CISR12020 - The Scheme: contractors: definition of contractor

The term contractor, for the purposes of the Construction Industry Scheme, is defined at FA04/s57 and s59.

It is set out to include

• any subcontractor to a contract for construction operations who engages subcontractors to carry out any of that work (FA04/s57 (2)).
• any person carrying on a business which includes construction operations (FA04/s59 (1)(a)). These are known as ‘mainstream contractors’ in this guidance.
• any person carrying on a business, or certain bodies, whose expenditure on construction operations exceeds certain limits (FA04/s59 (1)(b)-(l)). These are known as ‘deemed contractors’ in this guidance.

More detail on these is available in separate information panels in this section as follows

• Mainstream contractors CISR12040
• Deemed contractors CISR12050.