the contractor
• the contractor’s tax reference - if you know it
• the dates of the payments or the tax months when the contractor paid you
• the reason why you do not have statements or duplicates

GOV.UK gives the postal address for that letter on the same page, so it is best to copy it from there.

How the statements sit beside your MTD records

MTD asks for digital records of your income and expenses, and GOV.UK’s guidance on digital records explains what each one holds. When you create records of your income or expenses, you will need to record the:

• amount
• date when the income was received or expenses incurred
• category (the type of category you use depends on the type of business you have)

The paperwork behind the records still has to be kept, too. You still need to keep the original records or supporting documents (or copies of them) that you use to prepare your tax return, such as bank statements and invoices. Jade’s CIS statements are among the documents she uses to prepare her return, so she keeps them alongside the records in her software.

On how long to keep things, GOV.UK’s CIS guidance asks you to keep the statements without giving a period, while its MTD guidance gives one for digital records. You will need to keep your digital records for at least 5 years after the 31 January submission deadline for a tax year. This is the same amount of time you need to keep records for Self Assessment. Keeping the statements for at least as long as the records they relate to is a sensible habit. The guide to MTD digital records covers the record rules in full.

Questions about CIS statements