If you run a pub, restaurant, takeaway or shop, your till is going to have to prove it is honest. HMRC has confirmed it will make software standards mandatory for every EPOS and mobile point of sale (MPOS) system in the UK, so that sales records cannot be quietly altered or deleted. There is no start date yet and nothing you need to buy today, but it is worth knowing what is coming.
The decision came on 28 October, when the government published its summary of responses to the consultation it opened in June, confirming a plan first announced at Budget 2026. We have read both documents so you do not have to. Here are the questions we expect you to ask, and the answers.
Till fraud. Its official name is electronic sales suppression (ESS): a business tampers with its digital sales records to hide sales or make them look smaller, so it declares less turnover and pays less tax. Some use software built for the job. Others simply misuse everyday features such as voids and deletions.
HMRC’s own case files show how far it can go. In one, hidden functions in a till package let the owners swap expensive items for cheap ones, in bulk, after the sale had gone through. In another, a companion phone app wiped sales from the database without leaving a trace. HMRC pursued 14 businesses using it, took two to the criminal courts and recovered £1.3 million.
The total cost is hard to pin down because the fraud is designed to stay hidden, but HMRC estimated in 2019 that the VAT at risk could top £450 million a year. It names small retailers, takeaways and hospitality as the sectors most affected.
It is. Since Finance Act 2022, possessing, making, supplying or promoting ESS tools has been an offence. The catch is that the law only helps once someone has been caught. With around 547,000 retail and wholesale businesses in the UK, HMRC admits it cannot investigate its way out of the problem one case at a time. So it wants to stop the fraud before it starts, at the till itself.
The consultation set out a package of measures, which HMRC expects to bring in gradually:
HMRC is also weighing whether businesses in high-risk sectors should be required to put every sale through a compliant system. If you still take some sales outside your till, that is the proposal to watch.
Possibly, but the idea is to make checks shorter, not more frequent. An officer could ask for a till report, scan its QR code and confirm your records have not been tampered with. HMRC says a check like that could be over within 30 minutes, compared with traditional investigations that can drag on for months or even years. If everything checks out, the officer leaves.
Not necessarily, and this is where the industry pushed back hardest. Many respondents warned that compulsory receipts would add cost, slow service and create waste, particularly for busy counters handling lots of small sales. Most preferred receipts on request. HMRC floated a £35 threshold, but several respondents argued that small, high-volume sales are exactly where the risk lies. No decision has been made.
Broadly, they are on board. Of the 21 organisations and individuals who took part, 18 backed the standards, although 13 attached conditions. Respondents included UKHospitality, the National Federation of Fish Friers, the Federation of Independent Retailers and ICR Touch Ltd, the developer of the TouchPoint EPOS software we install. The common requests were a phased rollout, clear technical specifications and the option to bring existing systems up to standard through software updates.
Not for a while. HMRC will work with software providers and trade bodies before publishing a detailed technical consultation in summer 2027. That will shape the final rules and the legislation behind them, so there is time to plan.
Probably not, if your system is modern and supported. The government says its preferred route is updating existing systems rather than replacing them, and it expects manufacturers to do most of the work. Its view is that the average high street business will notice very little change day to day, because the protection will run in the background.
The exception is older kit. Respondents warned that basic cash registers and unsupported software will face the highest costs. If that sounds like your setup, you should factor it into your next upgrade.
Look at your voids and refunds. Check who on your team can void a sale, issue a refund or open the drawer without a sale, and review those figures in your back-office reports regularly. It is good practice today and it will matter more once every adjustment is permanently on record.
It should be. One trade body told HMRC that compliant businesses in its sector are struggling to compete with rivals who use ESS. If every till has to keep an honest record, that advantage disappears.
We will be following the technical consultation closely and will update customers as the detail emerges. In the meantime, if you want to know where your current system stands, call us on 0151 644 8296 or get in touch.
Yes. The proposals apply to both EPOS and mobile point of sale (MPOS) systems, including cloud-based setups.
The Standard Audit File for Tax, an international data format set by the OECD that lets tax authorities read business records consistently.
HMRC plans a technical consultation in summer 2027. No implementation date has been set.
