As of 13 August 2026, AI cannot claim a VAT repayment for your UK business.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   Someone with a licence or accountable authority has to sign this before it counts.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface gets you a draft, but you cannot verify it yourself. That is the catch.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your HMRC VAT online account and the relevant GOV.UK VAT repayment guidance, then note the VAT return period and the submission route shown for your business.
   2. Gather the VAT invoices, receipts, credit notes, sales records, purchase ledger and accounting export covering that period, and remove documents that belong to another period.
   3. Check that each document is readable and that the supplier or customer, date, net amount, VAT amount and gross amount are visible before uploading the files or pasting the export into the prompt.
   4. Paste the business details and the supplied records into the prompt, then ask the chatbot to produce the draft table, totals, missing-evidence list and accountant handover note.
   5. Compare every drafted figure with its source invoice, receipt, credit note or ledger entry, and mark any transaction where the VAT treatment or business purpose is unclear rather than accepting the model's conclusion.
   6. Send the draft totals, source documents and unresolved items to your accountant or UK tax adviser for review, including confirmation that the repayment claim is appropriate.
   7. After the professional review, enter the checked figures into the HMRC VAT return, compare the final entry with the approved handover note, and submit it through your HMRC VAT online account.

   Prompt

   You are helping prepare, not submit, a UK VAT repayment claim for a business. Use only the information and documents I provide, and do not invent figures, VAT rates, invoice details, dates, supplier status or eligibility.
   
   Business details:
   - Business name: [BUSINESS NAME]
   - VAT registration number: [VAT NUMBER]
   - VAT accounting scheme: [SCHEME OR UNKNOWN]
   - VAT return period: [START DATE] to [END DATE]
   
   Using the attached VAT invoices, receipts, credit notes, sales records, purchase ledger and bank or accounting export:
   1. Extract each transaction into a table with date, supplier or customer, description, net amount, VAT amount, gross amount, VAT rate, input or output VAT, and source document.
   2. Separate transactions with missing, unreadable or conflicting evidence.
   3. Calculate the draft totals for the VAT return from the supplied figures only, showing the arithmetic and identifying the expected repayment position if the input VAT exceeds the output VAT.
   4. Flag transactions whose VAT treatment, business purpose, invoice evidence, timing or eligibility needs checking by a UK accountant or tax adviser.
   5. List every missing document or figure needed before submission.
   6. Do not decide that a transaction is recoverable merely because VAT appears on a document. Do not give a final tax opinion and do not submit anything to HMRC.
   7. For each rule or conclusion that needs confirmation, point me to the relevant GOV.UK VAT guidance rather than stating an unsupported answer.
   
   End with a short handover note for my accountant, including the draft figures, unresolved items and the source document for each figure.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.