Check if you meet HMRC's conditions to register as a tax adviser
Check if you meet the conditions to register with HMRC and interact on behalf of your clients.
Before you start
If your business interacts with HMRC about someone else’s tax affairs and gets paid for it, you may be required to register with HMRC. This means you’ll need an agent services account if you do not already have one.
Find out more about if and when you need to register with HMRC.
Who needs to meet the conditions
Your business will need to meet certain conditions when you register for an agent services account.
Some of the people who work for your business must also meet the conditions. These people are known as ‘relevant individuals’.
Who these relevant individuals are depends on how many officers your business has. Officers include directors, partners and any equivalent roles (including in overseas companies).
You’ll need to provide information about relevant individuals when you register for an agent services account. This will include anyone who works for the business and plays a significant role in deciding how your business manages or organises its tax adviser activities, or who actually manages or organises these.
Businesses with 5 officers or less
If your business has 5 officers or less, we’ll treat all of them as relevant individuals, even if they’re not all involved in providing tax services. You’ll need to tell us about all of them.
Businesses with 6 officers or more
If your business has 6 officers or more, you’ll need to tell us about all the relevant individuals.
This will include all officers involved in tax adviser activities, and anyone else in the business who plays a significant role in managing or organising these.
If this comes to less than 5 people, you must nominate other officers to bring the total number of relevant individuals to at least 5.
The registration conditions
These are the conditions your business will need to meet when registering for an agent services account.
You must provide evidence that your business is supervised for anti-money laundering.
Your business must not:
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have any relevant outstanding tax returns or unpaid tax (unless covered by a payment plan)
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be subject to a decision by HMRC refusing to deal with you
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be subject to an anti-avoidance sanction or a stop notice
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have any relevant, unspent convictions for fraud or tax offences
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be formally insolvent
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be suspended or permanently banned from registering with HMRC
For relevant individuals
The same conditions apply to relevant individuals, but they:
- will not need to provide evidence of anti-money laundering supervision
- must not be disqualified from acting as a director, either in the UK or overseas
How HMRC will carry out checks
In most cases, we’ll check you meet these conditions once you’ve submitted your application online. You will not usually need to provide separate evidence. We’ll contact you if we need more information from you.
For overseas tax advisers
If your business or any relevant individuals operate outside of the UK, you’ll need to be able to send authenticated evidence to HMRC when registering for an agent services account. This will prove that you meet the conditions for registration.
To show their authenticity, any documents you send will need to:
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be notarised by an independent and qualified notary (or an equivalent professional)
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have a certified English translation (where applicable)
We’ll update the guidance soon with more information about when you need to provide your authenticated evidence to HMRC.
How to register
You can register from 18 May 2026. We’ll update this guidance before then with information about how to register.
After you’ve registered
We’ll continue to carry out checks to make sure your business still meets the registration conditions. If we need more information, we’ll contact you through your agent services account.