Price lists are usually zero-rated (0% VAT) in the UK. HMRC weighs these characteristics together rather than ticking them off: fully printed (not a card to be kept on a counter); A single sheet, A4 or smaller (or up to A2 printed both sides and folded down to A4); held and read, not hung up or displayed (HMRC VAT Notice 701/10, section 8).
Price lists
0% VAT
Fully printed price lists in leaflet or brochure form are zero-rated.
HMRC VAT Notice 701/10, section 8
0% where it's:
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HMRC lists price lists as zero-rated in section 8, but the entry carries its own condition: fully printed leaflets or brochures. Both halves matter. Fully printed rules out a list with the prices left blank to write in, which is a form. Leaflet or brochure form rules out the price list that is really a card kept by the till or a sheet pinned up behind the counter, because a leaflet is meant to be held in the hand for reading rather than hung up for general display. A menu-style price card for the table is standard-rated for the same reason, and HMRC lists price cards and tags as standard-rated separately.
Printed complete, and in leaflet or brochure form. A price card kept at the counter is not a price list in this sense.
HMRC judges this as a matter of fact and impression, weighing these together rather than ticking them off: fully printed (not a card to be kept on a counter); a single sheet, a4 or smaller (or up to a2 printed both sides and folded down to a4); held and read, not hung up or displayed. Missing one does not settle it by itself, and the further an item sits from them the harder it is to call it a leaflet. Two of them are rules rather than indicators: lamination takes it out, and so does being designed to be returned whole after completion.
If your printer does the design, typesetting or finishing as part of the same zero-rated print job, that work can be zero-rated too. Design bought separately from a studio is a standard-rated service.
HMRC VAT Notice 701/10, section 8, HMRC's guidance on zero rating books and printed matter. See the notices we work from.
Fully printed, in leaflet form, held and read.
Not fully printed. Once the point of it is completion, it is a form.
Kept and used for reference rather than read and let go, and HMRC lists price cards as standard-rated.