A neighbour needs a bathroom fitted. A cousin is remortgaging. Someone at the school gate wants to move energy supplier before the winter cap lands. In each of those conversations a name changes hands, and further down the line a company gets paid because of it. Being rewarded for that introduction is ordinary in the United Kingdom — and in some sectors it is regulated down to the comma. Families who get it wrong are rarely fined; they simply never see the money, because the firm works out too late that it is not allowed to pay them. While the first commissions take their time to arrive, some households cover the gap with small daily earnings from an app such as I am Beezy, which pays for time spent viewing content instead of for results nobody can promise.
Which introductions can you actually be paid for in the UK?
Start with the only question that matters before you agree anything: is the thing you are introducing a regulated activity? If it is, the firm at the other end cannot simply send you a cheque, however genuine the introduction was.
The line the Financial Conduct Authority draws
Mortgages, insurance, consumer credit, investments and payment services sit inside the FCA's perimeter. Anyone carrying on those activities by way of business must be authorised, or must operate under someone who is. The FCA regulates the conduct of around 35,500 firms and supervises around 34,000 of them prudentially, applying prudential standards from its Handbook to around 14,000. That perimeter is the reason a mortgage broker will ask what your status is before agreeing a fee, and why a serious broker walks away when the answer is vague. It is not the broker being difficult; a payment made outside the rules is a problem for the firm, not for you.
Introductions that nobody has to authorise
Outside financial services, the ground is far wider than most people assume. Introducing a customer to a builder, a plumber, a cleaner, a gardener, a photographer, a letting platform, a gym or a retailer is not a regulated activity, and the money is a straightforward commercial arrangement between you and the business. Energy is a useful middle case: nine price comparison services have signed Ofgem's voluntary code — Energylinx, The Energy Shop, Money Supermarket, My Utility Genius, Simply Switch, Switch Gas and Electric, Quotezone, Unravel It and Uswitch — and they are paid by suppliers while being required to rank offers by price. That is what a clean introduction model looks like when it is done at scale.
| What you introduce | Regulated? | Who to check with first |
|---|---|---|
| Mortgage, loan, credit agreement | Yes | The lender or broker, and the FCA register |
| Insurance policy of any kind | Yes | The insurer or broker, and the FCA register |
| Investments, pensions, payment services | Yes | The firm's compliance contact |
| Trades, cleaning, gardening, removals | No | The business itself, in writing |
| Letting or property management | No, but disclosure rules apply | The agent, on how the fee is disclosed |
| Retail, subscriptions, online programmes | No | The programme terms |
What is an introducer appointed representative, and do you need to be one?
This is the piece of British machinery that has no neat equivalent elsewhere, and it is the answer to "can I be paid for sending people to a broker".
What the FCA says the status covers
An appointed representative, in the FCA's own words, "carries on regulated activity under the responsibility of an authorised firm, known as 'the principal'". The introducer appointed representative is the narrow version of that status: it is limited to "undertaking introductions" and "distributing financial promotions", and the FCA notes that not all of its requirements apply to firms in that category. In practice it is the status a mortgage broker or insurance intermediary offers to the people who feed it leads. Source: FCA, appointed representatives and principals, page updated 26 November 2025.
What the principal has to do before you earn anything
The obligations sit with the firm, not with you, which is why the answer takes weeks rather than minutes. The principal must have a written agreement setting out what business you can do, must assess whether you are fit and proper, and must notify the regulator at least 30 days before the appointment takes effect. If a firm offers to pay you for regulated introductions today, with no agreement and no notification, the arrangement is wrong at the firm's end and the payment is the part most likely to disappear. Ask for the agreement, ask for the firm reference number, and check that number on the FCA register before you spend an evening making calls.
The paperwork a household needs before the first payment
Once you are outside the regulated perimeter — or properly inside it with an agreement — the second gate is HMRC, and it is far simpler than most people fear.
The £1,000 that decides everything
The trading allowance is £1,000 of gross income a year. Below it, there is no tax and no return to file. Gross means the total before anything is taken off: someone who receives £1,200 in commissions and spends £400 on travel is at £1,200, not £800. Above £1,000 you must register for Self Assessment as a sole trader, and the allowance changes character — it becomes an option, letting you deduct a flat £1,000 instead of your real expenses, never both.
The second allowance almost everyone forgets
The property allowance is a separate £1,000, and it stacks: GOV.UK is explicit that if you have both types of income "you'll get a £1,000 allowance for each". A household earning £900 from introductions and £900 from letting something out is under both thresholds at once.
Records, even when nothing is owed
Under the threshold there is still an obligation: you must keep records of the income. A dated note of who paid, for what and when is enough, and it is what turns a challenge two years later into a five-minute conversation.
| Stage | What applies | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Up to £1,000 gross in the tax year | No tax, no return, records kept | None |
| Above £1,000 gross | Register for Self Assessment as a sole trader | 5 October after the tax year ends |
| Paper tax return | Filing only | 31 October |
| Online tax return and payment | Filing and paying | 31 January |
| Above £50,000 of self-employment and property turnover | Making Tax Digital for Income Tax | Mandatory since 6 April 2026 |
Two details catch people out. The tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April, not from January, so a commission received on 2 April belongs to the year that is about to close. And Scottish residents pay Scottish income tax rates on this income — six bands rather than three, with the 42% rate starting at £43,663 instead of the £50,271 that applies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The family trap: the people you cannot be paid by
This is where a family arrangement quietly breaks, and it has nothing to do with the FCA. The exclusions attached to the trading allowance are written for exactly this situation.
Employer, spouse's employer, connected company
You cannot use the allowance for income from "a company you or someone connected to you owns or controls", from "a partnership where you or someone connected to you are partners", or from "your employer or the employer of your spouse or civil partner". Invoicing your own limited company for introductions, or being paid referral fees by the firm your husband works for, takes you outside the allowance entirely. The income is still taxable; it simply loses the shelter.
Paying a relative for a lead
The mirror image matters too. If your business pays a relative for introductions, that relative has income to account for, and the same exclusion may bite on their side. Two things keep it clean: a written note of the arrangement, and a fee that is what you would pay a stranger for the same introduction.
National Insurance, once it grows
Self-employed profits attract Class 4 National Insurance at 6% between £12,570 and £50,270, and 2% above that. Below the Class 2 small profits threshold of £7,105 a year no contribution is due, and those contributions are treated as having been paid to protect your record — with voluntary Class 2 available at £3.65 a week if you want to keep a full contribution year.
Covering the slow first months with I am Beezy
Introductions pay late by nature. A mortgage completes months after the conversation; a builder pays when the job is signed off; a retail programme has its own settlement cycle. That gap is the reason most people give up before the model starts working, and filling it with something that pays for time rather than for outcomes is a reasonable answer. I am Beezy pays for time spent viewing content — videos, articles, advertising — with earnings credited as you go rather than after someone else's transaction completes.
What the range looks like in pounds
The reference range across the platform is roughly £4 to £13 a day, converted from the platform's euro reference figures at the European Central Bank rate of 5 August 2026 (1 EUR = 0.8572 GBP). Sterling moves, so treat that as an order of magnitude rather than a fixed sum, and re-check the rate when it matters.
Where the money lands in a British account
Payments reach your usual payment method. A UK account is identified by a six-digit sort code and an eight-digit account number, not an IBAN, and the domestic rail is Faster Payments, which HMRC describes as usually arriving "on the same or next day, including weekends and bank holidays". There is no SEPA leg and no national interbank wallet in the United Kingdom, so anyone promising you one is describing a different country.
How should a family choose its first sector?
The honest criterion is not the headline commission. It is how quickly you can tell whether the model works at all.
Pick the sector where you already hear the need
Introductions that pay are introductions someone was going to make anyway. If half your conversations are about school runs and childcare, a cleaning or tutoring introduction is worth more to you than a mortgage lead you would have to manufacture. Trades are the most common British starting point because reputation there still travels by word of mouth, through neighbours, local groups and the trade-listing sites people already check before letting someone into the house.
The four questions to ask before signing anything
Ask when the fee is triggered — enquiry, quote accepted, or job paid. Ask how long the attribution lasts, because a lead that converts three months later is common in home improvement and worthless if the window is thirty days. Ask how you will be told a fee is due, since the most frequent complaint about referral arrangements is silence rather than refusal. And ask for the agreement in writing, even for £50, because the written note is what makes the arrangement enforceable and your record-keeping obligation possible.
What good looks like after three months
A workable arrangement gives you at least one paid introduction, a clear statement of what triggered it, and a business that answers the phone. If none of those three exist after three months, the problem is the partner, not your network. Start again with a different firm rather than sending more names into a system that has never paid anyone.
Introducing business in the United Kingdom rewards two boring habits: checking the perimeter before you agree, and keeping a dated record from the very first pound. Get those right and the rest is ordinary commercial life — a written agreement, an invoice, a deadline in January. If you want a small, predictable income while the introductions mature, I am Beezy pays for time you already spend on your phone, and it settles into the same account as everything else.
