Do fencing prices include VAT?

Our published guide ranges exclude VAT. Closeboard at £90 to £130 per metre, composite at £95 to £180 per metre, panel replacement at £85 to £150 per panel, repairs at £60 to £150, gates at £200 to £700 and decking at £70 to £130 per square metre are all net figures. Trade quotes are conventionally given ex VAT so that materials, labour and margin can be compared cleanly between firms. Your written quote should show the net figure, the VAT amount and the gross total as three separate lines.

Treat any claim that domestic garden fencing is VAT free, zero rated or exempt with real caution. We looked for a relief covering standard domestic fence replacement and could not verify one. If a quote arrives with no VAT on it, the question to ask is whether the business is VAT registered at all, which is a separate matter from the work being zero rated. A firm that is not registered adds no VAT, and that alone can put two otherwise honest quotes for the same job some distance apart.

Published cost guides make this worse rather than better. Checkatrade's tables are headed literally "Cost + VAT (Range low to high)" with no methodology note anywhere on the page saying whether VAT is inside the figure or added to it. MyBuilder and MyJobQuote state no VAT basis at all on their per metre tables. So a headline such as "fencing costs £2,200" from a comparison site cannot be lined up against a builder's written quote without first asking which basis each of them uses.

Merchant prices follow yet another convention, which matters if you are pricing a DIY job. Wickes is a consumer retailer, so its shelf prices are VAT inclusive and excluding delivery: £32 for a dip treated overlap panel, £7.50 for a 20kg bag of postcrete. Travis Perkins shows three figures on the same product tile, a retail price, an ex VAT price and a logged in trade price. Adding a Wickes number to a Travis Perkins number without checking gives a total that means very little.

Two questions settle it. Ask whether the quoted figure includes VAT, and ask for the VAT registration number if VAT is being charged. Both are reasonable to ask and neither should cause a problem for a straight trader. Then compare quotes on one basis throughout, net against net or gross against gross, because mixing them can flip which quote looks cheapest. Our guide ranges on the costs page are net of VAT, and any written quote we send states the net, the VAT and the total separately.

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