VAT on hot takeaway food: a plain guide for UK takeaways

VAT on food catches out a lot of takeaway owners. Most food is zero-rated, but hot takeaway food is not, and food eaten on your premises is standard-rated whether it is hot or cold. Get it wrong and you either overcharge customers or owe HMRC money you never collected.

This guide walks through HMRC's rules in VAT Notice 709/1, Catering and takeaway food (opens in a new tab) (last updated 8 June 2026), and related HMRC guidance. It is general information, not tax advice. The rules have exceptions, and an accountant who knows your business should check how you apply them.

The rates and when you charge VAT

GOV.UK lists three VAT rates (opens in a new tab): the standard rate of 20%, a reduced rate of 5%, and the zero rate, which covers most food. You only charge VAT if you are VAT registered. You must register (opens in a new tab) if your taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000, or if you expect it to go over £90,000 in the next 30 days. You can also choose to register below that threshold.

The basic rule

HMRC splits takeaway food into two groups:

• Zero-rated: cold takeaway food and drink, as long as it is not a type that is always standard-rated.
• Standard-rated: hot takeaway food, hot takeaway drinks, and catering, which includes any food and drink supplied for eating on your premises.

Some items are standard-rated even when cold and taken away. HMRC's VAT Notice 701/14, Food products (opens in a new tab), lists chocolates and sweets, potato crisps, and carbonated drinks such as cola and lemonade as standard-rated. Cold milkshakes, on the other hand, are listed as zero-rated.

What HMRC means by hot

Food is hot if it is above the ambient air temperature. HMRC sets a precondition: takeaway food is only standard-rated as hot food if it is hot at the time you provide it to the customer. If it is, it is standard-rated if it meets any one of these tests:

1. It has been heated so that it can be eaten hot. HMRC says it is your purpose as the seller, not the customer's, that counts. Its examples include chips, kebabs and hot soup.
2. It has been heated to order, such as a toasted sandwich or garlic bread.
3. It has been kept hot after heating, for example in a heated cabinet or on a spit. HMRC's examples include a doner kebab kept hot on a spit.
4. It is supplied in packaging designed to keep it hot, such as foil-lined bags or insulated containers. An ordinary paper bag does not count.
5. It is advertised or marketed as hot. Describing something as 'freshly baked' does not count as saying it is hot.

HMRC uses a Cornish pasty to show how this works. A pasty that has been baked, left to cool naturally, sold in a paper bag and marketed as 'freshly baked' is zero-rated. The same pasty kept under heat lamps, or advertised as hot, is standard-rated.

There is an exception for bakery items that happen to be warm when sold but are often eaten cold, such as pies, cakes, buns and bread baked for sale through the day. They stay zero-rated as long as none of the tests above applies. And food that has gone cold is treated as cold: HMRC's example is cooked joints taken out of a heated cabinet and sold cold the next day, which are zero-rated.

Eat-in versus takeaway

Anything you supply for eating on your premises is standard-rated, including cold food. HMRC defines premises as the areas you occupy, plus any area set aside for your customers to eat in, even if customers of other food sellers use it too. Tables and chairs provided for general public use, such as seating in an airport lounge or a motorway picnic area, do not count.

If you sell cold food that customers can either eat in or take away, you must split those sales between eat-in (standard-rated) and takeaway (zero-rated), and keep satisfactory evidence to support a fair and reasonable split. Hot takeaway food is standard-rated either way, so for most takeaways the eat-in question matters most for cold items such as sandwiches, salads and cold drinks.

One detail to watch: if you make a microwave available for customers to heat food, HMRC says that food becomes standard-rated, whether or not you charge for using it.

Meal deals and mixed orders

Two rules cover orders that mix hot and cold food.

A single item made with hot and cold ingredients is standard-rated as a whole. HMRC's examples are hot dogs and bacon sandwiches.

Separate items sold together for one price are a mixed supply. If you sell standard-rated and zero-rated items for an inclusive price to take away, you have to work out the value of each item so you can calculate the VAT on the standard-rated part. HMRC's example is a burger with chips and a milkshake: the hot burger and chips are standard-rated, and the cold milkshake is zero-rated. HMRC says you can split the price on the basis of cost or market values, as explained in its VAT guide (VAT Notice 700).

HMRC adds that items customers can also buy separately from your menu are usually treated as a mixed supply, and that condiments you give away free, such as salt and mustard, are ignored.

In practice, this means setting the right VAT rate on each item in your till and recording whether each order is eaten in or taken away, so the split is done for you on every sale. If you use ChefSynk, the till produces Z-reports and VAT breakdowns you can pass to your accountant.

Delivery charges

VAT Notice 709/1 sends you to a separate notice for delivery charges: Postage, delivery and direct marketing (VAT Notice 700/24) (opens in a new tab). Section 2.2 of that notice sets out three cases:

• If delivery is required under your contract with the customer and you make an extra charge for it, the delivery charge follows the VAT liability of the goods.
• If delivery is not required under the contract, for example because the customer chooses it as an optional extra, the delivery charge is always standard-rated, even if the goods are not.
• If delivery is free or built into your normal prices, VAT is accounted for on the full sales price based on the liability of the goods sold.

For a delivery of hot food, where the food itself is standard-rated, a delivery charge that follows the food is standard-rated too. For an order that mixes hot and cold items, the notice does not spell out how to split a single delivery charge, so ask your accountant how to handle it.

Keeping records

HMRC expects your records to support how you have split your sales. VAT Notice 709/1 points to VAT Notice 700/21 for record keeping and to the Point of Sale Retail Scheme (VAT Notice 727/3) for retail scheme calculations. Keep till reports that show what you sold, at what rate, and whether it was eaten in or taken away.

VAT Notice 709/1 also mentions a temporary reduced rate for certain children's meals between 25 June and 1 September 2026, with details in Revenue and Customs Brief 5/2026. If you sold children's meals in that period, check with your accountant whether it applied to you.

Sources

• HMRC, Catering and takeaway food (VAT Notice 709/1) (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)
• HMRC, Food products (VAT Notice 701/14) (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)
• HMRC, Postage, delivery and direct marketing (VAT Notice 700/24) (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)
• GOV.UK, VAT rates (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)
• GOV.UK, Register for VAT (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)