How do you start an accounting firm? Eight steps for the UK, in order

The short answer

To start an accounting firm in the UK, first get your professional body's permission to practise, then put anti-money laundering supervision and professional indemnity insurance in place, and register with HMRC as a tax adviser. Do all of that before you take on a client. After that the work is commercial: decide which services you sell, price them, and make sure people can find you.

The eight steps below are in the order to take them. Steps 1 to 5 make the firm allowed to trade. Steps 6 to 8 make it earn. This guide is for an accountant who wants to set up alone or with one partner. If you plan to offer bookkeeping only, our guide to starting a bookkeeping business is the better fit.

1. Check you are allowed to practise

Your professional body decides whether you may work for yourself, so start there. The law itself asks for little: the British Business Bank notes that the title "accountant" is not protected by UK law. The rules that bind you are your body's, and each sets its own gate.

• ICAEW. Its guidance says you need a practising certificatewhen you engage in public practice. That typically means becoming a principal in an accountancy firm, or independently offering accountancy services to the public. It applies whatever you call yourself and your firm. ICAEW's page on what to consider before you startsays you must have two years' relevant post-qualification experience, and that a member who is not entitled to a certificate cannot enter public practice.
• ACCA. Its page on who needs a practising certificate lists members who are thinking of setting up a practice, joining a firm as a principal such as a partner or director, or holding 5% or more of a firm. You apply with evidence of your experience. ACCA also warns that being a member does not mean it automatically supervises you.
• AAT. Its licensing page says all self-employed AAT members offering bookkeeping or accountancy services to clients must hold a valid AAT licence. Applicants must demonstrate technical competence, follow its practice assurance standards and be fit and proper persons.

Apply early. You can prepare everything else in this guide while the application is with your body, but you cannot take a fee until it is granted. If you qualified with a different body, such as CIMA, ICAS, IFA or AIA, ask it the same question: what do I need from you before I offer services to the public?

2. Choose a structure and a name

Decide how the firm will be owned before you apply for anything else, because your body and HMRC both register the business as it is set up. ICAEW's ready to practise checklist opens with this question and names the options: sole practitioner, partnership, limited company or limited liability partnership. The GOV.UK guide to setting up a business gives the two most common.

• Sole trader. You are personally responsible for all of the debts of the business, and you must keep records from the day you start trading.
• Limited company. The company must be registered before it starts trading, and its directors must file accounts and tax returns for it. Its owners are responsible for the debts of the business only up to the value of their financial investment.

Then choose the name with your body's rules open in front of you. ICAEW says a practice name must comply with legal requirements and be consistent with the dignity of the profession, and that its regulations set out when a firm may describe itself as "Chartered Accountants". It also asks a member setting up a new practice to notify it of the firm's name. Check the wording before you buy a web address or print anything.

3. Get anti-money laundering supervision

Every accountancy firm must be supervised for anti-money laundering, and you should have it settled before any client work. HMRC's guidance on registering as an accountancy service provider covers businesses that record, review, analyse, calculate or report on financial information for other people. It names accounts preparation, tax advice for a particular customer, bookkeeping and payroll. Such a business must register with HMRC unless a professional body already supervises it.

• Through your professional body.HMRC's list of supervisory bodies includes ICAEW, ACCA, AAT, ICAS, CIMA, CIOT, ATT, IFA and AIA. For most qualified accountants this is the route, and it usually comes with the practising certificate or licence. It is not automatic. ICAEW says that if it does not know you have set up a practice, it cannot supervise you, and that the owners, officers and managers of a firm must be approved. ACCA says membership alone does not make it your supervisor.
• Directly with HMRC. If no professional body supervises you, you register with HMRC instead.

Get written confirmation of who your supervisor is and keep it. HMRC asks for it in step 5. Then write the firm's risk assessment and client identity checks before the first client arrives, so that taking someone on follows the same routine every time.

4. Sort insurance and data protection

Buy professional indemnity insurance before you advise anyone. It covers the firm if a mistake in your work costs a client money, and the bodies expect it. ICAEW's checklist says you must obtain professional indemnity insurance which complies with its PII regulations. AAT requires all licence holders to have professional indemnity insurance covering the services they provide. Ask your body for its minimum terms, then check the policy covers every service on your list, including payroll and any specialist tax work.

Two more items belong here. The Information Commissioner's Office says organisations, including sole traders, that use personal information need to pay a data protection fee unless they are exempt, and ICAEW's checklist says a practice will normally need to register and pay it. And if you plan to hold money that belongs to clients, such as tax refunds, read your body's rules first. ICAEW has separate clients' money regulations, and requires a sole practitioner who holds clients' money to make alternate arrangements. Many new firms decide not to hold client money at all.

5. Register with HMRC, twice

A new firm registers with HMRC once for its own tax and once as a tax adviser. The second is the one people miss, because the rule is new.

• As a tax adviser. GOV.UK's page on registering as a tax adviser with HMRCsays that if you interact with HMRC about someone else's tax affairs and get paid for it, HMRC considers you to be a tax adviser. The online service opened on 18 May 2026, and the page says businesses new to the market should register now. The firm registers, not each member of staff.
• How to do it. You register by applying for an agent services account, which GOV.UK describes as how tax advisers access HMRC's online services. You must have approved anti-money laundering supervision in place before you apply, and HMRC may reject an application if your supervision is still pending. HMRC's handbook for tax agents adds that you must then get authorisation from each client before you act for them.
• For the firm's own tax.A sole trader must register for Self Assessment on earning more than £1,000 in a tax year. A company registers before it trades. GOV.UK's VAT thresholds page says you need to register for VAT if your taxable turnover goes over £90,000, or you expect it to.

6. Decide what the firm will and will not do

Write a short list of services and one kind of client, and turn down the rest for the first year. A new firm that looks after dentists, or contractors, or landlords with three to ten properties is easier to recommend than one that takes anybody. It is also safer. ICAEW's advice to new practitioners is never to be afraid to say no if you are unsure of the technical difficulty or the risk of a piece of work.

• Work most new firms start with. Year-end accounts, company and personal tax returns, VAT, bookkeeping, payroll and management accounts.
• Work that needs extra permission. Audit and insolvency appointments are licensed separately. ACCA says its practising certificate is only one step towards becoming a statutory auditor. Leave these out unless you already hold the approval.
• Work to pass on. Find a specialist for the tax questions outside your experience and agree terms in writing. ICAEW points out that if a subcontractor makes a mistake, it is your insurance that bears the claim.

7. Plan the money and the paperwork

Work out how long the firm can run before fees cover your living costs, and do it on paper before you resign. ICAEW calls a financial plan vital for a new practice. Its guidance says the plan should allow time for training, marketing and illness instead of assuming every hour is billed, and should show the effect on cash of how you bill clients. A firm that invoices once a year after the accounts are signed waits a long time to be paid. A monthly direct debit brings the money in from the first month.

• Fees. Set a fixed monthly fee for a written list of work wherever you can. Our guide to pricing bookkeeping services compares hourly, fixed and value-based fees and covers what the professional bodies expect in writing. The method is the same for accounts and tax work.
• An engagement letter. Before any work starts, put in writing what you will do, what the client must send you and by when, what you charge, and how either side can end the arrangement. Your body will have a template.
• Software. One accounts production and tax package, one bookkeeping package, and a practice management tool for deadlines. Learn one of each well before adding more.
• A take-on checklist. Identity checks, risk assessment, signed engagement letter, HMRC authorisation, and a letter to the previous accountant. Do not start work until every line is done.

8. Find your first clients and stay visible

Your first clients will come from people who already know your work. Tell former colleagues, friends who run businesses, and a solicitor, a bookkeeper and a mortgage broker you trust that you are open, and say exactly which kind of client you want. Our guide to how accountants get clients sets out seven ways in the order to try them, and what ICAEW, ACCA and AAT allow you to say. One caution: if you are leaving a firm, read your contract before you contact any of its clients.

Then set up what a stranger checks before calling: a short website that says who you help and how you charge, a Google Business Profile, and a LinkedIn page with your name, your body and your certificate on it. A new firm has no reviews and no history. A page that explains a deadline or answers a real client question every few days is the quickest proof that someone competent is behind it. Our weekly plan for what a small firm should post on LinkedIn shows what that looks like.

Posting is easy in month one and the first thing to stop in January. That is the job Pillr does for accountancy firms: once the firm has a website, Pillr reads it, drafts a month of posts in the firm's voice, and schedules them to LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram after you have approved each one. Paste your website address on the home page to see the posts it drafts, or look at plans and pricing first.

The whole list on one page

Work down this list in order. Nothing below the fifth line should start until the first five are finished.

• A practising certificate or licence from your professional body.
• A structure chosen, and a name your body's rules allow.
• Anti-money laundering supervision confirmed in writing.
• Professional indemnity insurance in force, and the ICO fee checked.
• An agent services account with HMRC, and the firm's own tax registered.
• One kind of client and a written list of services.
• A financial plan, fees, an engagement letter and a take-on checklist.
• Everyone you know told that you are open, and a page that shows the firm is active.

This guide is general information, not advice on your own circumstances. Rules and fees change, so check each linked page, and ask your professional body before you rely on anything here.

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