Self Employment Whats The Difference

#IR35 is attempting to distinguish the two using tick boxes.

#Employment - usually lots of paperwork defined in law

#Self-employment - pretty much no paperwork

What’s the difference? - paperwork?

Let’s read a number of the definitions and see where that leaves us.

Note: it doesn’t really matter from which country these links come. Self employment is the oldest form of being in business. Go back far enough and employment was slavery. Merchants” were the self employed, there were no limited liability entities which are a quite modern construct created by law. Individuals are not legal constructs, they have had identity since forever. Slave traders were self-employed. So was Ghengis Khan.

Employment

Employment - Wikipedia 

What is Employment? - Definition | Meaning | Example 

Employment Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster 

Employment: What Is It? 

Definition - Employment (according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) definition) | Insee 

Self-Employment

Self-employment - Wikipedia 

definition of self-employment at DuckDuckGo 

Self-Employment: Definition, Types, and Benefits 

Self-employment Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster 

What Is Self-Employment? Definition and Common Types | Indeed.com Canada 

Employment status: Self-employed and contractor - GOV.UK 

Self Employed Law and Legal Definition | USLegal, Inc. 

Definition of self-employed’

SELF-EMPLOYMENT | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary 

Working for yourself - GOV.UK 

Employment status guidance for employed or self-employed - GOV.UK 

How does Switzerland resolve this? Just as another view point.

If you have less than three customers, you are an employee of the one or two. In other words having two jobs (employments) is perfectly normal.

CONCLUSION

What do you reckon?

August 25, 2025


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