New Account....

When would you suggest is best to open it to a business account? Straight away and lost gradually or keep as personal?

[empirestate]

personal and build your account until they start asking for EIN, then you convert to business.

[jeffweico]

I agree. That way, if the account goes down, you have not wasted your business information. From what I understand registering a business is more difficult in the UK than it is here in the states.

What's an EIN???

Even if you have a business eBay account in the UK, you don't need to submit business info.......or I haven't on my 4 business eBay accounts?????

[dan_ebay]

i leave personal until they make me switch to business

[Haidukken]

I agree that you can easily run it as personal account for long periods of time and only when they force you, only then consider becoming a business account.

[Ebayorbust]

Originally Posted by username1

Even if you have a business eBay account in the UK, you don't need to submit business info.......or I haven't on my 4 business eBay accounts?????

Correct. Unfortunately the folk giving advice regarding EIN are US members. EIN is not relevant to UK Paypal or Ebay.

If you are acting like a business, eg buying and reselling items then:-

1. Keep your Paypal account as individual or change it to Sole Trader. For many years it has not been an issue running business ebay accounts with individual paypal accounts however recently there have been some requests for people to upgrade their accounts (in which case change to sole trader). I'd personally steer clear of business paypal accounts unless you are operating as a limited company.

2. Change the Ebay account to business.

Remember to keep under VAT thresholds if operating a business account.

It really doesn't matter when you change the account to business. What you are selling really determines what type of account you should have. If its a few bits of household cr@p, then a personal account is fine. If you are clearly buying and reselling items for profit, then you should be using a business account.

There are of course many instances of people shifting loads of items (and clearly trading) on a personal account. If this is the case then the "prompt" to upgrade will come sooner or later.