Menus can be 0% or 20% VAT in the UK depending on the job (HMRC VAT Notice 701/10, section 8). Takeaway menu posted through doors or handed out: 0% VAT. Menu for the table, or for a wedding or event: 20% VAT.
Menus
It depends
HMRC lists menu cards as standard-rated. A takeaway menu posted through doors can be zero-rated, but only where it meets the leaflet conditions.
HMRC VAT Notice 701/10, section 8
Which one is yours?
Takeaway menu posted through doors or handed out0%Menu for the table, or for a wedding or event20%Need these printed?
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Menus split, and the split is easy to state wrongly. HMRC's A to Z lists menu cards as standard-rated, so the ordinary table menu is 20%. A takeaway menu put through doors can be zero-rated, but only because it qualifies as a leaflet in its own right, not because it's a menu. It has to actually meet the leaflet characteristics: a single sheet at A4 or smaller, on limp paper, at least 50 copies, meant to be read and let go. Laminate it for the table and it's kept, which takes it out.
Whether it's a leaflet that happens to list food, or a menu card for the table. Delivery through doors points one way; lamination and table use point the other.
Takeaway menu posted through doors or handed out: 0% VAT. Menu for the table, or for a wedding or event: 20% VAT.
HMRC VAT Notice 701/10, section 8, HMRC's guidance on zero rating books and printed matter. See the notices we work from.
Qualifies as a leaflet: single sheet, limp paper, plenty of copies, read then binned.
Menu cards are standard-rated, and laminating means it's designed to be kept.
A menu card for the table. Nothing about the occasion changes that.