Once you’re past hobby-seller volume, HMRC expects you to keep proper records. For an eBay-based business that means having the full transaction stream — every sale, refund, fee, ad spend, and adjustment — in a shape you (or your accountant) can audit later. This guide walks through what HMRC actually expects, what counts as a transaction for eBay, and how to pull a complete year’s history without losing a weekend to it.
HMRC’s record-keeping rules require you to keep records of your business income and expenses for at least 5 years after the 31 January submission deadline for the tax year (longer for a limited company — at least 6 years). Records mean the underlying documents, not just the summary numbers on your tax return.
For an eBay seller, that typically covers:
Tax rules change — check current HMRC record-keeping guidance or ask an accountant if you’re unsure. The 5-year window has been stable for some time, but thresholds and what qualifies as digital record-keeping under Making Tax Digital have moved more than once.
eBay’s Finances API treats every money-affecting event as a transaction. That includes:
For tax purposes you usually want all of these — SALE and REFUND for revenue, the fee rows for expenses, NON_SALE_CHARGE for any subscription costs, SHIPPING_LABEL for postage expenses if you bought labels via eBay.
eBay does provide a built-in export, but it’s designed for browsing rather than annual record-keeping:
This works for one tax year, once a year. The 90-day cap is the main irritation — and if you forget to grab any window before eBay rolls it out of the report range, that data becomes harder to retrieve.
clearpence calls eBay’s Finances API directly and pages through the entire window you ask for — no 90-day cap on the export itself (Pro plan; the free tier covers the last 30 days). The CSV that comes back is one row per transaction, sorted by date, with the columns an accountant wants:
The transactions CSV pairs naturally with the payout export: transactions for the line-by-line detail, payouts for the bank reconciliation view.
The UK personal tax year runs 6 April to 5 April the following year. clearpence has a built-in UK Tax Year date preset on the export controls that picks the right range automatically:
There’s also a UK Tax Year Summary template that rolls the line items into the totals you actually put on the Self Assessment return — turnover, expenses (fees / postage / other), and net profit. The line-item CSV is what HMRC would want if they opened an enquiry; the summary is what you read off into the form itself.
Three practical steps:
eBay’s Finances API exposes roughly the last three years of transactions (around 36 months). Older than that and you’ll have to rely on whatever you exported at the time. If you’re sitting on a years-old account with no exports, do a full historical pull now so you have the records.
For Self Assessment you’re reporting totals for the tax year, but you have to keep the underlying records for at least 5 years after the 31 January submission deadline (longer if you’re a company). If HMRC opens an enquiry they can ask to see the transaction-level data. So you need both: totals on the return, transactions in the file.
eBay’s "transactionDate" is when the sale, refund, or fee was booked in your account ledger — typically the moment the buyer paid or eBay charged the fee. This is the date most accountants want for revenue recognition. The clearpence CSV uses this date as the primary timestamp.
It comes from the same data eBay uses to build Seller Hub, just via the API instead of the UI. Totals should match to the penny; the layout’s different because Seller Hub is built for browsing, not exporting.
clearpence is an independent tool and is not affiliated with eBay Inc. eBay is a registered trademark of its owner. This guide is general information about record-keeping, not tax advice — consult an accountant for your specific situation.