We show that Kellendonk’s tiling semigroup of an FLC substitution tiling is self-similar, in the sense of Bartholdi, Grigorchuk and Nekrashevych. We extend the notion of the limit space of a self-similar group to the setting of self-similar semigroups, and show that it is homeomorphic to the Anderson–Putnam complex for such substitution tilings, with natural self-map induced by the substitution. Thus, the inverse limit of the limit space, given by the limit solenoid of the self-similar semigroup, is homeomorphic to the translational hull of the tiling.