Reconciling Deliveroo Payouts: UK Restaurant Workflow
Of the three big UK delivery platforms, Deliveroo sits in the middle for data quality. It gives you more than Just Eat's PDF invoice but less than Uber Eats' per-order CSV. What you get each week is a detailed weekly statement — line items for each order category, refunds, and the VAT on commissions, all in one document. This guide explains how Deliveroo payouts work, what the weekly statement contains, and a practical workflow that keeps your books correct and your VAT return accurate.
How Deliveroo pays UK restaurants
Deliveroo runs on a weekly payout cycle. The week runs Monday to Sunday, the statement is typically available a few days after the week closes, and the net payment reaches your bank shortly after. What lands is a single net figure: your gross food sales for the week, less commission, less the VAT on Deliveroo's service, less any refunds and adjustments.
For how this compares with Just Eat's and Uber Eats' timing, see our guide to delivery platform payout schedules.
What the Deliveroo weekly statement actually contains
The Deliveroo weekly statement (downloadable from the Restaurant Hub at restaurant-hub.deliveroo.net) breaks down your weekly payout into several components. A simplified version looks roughly like this:
``` Food sales (gross): £1,840.00 Less: commission (typically 15–35%): -£460.00 Less: VAT on Deliveroo commission: -£92.00 Less: refunds and adjustments: -£37.50 Net payment to your bank: £1,250.50 ```
Unlike Uber Eats, this is a weekly aggregate — you do not get a line per order in the standard export. The statement totals your gross sales, itemises Deliveroo's charges, and shows the net. If you want to investigate a specific order, the Restaurant Hub has a transaction search, but the downloadable statement is the weekly-aggregate view.
Deliveroo commission: what you are actually paying
Deliveroo's commission for independent UK restaurants typically falls in the 15–35% range, depending on your contract, location, and whether you use Deliveroo's couriers or your own:
| Service | Typical commission |
|---|---|
| Platform delivery (Deliveroo riders) | 25–35% |
| Self-delivery (your own couriers) | typically lower, toward 15% |
The VAT treatment
Deliveroo's commission is a standard-rated service, so VAT is charged at 20% on the commission amount. For a VAT-registered restaurant, that VAT is generally reclaimable as input tax — which means your bookkeeping needs to capture it as a separate line, not fold it into the net deposit.
The zero-rated food caveat applies here too: cold takeaway food supplied through Deliveroo is zero-rated (taxable at 0%, not exempt), and because zero-rated supplies are still taxable supplies you retain full input VAT recovery on related costs, including Deliveroo's commission. Partial exemption only restricts input tax recovery where you make genuinely exempt supplies, which most restaurants do not. Our VAT on delivery commissions guide covers the mechanics in detail.
A weekly Deliveroo reconciliation workflow
Because Deliveroo's statement is a weekly aggregate, your reconciliation works at the week level. The aim is to confirm that gross sales, deductions, and the net deposit all tie together, and to record the components your books and VAT return need separately.
- Download the weekly statement from the Restaurant Hub once it becomes available for the closed week.
- Record gross food sales as revenue — the total sales figure before any deductions, not the net deposit. Your turnover should reflect what you actually sold; HMRC receives gross-revenue data from Deliveroo under the Digital Platform Reporting rules, so your books need to match.
- Book commission as a separate expense — this is Deliveroo's service fee, not a reduction in sales.
- Record the VAT on commission as reclaimable input tax — it sits on the same line as the commission in the statement, so extract it explicitly.
- Record refunds and adjustments on their own line — not netted against gross sales.
- Tie the net figure to the bank deposit. The statement's net payment should match what hits your account. If it does not, the most common cause is an adjustment or clawback carried into the next payout — investigate before closing the period.
Deliveroo and HMRC's Digital Platform Reporting rules
Since January 2024, Deliveroo reports your seller revenue to HMRC under the Digital Platform Reporting rules (introduced by SI 2023/817). Deliveroo submits an annual report to HMRC — due by 31 January following each calendar year — with your gross revenue broken down by calendar quarter, along with the number of transactions and fees deducted. That annual report is enough for HMRC to compare against the income declared on your return.
This is the practical reason gross-revenue bookkeeping matters for Deliveroo specifically: if you book the net deposit, your declared turnover will be lower than the annual gross figure Deliveroo reported to HMRC, and that discrepancy is exactly what HMRC's data-matching programme looks for. Our guide to HMRC's Digital Platform Reporting rules explains what each platform reports and when.
Reconciling across all three platforms
Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats each pay into the same bank account but use different report formats — Deliveroo's weekly statement, Just Eat's PDF invoice, and Uber Eats' per-order CSV. Each has a different reconciliation workflow, and doing all three manually takes time every week.
If you want a platform-by-platform breakdown:
- Reconciling Just Eat payouts — the weekly-invoice workflow
- Reconciling Uber Eats payouts — the per-order workflow (guide coming shortly)
Key takeaways
- Deliveroo pays weekly, as a single net deposit, based on a Monday-to-Sunday trading week.
- The weekly statement shows gross food sales, commission, VAT on commission, and refunds — a week-level aggregate, not per-order.
- Commission is typically 15–35%, depending on whether you use Deliveroo's delivery network or your own couriers.
- Record gross sales, not the net deposit, and book commission and its VAT as separate lines.
- HMRC receives an annual report from Deliveroo broken down by calendar quarter under the Digital Platform Reporting rules — your books need to agree.
This is general guidance on how Deliveroo payouts work and how to record them. It is not tax or accounting advice. For your specific situation — particularly VAT registration, partial exemption, and how to handle mixed menus — verify with a qualified accountant or HMRC's published guidance.