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Hospitality Industry: VAT

Asked by Euan StainbankLabourTreasuryTabled Answered 23 June 2026UIN 9777

The question

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what proportion of hospitality businesses in Scotland are beneath the VAT registration threshold.

Answered by Dan Tomlinson

The information requested is not available, as the registered addresses of firms held in HMRC’s datasets does not always correspond to the firms’ places of business, and in many cases firms operate both in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK.

The UK has the second highest registration threshold among all 38 OECD countries, which keeps the majority of businesses outside the VAT system.

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