Asbestos removal is inside the Construction Industry Scheme. Asbestos surveying is arguably outside it.
Removal is part of stripping a building out before it is worked on or knocked down, which puts it squarely in the site preparation and demolition side of the scheme.
Surveying is a different animal. The legislation specifically excludes the professional work of architects and surveyors from CIS, and an asbestos survey is a survey carried out by a qualified surveyor who produces a report.
So a firm that surveys and removes has work sitting on both sides of the line, on the same building, often for the same customer, sometimes in the same month.
Why the split matters more than it looks
Most licensed contractors do not price the survey and the removal as two separate businesses, because commercially they are one job. The survey finds the material and the removal takes it out.
The paperwork has to keep them apart anyway.
- If your invoice reads as one figure for “asbestos works”, the contractor paying it will apply CIS to all of it, survey fee included
- Getting a deduction back that should never have been taken means either an in-year claim or waiting for the corporation tax return, and either way it is your cash sitting with HMRC
- The VAT position tends to follow the CIS position, so a wrong split can put the reverse charge on a fee that should have carried VAT in the normal way
- Where you subcontract survey work out, the same question runs in the other direction and you have to decide whether to deduct
Split it on the invoice at the point it is raised. That takes a minute. Unpicking it eighteen months later takes considerably longer.
Surveys are the front end of the removal work, so price them like it
The survey is where the job is won. It is also where firms give away margin, quoting the survey cheap on the assumption that the removal contract follows and pays for it.
Sometimes it does not follow. The building gets sold, or a competitor prices the removal off the back of your report.
Track the two separately and you can see what proportion of surveys actually convert. That number tells you whether the cheap survey is buying work or funding somebody else’s tender.
The costs that make this trade different
Licensing. An HSE licence is not a one off. It has to be maintained and evidenced, and the cost of holding it includes the management time behind the notifications, the plans of work, the medical surveillance records and the training. Firms often account for the renewal fee and ignore everything that sits behind it, which understates the true cost of being licensed.
Waste and disposal. Consignment notes, hazardous waste carrier costs, tip charges and haulage all move independently of your labour costs, and disposal pricing has been going one way. If the disposal element is buried in a general overhead code rather than costed to the job, your job level margins are wrong on every contract you have quoted.
Decontamination and equipment. Enclosures, negative pressure units, airlocks, RPE and the consumables that go with them. Some of this is plant with capital allowances against it. Some is consumable and belongs in cost of sales. Putting a unit through as materials because it arrived on the same invoice as the sheeting is a common enough error that we look for it.
Insurance and the long tail. This is the one that separates asbestos from every other stripping trade. Exposure claims surface decades after the work. Your cover has to be the right kind and it has to still respond years after the policy year, which affects what a buyer will pay for your company and what a lender thinks of it.
Air testing and clearance. Fourth stage clearance is a cost on every job, and where it is subcontracted to an independent analyst it needs to be recovered in the price rather than absorbed.
What we do
CIS handled across mixed work, with verification and monthly returns run for you, and the survey element kept out of the deduction where it belongs.
Job costing that carries disposal, clearance testing, enclosure and consumable costs, so the margin you see per contract is the real one.
Capital allowances claimed properly on plant and vehicles, funded however you funded them.
Cash flow planning around licence and insurance renewals, and around the retention held on larger removal contracts.
Provisions and disclosure around long tail liability, done in a way a lender or a buyer can read.
Plus the standard work. The routine compliance runs alongside all of that. Accounts, corporation tax, VAT, payroll and self assessment.
Who we work with
UK asbestos removal and asbestos consultancy limited companies turning over between £500,000 and £5 million. We work UK-wide and everything runs on cloud accounting.
Common questions
Is asbestos removal within CIS?
Yes. It forms part of the preparation and demolition work covered by the scheme, so payments to subcontractors carry deductions.
Is an asbestos survey within CIS?
Our view is no, because the scheme excludes the professional work of surveyors. See the review note above, and get the split shown clearly on the invoice either way.
A contractor deducted CIS from our survey fee. Can we get it back?
Usually yes, either through an in-year repayment claim or the corporation tax return. Better still, invoice it separately next time.
Do we charge VAT normally on surveys?
If the survey sits outside CIS then the reverse charge does not apply to it, so VAT is charged in the usual way. Mixed invoices are where this goes wrong.
Is a negative pressure unit an expense or an asset?
An asset, with capital allowances available. The filters and sheeting are consumables.
Book a call and send us one invoice that covers both a survey and a removal. We will tell you whether the CIS and VAT split on it stands up.
Common questions
Does CIS apply to asbestos removal contractors?
Asbestos removal is inside the Construction Industry Scheme. Asbestos surveying is arguably outside it. Removal is part of stripping a building out before it is worked on or knocked down, which puts it squarely in the site preparation and demolition side of the scheme. Surveying is a different animal.
Does the VAT domestic reverse charge apply to asbestos removal contractors?
Usually yes. The domestic reverse charge follows CIS scope. Where you supply asbestos removal contractors work that falls inside CIS to a customer who is VAT registered, registered under CIS and is not an end user, you do not charge VAT on the invoice. Your customer accounts for it instead. Supplies to homeowners and to end users stay outside it, and you charge VAT the normal way.