I just registered for VAT — what do I do about invoices and expenses from before registration?

Your effective registration date is a hard line in how VAT applies, and the first thing to understand is that there's no retroactive effect: nothing before that date is subject to VAT, and everything from that date forward has to follow full VAT rules — even in the middle of an ongoing relationship with the same client, or a contract that started before you registered at all.

Invoices issued before registration: since you weren't registered yet, no VAT should have appeared on any invoice dated before your effective registration date, even if payment for it is only collected afterward. The reverse holds too, and it's the part businesses tend to forget: any supply actually delivered on or after the registration date needs a full tax invoice carrying your TRN, even if it was quoted, agreed, or partly paid for before you registered — what determines this is the actual date of supply (goods delivered, or the service completed), not the date the deal was struck or the date on an earlier invoice.

Input VAT on pre-registration expenses — goods: the law lets you recover VAT paid on goods bought before registration, provided those goods are genuinely still on hand at the registration date (not sold, consumed, or already incorporated into an earlier supply) and will be used to make taxable supplies afterward. In other words, unsold stock still sitting in inventory is what qualifies — anything already sold or used before registration doesn't, even if the original purchase invoice carried VAT.

Input VAT on services and capital assets: the treatment differs slightly — services can only be recovered where their benefit hadn't already been fully used up before registration (rare in practice, since most services are consumed as they're delivered, like a consultation that's already been given and closed out), while capital assets such as equipment can also be included in the claim as long as they're used in your taxable activity, subject to later adjustments over their useful life if they're high-value assets falling under the Capital Assets Scheme.

Your first VAT return covers the first tax period the FTA assigns you from your effective registration date, due within 28 days of its end. It needs to carry output VAT on every supply from the registration date forward, plus any pre-registration input VAT you're claiming for the first time — with full supporting documentation kept on file (original purchase invoices, a stock count at the registration date, and asset records), since this particular return tends to draw closer scrutiny than a routine one, and a claim missing its paperwork can be rejected outright.

RASEEKH reviews your pre-registration invoices and expenses from day one, and prepares the stock count and documentation you'll need before that first return is filed, so you recover everything you're legitimately owed without carrying VAT you should never have had to bear.