A courier business needs a van (or a big-booted car), the right insurance, and a source of parcels. There are two ways to get the parcels: deliver for the big carriers and platforms as a self-employed driver, or build your own rounds with local businesses. No special licence is needed for vehicles under 3.5 tonnes — but ordinary van insurance does not cover paid deliveries, so hire and reward cover is the real cost of entry.
Do you need a licence?
For parcels in a van or car, no — a full driving licence is enough, and goods vehicle operator licensing only applies to heavier vehicles (over 3.5 tonnes, or vans over 2.5 tonnes doing paid deliveries into Europe). What is required is the right insurance. Standard van or car insurance excludes carrying goods for payment; you need hire and reward cover, and most customers and platforms also expect goods in transit insurance for the parcels themselves. Our insurance guide explains the types; this page is part of our wider guide to starting a business.
Platform rounds or your own customers?
Delivering for carriers and platforms — parcel rounds for the national carriers, delivery slots for the big retailers — is the fast start. The parcels are handed to you, so there is no selling. The trade-off is that the rate per parcel is set by them, not you, and it is set keenly. You are self-employed with one customer, which means the volume, the rate and the round can all change under you.
Your own rounds take longer to build but you set the price. The customers are local businesses that ship things daily or urgently: independent online sellers, pharmacies, auto parts suppliers, printers, solicitors sending documents, workshops needing same-day parts. Same-day and last-minute work pays several times what a parcel round does per mile, because you are selling speed, not capacity.
Many couriers run both: platform work as the floor, own customers as the margin.
What it costs to start
One-off, to get going: the van — the whole business rides on it, so condition matters more than looks — a phone mount and a decent phone, a trolley, straps and blankets, and insurance set up.
Every month, once you are working: this is a high-mileage trade, so the vehicle is a full category of costs and fuel is the biggest line in it. Count fuel, the van finance payment, hire and reward insurance, goods in transit cover, servicing (which comes round fast at courier mileages), tyres, road tax and breakdown cover. Then the phone, and replacing kit that wears. A van doing 40,000 miles a year is being used up — put money aside for its replacement, because that cost is real even though no invoice arrives for it.
What the pay really looks like, per drop
Parcel work is paid per parcel or per stop, and the headline rate means nothing on its own — what matters is drops per hour and cost per mile. At an illustrative 75p a parcel and 20 drops an hour on a dense round, that is £15 an hour of sales; on a rural round at 10 drops an hour, the same rate is £7.50, before fuel and the van come off. Density decides everything, which is why two couriers on the same rate can have completely different businesses.
Take Priya, starting a courier round in Nottingham. On a platform round she delivers about 140 parcels a day at 75p — £105 a day, around £2,200 a month of sales over 21 working days. Fuel, insurance, servicing, tyres and the van payment take a serious slice of that, and tax comes off what is left — so she treats the round as her floor and spends one day a week building same-day work for local businesses at her own prices. Work your own version through with realistic drops per hour, not the best day you have heard of; our pricing guide shows how to build a day rate for own-customer work.
Getting your first customers
If you go beyond platform work, your first own customers are local businesses with a recurring shipping problem — and you find them by asking. Walk in or message the independent sellers, pharmacies, printers and parts suppliers within ten miles and ask what they do when something has to be somewhere today. For trades like this, Facebook is the platform that pays: local business groups are where "can anyone get this to Birmingham this afternoon?" gets posted, and a page with your coverage area and response time wins that work. A free Google Business Profile catches "same day courier near me" searches, and same-day work bought once tends to repeat.
Our guide to marketing a small business covers local search and getting found properly. Want help getting customers? Our sister agency The Fractions runs ads and builds websites for small UK businesses — the pages, the ads and the enquiries behind them.
The admin
Almost all couriers start as sole traders: register with HMRC, keep records, file a Self Assessment return. Platform work does not make you an employee — you are responsible for your own tax, so put a slice of every payout aside. Keep a mileage log and every fuel and repair receipt; in this trade the vehicle costs are most of your costs, and claiming them properly is the difference between a fair tax bill and an unfair one.
Turning this into a plan
A courier business plan is short and brutal in a useful way: parcels or jobs per day, the rate, working days a month, then every vehicle cost taken off — fuel, insurance, finance, servicing, tyres, and money set aside for the van's replacement. Do that once and you will know your real hourly earnings, which routes are worth taking, and what a same-day job needs to pay to beat a day on the round.
Create a mini business plan in minutes with Plan.business. Put in your rate, your hours and your costs, and it works out the rest — what you will make, when you break even, and what you need to charge to hit your target.
Frequently asked questions
How much do self-employed couriers earn in the UK? It depends on drops per hour and cost per mile more than the headline rate. Multiply a realistic daily parcel count by the per-parcel rate for monthly sales, then take off fuel, hire and reward insurance, the van payment, servicing and tyres. Dense urban rounds and same-day work earn well; sparse rounds at low rates can fall below a fair wage, so run the numbers before committing.
Do I need a licence to be a courier? Not for vans and cars under 3.5 tonnes — a full driving licence is enough. What you must have is hire and reward insurance, because standard vehicle cover excludes paid delivery work, plus goods in transit cover that most carriers and customers expect.
What insurance does a courier need? Hire and reward vehicle insurance is the essential one, and it costs more than ordinary van cover. Goods in transit insurance covers the parcels, and public liability is worth having for collections and deliveries on customers' premises. Platforms often set minimum cover levels, so check before buying.
Can I start a courier business with my own car? Yes, for smaller parcels and same-day documents — many couriers start this way and buy a van from the earnings. You still need hire and reward insurance on the car, and boot space limits which rounds you can take. A van pays for itself once your volumes justify it.
Is platform courier work worth it? As a floor, often yes: parcels arrive without any selling, and a dense round pays reasonably. As a whole business it is exposed — the rate and volume are outside your control. The couriers who do best treat platform work as the base and build their own higher-margin same-day customers alongside it.
Figures correct as of September 2026. Tax thresholds, fees and rates change; check the linked GOV.UK pages before acting. Prices and costs shown are indicative and vary by area and by what's included.
What is Plan?
Plan is a free business operating system for people starting or newly running a UK business. It walks you, one simple step at a time, from your elevator pitch through brand, product and pricing, to a complete business plan — then uses everything it now knows about the business to help with the basics: logo and brand, marketing, a website, a bank account, funding, insurance, company registration. You can use as much or as little as you want.
Two ways to do this
Do it yourself, free. Plan walks you through the numbers — the rate, the drops, the van costs, what a fair day looks like — one short question at a time, in your browser. Do only this bit if that is all you need.
Or start with the van sorted. In this trade the vehicle is the business. Need to fund the vehicle? SMEmoney can search a panel of UK lenders for commercial vehicle finance — vans, cars for work, and the kit that goes in them.