Can a UK sole trader (no limited company) register as a paid Marketplace vendor?

Marketplace General Discussion
1

Hello,

I’m an individual developer based in the UK, operating as a sole trader — registered with HMRC and holding a UTR (Unique Taxpayer Reference), but I do not have a limited company, a company registration number, or a VAT number. Before investing time building on Forge, I’d like to confirm whether I’m eligible to publish and monetise a paid app on the Atlassian Marketplace.

I’m asking because the documentation appears to conflict:

  1. “Become a partner” (https://developer.atlassian.com/platform/marketplace/become-a-partner/) states that individuals can register “using your name”, which reads as sole-trader-friendly.
  2. “Partner due diligence” (https://developer.atlassian.com/platform/marketplace/partner-due-diligence/) describes a KYC/KYB flow asking for “business name, physical address, registration number and/or tax identification number”. The “and/or” suggests a tax identification number alone may suffice — which as a UK sole trader I do have — but it isn’t explicit, and it’s unclear whether the verification form will actually accept a UTR where a company registration number is expected.
  3. An existing community topic titled “Does Atlassian no longer support Individual Developers publishing apps?” paraphrases Atlassian support as saying individuals without a business entity “generally cannot publish apps or sell/monetize them” — but that is a user paraphrase rather than an official statement, which is why I’d like this confirmed directly.

Could you please confirm:

  1. Can a UK sole trader (HMRC UTR, no limited company and no company registration number) register as a paid Marketplace vendor and receive payouts? A clear yes or no is what I need most.
  2. If yes — what should be entered in the partner verification / KYC-KYB flow where a “registration number” is requested? Does a UTR satisfy it?
  3. If no — is forming a UK limited company the supported route, or is there another path for sole traders?
  4. Does the answer differ between free and paid apps? I specifically intend to publish paid apps.

I’d rather establish this before building than discover an eligibility problem afterwards. Thank you.

3

Hi @DOhertyryan , welcome to the Atlassian Developer Community!

Regarding your questions, I reached out to the team who can help you. I was advised to have you create a request in this portal and continue the conversation there. Once you’ve already created the request, kindly share it with me as a response to this thread or as a direct message so that I can properly endorse it.

Cheers,

Ian

4

Thanks Ian, much appreciated. I’ve raised it as ECOHELP-151223 — Jira Service Management

One thing worth flagging: the portal form requires a numeric Partner/Vendor ID, which a prospective partner asking about eligibility can’t have. I entered 0 as a placeholder and explained it in the first line of the description.

5

Thanks @DOhertyryan . I relayed the relevant internal conversations and document to the support team that will handle your query; the team will reply within their SLA.

Cheers,
Ian

6

Much appreciated, Ian — thank you for chasing this internally

7

Thank you, Ian — genuinely appreciated. The support team came back via the ticket with a full document from the Marketplace Partner team, and it answered everything. Confirmed that a UK sole trader can register on the individual path. Thanks again for escalating it.