World Cup 2026, takeaway apps and VAT
- bducran
- Jul 17
- 3 min read
What is left after the whistle blows at a World Cup football match?
So, whether you are a football fan or not, it can hardly have escaped your attention that the 2026 World Cup is under way.
When England play, familiar commercial patterns appear.
Pubs fill earlier. Restaurants plan for heavier sittings. Takeaways prepare for a rush. Kitchens that might otherwise have had a steady evening suddenly find orders arriving from the counter, the phone, the website and the delivery apps at the same time.
That match-day uplift does not stop at the pub door or the takeaway counter. It also flows through the digital ordering and delivery platforms that now sit between many customers and the businesses supplying the food.
That is the commercial backdrop to an advertising campaign featuring Gordon Ramsay, which uses the 2026 World Cup as its setting and encourages people to put down their pans and order food while watching the football matches.
At one level, it is a seasonal advertising campaign.
At another level, it points to something much more important for VAT, compliance and business records.
A growing share of ordinary consumer spending no longer moves in a straight line from customer to business. It moves through apps, payment systems, platform accounts, delivery networks, service fees, refunds, adjustments and settlement statements.
That matters because the amount that lands in the bank may not tell the full story.
The busy night
Somewhere nearby, a small takeaway/restaurant has had a busy evening.
The kitchen printer has been chattering for hours.
Orders have come in from the counter, the phone, the website and the delivery apps.
Paper bags have been lined up, names checked, sauces missed, refunds handled, drivers sent back out into traffic, and someone has probably had to check whether there is enough chicken left for tomorrow.
By the end of the night, the owner is not thinking about the VAT.
They are thinking about staff, stock, cold food complaints, card charges, platform fees and whether the numbers in the till feel broadly right. Then, a day or two later, one neat payment lands in the bank from the delivery platform. It looks beautifully simple.
But let’s walk through what has actually happened.
A customer placed an order through the app and the following events take place:
The platform collected the money.
The restaurant prepared the food.
The driver collected the bag.
The platform deducted its fees and adjustments.
Then the restaurant/takeaway received the balance.
So, the customer experienced a takeaway.
The platform experienced a processed order.
The restaurant/takeaway experienced a tidy bank receipt.
But where is the VAT in all this activity?
Well, it all sits in the following, and the first few things you need to recognise and understand, is this:
the amount that reaches the bank is not always the amount of the sale, and
the app taking the payment is not always the business making the sale.
A useful way to think about it is this:
The bank payment received is simply the amount left after the platform has made its deductions. The VAT position may need to be worked out by looking at the full customer order and the wider transaction, not just the amount that arrives in the bank.
So, the question of the VAT does not necessarily start with the tidy bank receipt.
It starts earlier, with:
the chain of supply.
Who sold what to whom?
Who collected the customer’s money?
What did the platform actually do?
What did the restaurant supply?
And do the records explain that clearly enough if HMRC ever asks?
HMRC and HM Treasury are now consulting on whether online marketplace VAT liability should be extended to sales by UK businesses through online marketplaces, where goods are in the UK at the point of sale. The consultation also discusses takeaway food delivery platforms.
So, the small click is this:
That bank payment is not the transaction. It is the cleaned-up footprint the transaction leaves behind.
For accountants, finance directors and business advisers, that is worth raising early with clients using platforms. Not as a scare point, but as a simple governance question:
Are we looking at the VAT position, or just the payment that arrived afterwards?
Read this article in full on our Substack publication, Tax Chats & Compliance.
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