Make money renting out drones and other gear | Passive income from drones

Owning the latest tech can be addictive and also a very expensive hobby! You quite often end up with items that aren’t worth selling and will likely get yourself a newer version of. Although these items have lost their value in your eyes, there are still tons of people out there that want to use it but simply can’t afford to buy it outright. If something is just lying around collecting dust then its a prime candidate to get rented out and start earning some passive income. So why not let it pay for itself while you aren’t using it.

Let me start by saying there are tons of rental sharing services out there so this isn’t a promotion for Fat Lama, its just an example (other services are available). You can even cut out the middle man and just do it yourself and here’s how.

Online rental services

Fat Lama is a service that allows people to sign up and list items that they can assign a daily / weekly price to and offer for rental to the rest of the community. The service is all based on location, so you search for what you want and where you live and it will bring back all relevant items in your local area. Users can book out the items for a specific day or date range and arrange for a collection and drop off.

The pros of online rental

As well a renting out your gear it can also be a great service to borrow gear for projects or even try it out before committing to buy it. After signing up you will generally be offered a first free rental to get you started. In the meantime you can have your items listed and just arrange collection and drop offs while making money in the background.

The cons of online rental

The downside of course of lending out your gear is that it could get damaged. Most online rental services will have this covered under their own insurance policies. Generally you take a timestamped video of the item working before it was hired out.

We would advise being careful with Fat Lama’s insurance policies because there a few stories floating around the Internet about people having issues with items being returned damaged. Then they will make it almost impossible to be worth claiming on the insurance making you fill in numerous forms and get damage assessments done at your own cost before claiming. Its certainly best to have your own insurance as a backup and that goes for any service you use.

The taxation around the sharing economy and Fat Lama in general is actually quite interesting. In short, you get £1000 untaxed allowance through HMRC through the sharing economy tax allowance. So anything over £1000 a year you are legally obliged to pay through self assessment.

You can read more about Fat Lama’s policies here and the subject more in general here

Go it on your own

There is nothing stopping you for cutting out the middle man and doing it yourself if you are going to exceed the sharing economy tax allowance anyway. You will already have to be setup for paying taxes so then all you need is a method of contact and a way to take deposits for equipment.

Personal insurance polices will not cover any equipment rented out to third parties. There are insurance policies that can cover your equipment whilst on hire but it is much easier to take a deposit for the full amount and then you are covered. You will need to take an id copy as well just to validate the card is theirs. In terms of deposits there are many companies out there that offer portable POS card readers like iZettle and Paypal. This allows you to just take bookings and then they can use a card for payments / deposits and you just refund the deposits when the equipment is returned in working order.

Wrap up

In short, you can make some extra money on the side from your unused items for up to £1000 tax free. Just be wary about company reputation and rental insurance through whichever service you use. But there is scope to be making some nice pocket money on the side for very little work. So what are you waiting for? Use the link below to get a FREE £25 credit on your first rental.

Best rental drones

It is worth knowing which drones actually rent out well and in our experience the top rental drones have all been from the DJI line up including

These are generally the types of drones that people love to use but maybe can’t justify paying full retail for the amount of usage they will get from it. If you want to make some passive income from your drone then be sure to check out some other ways on how to do it in our ‘Make Money With Camera Drone’ post.