Does driving for a delivery platform make me self-employed?
In most systems, yes. The platform engages you to provide a service rather than employing you, so nothing is deducted from your payouts and none of the duties that employment quietly handles are handled for you. You carry the filing yourself, you set aside your own tax through the year, you look after your own contributions, and you have to work out for yourself whether your turnover puts you into indirect-tax registration. None of that changes because the app calls you a partner. If you work through more than one platform, the activity is still one business and the figures are added together, not kept in separate boxes by app.
I drove in two countries last year — where do I file?
Potentially in both. The country where you were resident generally taxes the whole year of driving; the country where you actually did the driving generally taxes the part earned inside its borders. That overlap is normal and is meant to be resolved by relief for the tax paid in the other country, not by choosing one and ignoring the other. The practical problem is evidence: you need your payout records split by the country the trips were completed in, and platform statements rarely present them that way. Filing in neither country is the one outcome that leaves both claims open indefinitely.
Do couriers have to register for sales tax on their fares?
It depends on the country and on who is treated as making the supply to the customer. In some systems the platform is deemed the supplier and accounts for the indirect tax on the fare itself; in others you are the supplier and the platform merely takes a commission, which puts registration on you once your own turnover crosses the registration point. Your commission and fee statements decide which of those you are in, so they are the first thing to read. Registration also brings a recovery side, because tax charged to you on your vehicle and running costs can then be claimed.
Why does the platform not deduct any tax from my payouts?
Because deduction at source is a feature of payroll, and the platform is not running you through payroll. Where an employer would withhold tax each pay period and remit it, the platform pays the full fare net of its own commission and leaves the tax entirely to you. The consequence is a timing one as much as an amount one: your liability builds through the year with nothing set aside against it, and instalment obligations can arise once the business is established. Treating a share of every payout as money that is already committed is the habit that prevents the shortfall.
Can I claim my car, phone and insurance against courier income?
Business costs are deductible, but only in the proportion that the cost was actually incurred for the work, and the burden of showing that proportion sits with you. A vehicle used for deliveries and for family trips is split, and the split has to rest on something contemporaneous — a log of distances driven for work against total distance for the period. The same applies to a phone used for the app and for everything else. Capital costs such as the vehicle itself are generally relieved over time rather than in the year of purchase, which is a different mechanism from ordinary running costs.
Do I pay social contributions as a self-employed driver abroad?
Usually yes, and at the self-employed rate, which carries both halves of what an employer and employee would otherwise split. The cross-border question is which country you contribute to, because driving in one country while resident in another can look like a liability in both. Many country pairs have an agreement that assigns a self-employed person to a single scheme and lets you show the other country that you are covered elsewhere. Without evidence that you are covered elsewhere, the default is that each system applies its own rules to the same earnings, and you pay twice.
Branch or subsidiary — which should we use to expand?
A branch keeps one taxpayer: results consolidate at home, losses are usable sooner, and the exposure is that the branch is a permanent establishment whose profit the host country taxes, sometimes with a branch tax on repatriation. A subsidiary is a separate taxpayer with limited liability and local rates, at the cost of withholding on dividends home and transfer pricing on everything between them. The deciding facts are usually expected losses, liability and exit plans. See branch against subsidiary.
Which country do I pay tax to first?
Generally the source country — where the income arises — taxes first, often by withholding before you receive it. Your country of residence then taxes the same income and credits what the source country took. That order is why timing matters: a residence-country return filed before the source-country tax is settled has nothing to credit yet. Getting the sequence right is most of the work. See international tax planning.
