You are good with your hands, the phone is starting to ring, and you have decided to go out on your own. The hard part is not the trade. It is everything around it: getting registered, charging enough, finding paying clients, and making sure the money actually lands in your account. Starting a trade business in the first 90 days is mostly about doing a handful of boring things properly, before bad habits set in.
This is a practical, phased roadmap for plumbers, electricians, painters, builders, landscapers, and anyone going self-employed with a van and a skill. It is organised as a checklist: what to sort before you start, what to nail in your first 30 days, and what to build between day 30 and day 90. Registration, tax, insurance, and licensing rules differ in every country, so treat those parts as a prompt to go and check your own local requirements, not as legal advice.
Before you start: get the foundations right
Do not quit your current work on a Friday and start trading on Monday with nothing in place. A weekend of admin now saves you months of pain later. Here is the before-you-start checklist.
1. Register the business the right way for your country
Every country has its own way of going self-employed. You might register as a sole trader, set up a limited company, or sign on as a freelancer with a tax number. The right structure affects your tax, your liability, and how much paperwork you carry. There is no universal answer here, so do two things: read the official government small-business guidance for your country, and have one conversation with a local accountant or bookkeeper. That single session is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy. Ask what you must register for, what records you must keep, and when your first tax return or VAT filing is due.
2. Sort insurance before the first job, not after
You should not lift a single tool on a client's property without cover. The exact policies have different names in different countries, but the categories are universal:
- Public liability, in case your work damages a client's property or injures someone.
- Tools and equipment cover, because a stolen van full of gear can end a young business overnight.
- Professional or trade-specific cover if your trade carries extra risk, such as gas, electrical, or roofing work.
- Employer's cover the moment you take on even one helper.
Check what is legally required for your trade in your country, then add what protects you. Many clients, especially commercial ones, will not let you on site without proof of cover.
3. Buy the right tools, not all the tools
The temptation on day one is to spend on every shiny machine you have ever wanted. Resist it. Buy what your first jobs actually need, in good quality, and let revenue fund the rest. A reliable van, the core tools of your trade, safety gear, and a phone you can run the business from will get you working. You can rent the occasional big machine for a single job far cheaper than owning it before you need it.
4. Open a separate business bank account
Mixing your business money with your personal money is the single most common rookie mistake, and it makes tax time a nightmare. Open a dedicated account from day one. Every job payment goes in, every business cost comes out, and at a glance you can see what the business is really doing. It also makes you look like a real company when a client pays you.
Set a profitable rate from day one
The biggest mistake new tradespeople make is charging too little out of fear. You quote low to win the job, the client says yes too quickly, and now you have trained them to expect cheap. Undercharging does not just hurt this year. It anchors every future quote and every referral they send.
Your rate has to cover far more than the hours you are on the tools. It has to pay for the unbilled time: quoting, buying materials, driving, invoicing, and chasing payment. It has to cover holidays, sick days, slow weeks, your van, your insurance, your tools wearing out, and tax. A tradesperson who wants to take home the equivalent of a EUR 25 per hour wage cannot charge clients EUR 25 per hour and survive. After unbillable time and overheads, the charge-out rate often needs to be roughly double the wage you have in mind.
Work it out properly before you quote your first job. Add up what you need to earn in a year, divide by the number of hours you can realistically bill (not the hours you work, the hours a client actually pays for), and add your overheads and tax on top. Our full guide on setting your hourly rate as a contractor walks through the maths step by step, and how to price a job shows you how to turn that rate into a fixed price for fixed-price work without losing your margin.
One more rule: write your rate down and stick to it. If you want to win a job at a lower number, offer a smaller scope, not a smaller rate. The number on your invoice is a habit you set in the first month.
First 30 days: find your first clients
You can have the best registration, insurance, and rate in the world, but with no clients you have an expensive hobby. The first 30 days are about getting paying work in the diary. New trades almost always win their first jobs the same way: people who already know them.
Start with your network
Tell everyone you have gone out on your own. Old employers who are too busy and pass on overflow, other trades who need a reliable plumber or sparky to call, friends, family, and former colleagues. Be specific about what you do and where you work. A clear message like "I am now taking on bathroom and kitchen plumbing within 30 minutes of the city" gets passed on far better than "let me know if you need anything."
Go local and visible
- List the business on the free local map and search profiles so you appear when someone nearby searches your trade.
- Get your van and your clothing branded. A clean, logoed van parked outside a job is a billboard the whole street sees.
- Ask to leave a few cards with local merchants, kitchen showrooms, estate agents, and builders' merchants who meet your customers before you do.
- Join one or two local trade or community groups online where people ask for recommendations.
Turn every job into the next two
Referrals are the cheapest, highest-trust work you will ever get. The way to earn them is simple: do excellent work, communicate clearly, turn up when you said, and leave the place clean. Then ask. At the end of a job a happy client is the easiest person in the world to say yes to. "If you know anyone who needs the same, I would really appreciate you passing my number on." A simple online presence helps too: a basic page or social profile with a few real photos of finished work and a way to contact you makes you look like a business, not a bloke with a van.
Get your admin right from day one so you actually get paid
Here is the part that quietly sinks new trades. You can be flat out with work for three months and still have no money, because your invoicing is a mess, half your hours never made it onto a bill, and you have no idea who owes you what. Doing excellent work you forget to charge for is the most expensive habit in the trade.
Set up a simple, repeatable system on day one and it becomes automatic. The loop you want is: track the hours, turn them into an invoice, get paid, record it. This is exactly what Billr is built for, and there is a real free tier so a brand-new business can run the whole loop without paying for software before the first client has paid you.
Track your hours as you work
If you bill by the hour, your hours are your money, and your memory is not a billing system. Start a one-tap timer when you arrive and stop it when you leave. With Billr's time tracking the timer works offline, so a basement with no signal does not cost you the record, and it keeps running even if your phone restarts. At the end of the week every billable minute is captured against the right client, instead of being guessed at on a Sunday night.
Send a professional invoice, fast
An invoice that looks like a real business gets paid faster and gets queried less. Turn your tracked hours straight into a clean, branded invoice with your logo, your colours, and clear line items, and send it the same day the job finishes. Speed matters: the invoice you send on Friday afternoon gets paid far sooner than the one you get around to next month. If you want the full checklist of what belongs on a compliant invoice, read how to invoice clients.
Make it easy to pay you
The faster and easier you make payment, the faster the money lands. Put an online pay link on every invoice so the client can pay by card or PayPal in seconds, and offer bank transfer or a SEPA QR code for those who prefer it. Then track what is paid and what is overdue in one place, so a quiet invoice never slips through the cracks. You can also set a private overdue reminder that nudges you, not the client, when something needs chasing, so you stay on top of the money without being a pest.
Day 30 to 90: build the business, not just the workload
By now you have jobs, a rate, and money coming in. The next 60 days are about turning a busy person into a real business that can survive a quiet month and a tax bill.
Keep records for tax from the start
You do not need to be an accountant, but you do need to never lose a receipt or a payment record. Set one simple rule: every cost gets photographed or filed the day it happens, and every invoice and payment is recorded. Keep your business bank account clean, save receipts for materials, fuel, tools, and insurance, and put a percentage of every payment aside for tax in a separate pot so the bill never surprises you. Pull a simple earnings report whenever you want to see where you actually stand. When your accountant does your return, organised records turn a stressful, expensive job into a quick one.
Watch the cash, not just the turnover
Plenty of busy trades go under with a full diary because money came in slower than it went out. Invoice the day the job finishes, keep your payment terms short, follow up the moment something is overdue, and always know your total balance due. A business is healthy when the cash arrives, not when the work is done.
Avoid the mindset traps that sink new trades
- Saying yes to everything. Taking every job, including the badly priced and the difficult clients, burns you out and crowds out the good work. It is fine to turn jobs down.
- Competing on price. There is always someone cheaper. Compete on reliability, tidiness, and showing up. Cheap clients are the hardest work for the least money.
- Treating admin as optional. The paperwork is the business. Skip it and you do the work for free.
- Not paying yourself. Decide what you take out each month and treat it as a real cost, not whatever is left over. Whatever is left over is usually nothing.
- Going it completely alone. An accountant, a few trusted trades to refer to, and a couple of mentors who have done it before will save you from expensive mistakes.
Frequently asked questions
How much money do I need to start a trade business?
Less than most people think, but more than nothing. You need your core tools, a reliable vehicle, insurance, registration costs, and ideally a small buffer to cover the gap before your first invoices are paid. Start lean, buy what the first jobs need, and let revenue fund the rest rather than going into heavy debt for tools you will not use for months.
Do I need to register before I take my first job?
In most countries, yes. The rules for registration, tax, and licensing differ everywhere, so check your own government's official small-business guidance and ask a local accountant. Getting registered and insured first protects you and lets you invoice properly from day one.
How do I set my hourly rate when I am just starting?
Do not copy the cheapest person near you. Add up what you need to earn in a year including holidays, slow periods, and overheads, divide by the hours you can realistically bill, and add tax on top. The charge-out rate usually needs to be far higher than the wage you want to take home. See our guide on setting your hourly rate for the full method.
What is the simplest way to make sure I actually get paid?
Track your hours as you work, send a professional invoice the same day the job finishes, and put an online pay link on it so the client can pay in seconds. Then track who has paid and who is overdue in one place. Billr does this whole loop, and it works offline so you can invoice from the job site.
Key takeaways
- Sort registration, insurance, and a separate business bank account before your first job, and check your own country's rules rather than relying on universal numbers.
- Set a profitable rate from day one and stick to it. The charge-out rate must cover unbilled time, overheads, and tax, not just your hours on the tools.
- Win your first clients through your network, a local and visible presence, and relentless referrals from excellent work.
- Get your admin right from day one: track hours, send fast professional invoices, and make it easy to pay you, so the work you do actually turns into money.
- Avoid the mindset traps: do not say yes to everything, do not compete on price, and never treat the paperwork as optional.
Starting a trade business is not about one big leap. It is about doing the small things properly from day one, so that three months in you have a real business, not a pile of unpaid invoices. Set up the track-bill-get-paid loop early and it runs itself in the background while you do the work you are actually good at. Start free with Billr and get your invoicing and time tracking right from your very first job.