What a private seller pays
eBay's page for private sellers, last updated 30 Sept 2026, says it is free for UK-based private sellers to sell. You do not pay a final value fee or a regulatory operating fee when your item sells. The exception is motors listings (cars, motorcycles and vehicles), which follow different rules.
Listings are the other half. You get 300 free listings each month, and each extra listing costs £0.35. Listing 20 more than the allowance in a month would cost £7.00, and listing fees are not refunded if the item does not sell.
Automatic renewals and relists are not charged again and do not use up your allowance. A manual relist does count, and a listing with several quantities or variations uses only one listing.
Optional upgrades, such as a subtitle or a reserve price, carry their own fees. If the buyer's delivery address is outside the UK, an international fee also applies, and our calculator does not model it.
| Private seller | Business seller, clothes | |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer pays | £29.99 | £29.99 |
| Final value fee | £0.00 | £3.57 |
| Per-order fee | n/a | £0.40 |
| Regulatory operating fee | £0.00 | £0.10 |
| Total fees | £0.00 | £4.07 |
| You keep after £10.50 of costs | £19.49 | £15.42 |
A £25.00 item with £4.99 shipping. Business fees exclude VAT, which is added on top for VAT-registered sellers.
How Buyer Protection works
Buyers pay a Buyer Protection fee when they buy from a UK-based private seller. It is £0.10 plus 7% of the first £20, 4% of the part from £20 to £300, 2% of the part from £300 to £4,000, and nothing on the part of the price above £4,000.
eBay says the fee is included in the item price the buyer sees. It is a buyer fee, so it is not one of your seller fees and our calculator does not take it off what you keep. The table shows what it comes to at different prices.
| Item price | Buyer Protection fee | Share of item price |
|---|---|---|
| £5 | £0.45 | 9% |
| £20 | £1.50 | 7.5% |
| £50 | £2.70 | 5.4% |
| £300 | £12.70 | 4.2% |
| £1,000 | £26.70 | 2.7% |
| £5,000 | £86.70 | 1.7% |
Worked out on the item price. eBay does not say whether postage is counted, so we leave it out.
Because of the flat £0.10 and the top rate on the first £20, the fee takes the biggest share of cheap items. Above £4,000 the fee stops growing.
Pricing when selling is free
With no selling fee, a private seller's price is simple: the profit you want, plus what the item cost, plus the label, minus any shipping you charge. Add the fee to a business listing and the price you need to charge rises.
| Profit you want | Private seller | Business seller, clothes | Extra a business seller charges |
|---|---|---|---|
| £5.00 | £10.51 | £13.13 | £2.62 |
| £10.00 | £15.51 | £18.82 | £3.31 |
| £20.00 | £25.51 | £30.22 | £4.71 |
Item cost £6.00, label £4.50, £4.99 shipping charged. Computed by the Find price mode of the eBay calculator.
Keep the label cost in your sums. It is not an eBay fee, but it comes straight out of your profit.
If you sell as a business
eBay publishes a separate fee page for business sellers. They pay a category percentage, a per-order fee of £0.30 on orders of £10 or less and £0.40 above, and a 0.35% regulatory operating fee.
| Category | Fees before VAT | You keep |
|---|---|---|
| Clothes, shoes, accessories | £4.07 | £15.42 |
| Women's bags, handbags | £4.37 | £15.12 |
| Collectables | £3.77 | £15.72 |
| Books, comics, magazines | £3.47 | £16.02 |
A selection of categories. The eBay calculator has more, and eBay lists many more sub-category rates on its own page.
Whether you count as a private or a business seller is a question for eBay and your tax adviser, not for a fee calculator. Read eBay's own fee pages for both before you decide how to list.
What we could not confirm
The currency conversion charge for UK sellers is 2.5% today and rises to 2.75% from 1 Dec 2026. It only applies when eBay converts your funds for an item listed or sold on another eBay site.