Allowable Expenses for OnlyFans Creators
Written and reviewed by the Adult Creator Accountants editorial team. Last reviewed 29 July 2026.
The tax you pay is worked out on your profit, which is your income after allowable business expenses. Claiming the right costs, and only the right costs, is one of the most direct ways to keep your bill accurate. The governing rule is simple to state and easy to misapply.
An expense is deductible only if it is incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade. That single test does most of the work, and it is the reason some costs creators expect to claim cannot be claimed at all. The principle, the treatment of equipment and home working, and the one area that most often goes wrong are below.
The Wholly and Exclusively Rule
The core rule comes from section 34 of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005: an expense is allowable only where it is incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade. Where spending has a dual purpose, serving both the business and a private end, it is generally not allowable, unless a definite and identifiable part of it is spent exclusively for the trade.
In practice that means a cost has to be genuinely and only a business cost. If it also does a private job, the whole amount usually falls outside what you can deduct, which is stricter than many people assume.
Equipment and the Annual Investment Allowance
Larger items you buy to use in the business, such as cameras, lighting or a computer, are capital items rather than day-to-day running costs. These are dealt with through capital allowances, and the Annual Investment Allowance lets you deduct the full cost of qualifying equipment up to £1,000,000 in the year you buy it.
Where an item is used partly for private purposes, only the business proportion can be claimed, which brings the same wholly and exclusively thinking into the capital side.
Working From Home Costs
Many creators work from home, and there are two accepted ways to claim for it. The first is HMRC's simplified flat rate, which is a set monthly amount based on the hours you work from home each month: £10, £18 or £26 a month across the hours bands. The second is to work out an apportionment of your actual household costs, such as a share of heat, light and broadband based on the rooms used and the time spent working.
The flat rate is simpler and needs no calculation of bills; the actual-cost method can be worth more but requires records and a reasonable basis for the split. Either is acceptable, but not both at once for the same costs.
Why Everyday Clothing Is Not Allowable
This is the area that most often trips creators up. Everyday clothing is not an allowable expense, even where you buy it only for your work. The reason comes from the case of Mallalieu v Drummond, in which the courts held that ordinary clothing has an inherent private purpose, warmth and decency, so it fails the wholly and exclusively test regardless of the wearer's intention.
Because of this, it would be wrong to treat clothing bought for content as automatically deductible. Whether any particular item can be claimed is a question of the specific facts, and the safe assumption is that ordinary clothing cannot be, following Mallalieu.
Where the Facts Decide
A great deal in this area turns on the detail rather than on a fixed list. The same category of spending can be allowable for one creator and not for another, depending on how and why it is used. That is why we do not publish a blanket list of what is and is not claimable: it would be misleading. This is where an accountant familiar with creator businesses earns their keep, because the judgement calls need experience of how HMRC views this work.
If you want the expenses on your return handled correctly, our bookkeeping service for creators keeps the records that support each claim, and the profit these expenses reduce is taxed as set out in how OnlyFans income is taxed.