A landlord inside Making Tax Digital for Income Tax sends HMRC a quarterly update four times a year. It is a summary of rental income and expenses for the tax year so far, produced by compatible software from your digital records. The deadlines are 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. An update is not a tax return, and you do not pay tax when you send it, but all four must be sent before you can submit the return for that year.
If your qualifying income was over £50,000 on your 2024 to 2025 tax return, this has applied to you since 6 April 2026. The income threshold falls to £30,000 in April 2027 and £20,000 in April 2028.
If Making Tax Digital still feels confusing, the short version is this. You keep your records digitally, your software turns them into quarterly reporting to HMRC, and at the end of the year you submit one annual tax return as before. The rest of this guide takes each step in turn.
Do I need to file MTD for Income Tax? Who must use it from April 2026
GOV.UK says you need to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (sometimes shortened to MTD for Income Tax, or MTD ITSA by advisers) if all three of these apply:
- you are a sole trader or a landlord registered for Self Assessment
- you get income from self-employment or property, or both
- your qualifying income is above the threshold for the tax year
In plain terms, the rules cover sole traders and landlords, and in the language some advisers use, self-employed individuals and landlords whose income is over the line. Landlords who hold property through a limited company pay corporation tax rather than income tax on the profits, and MTD for Income Tax is aimed at individuals, so it does not apply to the company itself.
Qualifying income is the figure HMRC compares with the threshold. It is gross income from self-employment and property before expenses are deducted, not profit. A portfolio with a modest profit after mortgage interest and repairs can still be well over the line. Property and self-employment income are added together. A landlord with £32,000 of self-employment income and £21,000 of gross rent has £53,000 of qualifying income.
The start dates depend on which year's return is over the threshold:
| Qualifying income over | On the return for | You must use MTD from |
|---|---|---|
| £50,000 | 2024 to 2025 | 6 April 2026 |
| £30,000 | 2025 to 2026 | 6 April 2027 |
| £20,000 | 2026 to 2027 | 6 April 2028 |
HMRC reviews your Self Assessment return each year and writes to you if your income is over the threshold. GOV.UK is plain that a missing letter does not remove the responsibility: it is still up to you to check whether and when you need to start using Making Tax Digital, and to be signed up when you do. HMRC has an online tool for this, and you can use it on someone else's behalf.
To sign up you must be registered for Self Assessment and have submitted a tax return in the last two years. You still submit a Self Assessment return for the tax year before you start. Landlords whose qualifying income is below the threshold can still join voluntarily.
What a quarterly update is, and how it differs from a tax return
Every three months your compatible software adds up your digital records for each business and creates totals for your income and expenses. HMRC's guidance describes these as summaries, not tax returns. You will sometimes see them called quarterly returns, but HMRC's term is quarterly update, and the difference matters. Three points follow from it.
- You send totals, not paperwork. HMRC receives a total for each income and expense category. It does not receive individual receipts or invoices.
- You do not adjust first. HMRC says you do not need to make any accounting or tax adjustments before sending an update. Those come at the end of the year.
- A nil update is still an update. If you had no income and no expenses in a period, you must still send one to tell HMRC.
After you send an update, HMRC and your software can give you an estimate of your tax bill for the year to date. It is only an estimate. It will be less accurate if you have other income HMRC has not been told about, such as savings interest. HMRC adds information it already holds, such as employment income taxed under PAYE. In some software you can add other income sources during the year to improve the estimate, but they are not part of the quarterly updates themselves.
So are quarterly updates the same as a tax return? No. A quarterly update is a running summary for the year so far. Sage describes it as having no formal declaration, so there is no penalty for inaccuracy attached to it, and corrections can be made in a later update or at year end. The annual tax return is the final, confirmed calculation.
What rental income and expenses go in each update
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax uses the same income and expense categories as Self Assessment. HMRC's quarterly update direction sets out what a property update must contain: the start and end dates of the period, and totals in each of the following categories. The totals cover your UK properties under these headings rather than property by property.
UK property income
- total rent
- other income from property
- premiums for the grant of a lease
- reverse premiums and inducements
UK property expenses
- rent, rates, insurance and ground rents
- property repairs and maintenance
- non-residential property finance costs
- residential property finance costs
- residential finance costs brought forward
- legal, management and other professional fees
- costs of services provided, including wages
- travel expenses
- other allowable property expenses
Foreign property has its own, shorter list in the direction: total rents and other receipts, premiums for the grant of a lease, and allowable property expenses. HMRC's direction treats it separately from UK property.
Each update is cumulative. It covers the period from 6 April to the end of the update period, not just the latest three months. HMRC designed it this way so that if you spot an error, you correct your records and the correction flows into the next update.
Here is an illustration with simple numbers. Say rent of £4,500 arrives every month, £54,000 over the year, and you use standard periods:
| Update | Period covered | Rent shown (year to date) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 April to 5 July | £13,500 |
| 2 | 6 April to 5 October | £27,000 |
| 3 | 6 April to 5 January | £40,500 |
| 4 | 6 April to 5 April | £54,000 |
Update 3 shows nine months of rent, not three. Expenses build up in the same way.
Landlords with self-employment income as well
Many landlords also have a trade. Property income and self-employment are different businesses for MTD purposes. HMRC's guidance says you send quarterly updates to HMRC every three months for each self-employment and property business you have. That means separate quarterly updates for your property business and for each self-employed trade. A landlord with one rental business and one trade sends two updates at each deadline.
Sage makes the same point with a worked case: a sole trader landscaper who also lets out a property needs two updates per quarter, eight a year. Your software needs to support both income types, so check that before you commit to it. HMRC sets a single deadline for each quarter, so all your MTD submissions fall due on the same dates.
Other income, such as employment income and savings interest, is not sent in the quarterly updates. It comes in at the year-end tax return.
Quarterly update periods and deadlines for 2026 to 2027
There are two kinds of update period. Standard periods follow the tax year and are the default in your software. The deadlines are identical for both.
| Standard update period | Calendar update period | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| 6 April to 5 July | 1 April to 30 June | 7 August |
| 6 April to 5 October | 1 April to 30 September | 7 November |
| 6 April to 5 January | 1 April to 31 December | 7 February |
| 6 April to 5 April | 1 April to 31 March | 7 May (following tax year) |
For the first year of MTD, the 2026 to 2027 tax year, that means 7 August 2026, 7 November 2026, 7 February 2027 and 7 May 2027. The 7 November 2026 deadline falls on a Saturday, so treat Friday 6 November as the working deadline.
You can make each quarterly submission at any time after the period ends, up to and including the deadline day. You can also send one up to 10 days before the period ends if you do not expect to record anything further. HMRC's example is going on holiday and knowing you will earn nothing more that period.
You may send updates more often than quarterly. Most compatible software lets you send on any day. Each update must still cover the full period from 6 April, so a landlord who wants to see the effect of a large repair bill could send updates covering 6 April to 5 May, 6 April to 5 June and 6 April to 5 July.
Calendar quarters
If your accounting period runs from 1 April to 31 March, HMRC says to use calendar update periods. It makes record keeping simpler because your update periods match your accounting year. Your first update then covers 1 April to 30 June. The deadlines do not move.
The rules for choosing are strict:
- Your software starts on standard periods. To use calendar periods, you must select them before you send your first quarterly update.
- Once you have sent an update, you cannot change your update periods for the rest of that tax year.
- The choice is made for each business. An agent sets it for each of a client's self-employment and property businesses.
Most landlords let property on a normal tax-year basis and should stay on the default. If you are unsure, an agent can tell you which to use.
The year-end step: the final declaration and your annual tax return
Quarterly updates are not the end of the process. After the fourth update, you check whether any adjustments are needed to your property and self-employment income, then submit your annual tax return using your software. Many accountants call this year-end step the final declaration. This is where other income is added, such as employment income, dividends and savings interest, along with reliefs and allowances, and the tax position for the year is confirmed.
The deadline has not moved. HMRC says the deadline to submit your tax return and pay any tax you owe is 31 January after the end of the tax year. For the 2026 to 2027 tax year, that is 31 January 2028.
Two practical points. First, you cannot skip updates and go straight to the return: HMRC says you need to send your quarterly updates before you can submit your tax return using software. Second, you can still reopen your records after the fourth update. You may need to resend it to correct an error, to add jointly let property expenses you left out, or to record Rent-a-Room income if you decide to claim that relief after the year ends. HMRC says to do this before you make any tax adjustments.
MTD software and digital record-keeping
You must send updates from MTD-compatible software, meaning software that works with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. HMRC does not provide its own software and cannot advise on specific products. It says more than 100 products are available and offers a software finder tool to search for compatible products or check whether your existing software works. Any MTD software you buy should be MTD compliant for Income Tax specifically, not only for VAT, and should support UK property income if that is what you have.
You also need to link the software to HMRC. A landlord signs up, chooses and authorises the software, and gives it permission to connect. If an agent acts for you, they add your authorisation to their Agent Services Account, and you need to be signed up first.
Digital record-keeping is the foundation of the whole process. You keep digital tax records of rent received and expenses incurred. HMRC's guidance is to create records as close to the date of the transaction as possible. Keep the originals as well: bank statements, invoices and agent statements.
Does HMRC accept a simple Excel sheet? A spreadsheet on its own is not enough. It needs a digital link to software that can send the update to HMRC, which is what bridging software does. Paper records alone do not meet the requirement. If you already track rent and costs in a spreadsheet, you are halfway there, and the link is the missing piece.
Do I need an accountant for Making Tax Digital?
No. Nothing in HMRC's guidance requires you to use an accountant. Sage notes that many people handle the quarterly updates themselves, because it is often a matter of reviewing the figures the software has produced and sending them, and leave the more complex year-end return to an accountant.
If you do use one, your accountant can sign you up, hold the authorisation and submit quarterly updates on your behalf through compatible software. They need MTD authorisation specifically. Existing Self Assessment authority is not enough. HMRC has also said customers can appoint more than one agent. Your records still need to be kept up to date during the year, and you remain responsible for the accuracy of the year-end return. Agree up front who records what and who presses send.
Jointly owned property
If you let a property jointly with a spouse, partner or anyone else, the rules differ in two places.
The threshold. Only your share of the income counts towards qualifying income. GOV.UK's own example is a property bringing in £50,000 a year split equally between two siblings: each has £25,000 of qualifying income.
The update. For jointly let properties, you can choose to include either:
- property income and expenses, or
- property income only
The direction lists the income-only categories for jointly let UK property as total rent, other income from property, premiums for the grant of a lease, and reverse premiums and inducements.
If you leave expenses out of your quarterly updates, you must report them after the tax year ends by resending your fourth quarterly update, before you submit your tax return. Any property you own outright must still have both income and expenses in every update. If you have a joint buy-to-let and a flat you own alone, the two are treated differently within the same update.
One trap applies to jointly owned property and to managed property alike. If your letting agent pays you rent after deducting fees and repairs, the money reaching your bank account is net. MTD records need the gross rent and the expenses separately, so you need to ask the agent for the full figures and record both. Agree with your co-owner who records what, and who sends the update.
HMRC penalties for late quarterly updates
HMRC is replacing the current late submission and late payment penalties for people in MTD for Income Tax. The new late submission penalties are points based, and the rules are different for the first year.
2026 to 2027: no points for late updates. HMRC says there are no penalties for missing a quarterly update deadline in the 2026 to 2027 tax year. This is a concession for the first year, not an exemption. You still need to keep digital records, you still need to submit all four updates before you can submit your tax return, and penalty points still apply to late tax returns.
From 2027 to 2028:
- each missed quarterly update deadline, and each missed tax return deadline, earns one penalty point
- you can only get one point per deadline, even if you have several businesses and send several updates late
- at 4 points you receive a £200 penalty, and another £200 each time you miss a further submission deadline
- your MTD for Income Tax points are separate from any VAT penalty points
Below the threshold, HMRC removes each point automatically 24 months after the missed deadline. Once you reach 4 points, they do not drop off one by one. To clear them you must send your updates and tax return on time for 12 months, and send any outstanding updates and returns for the previous 24 months. You can see the date your points will be removed in your HMRC online account. HMRC may cancel a penalty or point in exceptional circumstances such as insolvency, and you can appeal. The letter HMRC sends tells you how.
The new late payment penalties also apply. They are not points based and depend on how long the tax is overdue. They do not apply to payments on account.
| Payment is | 2026 to 2027 | 2027 to 2028 |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 15 days late | No penalty | No penalty |
| 16 to 30 days late | 3% of the tax owed at day 15 (no penalty in your first year) | 4% of the tax owed at day 15 (no penalty in your first year) |
| 31 days or more late | 3% at day 15 and 3% at day 30, plus 10% a year on the outstanding amount from day 31 | 4% at day 15 and 4% at day 30, plus 10% a year on the outstanding amount from day 31 |
In your first year of the new penalties you have 30 days from the due date to pay or agree a payment plan. After that, it is 15 days. If you cannot pay, contact HMRC early. If a payment plan is agreed and you keep to it, penalties are paused from the date you contacted HMRC.
If you volunteer for MTD before you have to, penalties do not apply to late quarterly updates. Late tax returns still earn points, and a £200 penalty applies at 2 points.
Exemptions from MTD for Income Tax
If you are exempt, you do not use MTD for Income Tax, but you must carry on reporting your income and gains in a Self Assessment tax return. Exemptions are either automatic, where HMRC gives them from information it already holds, or you have to apply. They are permanent unless your circumstances change, or temporary.
Automatic and permanent
- qualifying income of £20,000 or less
- no National Insurance number before the start of the tax year
- non-resident companies submitting an SA700, trusts submitting an SA900, and personal representatives of someone who has died (though any personal self-employment or property income may still bring you in)
Automatic, lasting until April 2027. You do not need to use MTD for the 2026 to 2027 tax year if your 2024 to 2025 return claimed averaging relief on the SA103 as an individual, claimed qualifying care relief, or included the SA107 or SA109 supplementary page. The SA109 covers non-UK residents, among others, so many landlords living abroad are exempt for 2026 to 2027. If your qualifying income is over £30,000 for 2025 to 2026, you will need to use MTD from the 2027 to 2028 tax year.
Automatic, lasting beyond April 2027. Ministers of religion (SA102M), Lloyd's members (SA103L), and people who received or transferred Married Couple's Allowance or Blind Person's Allowance. They will need to use MTD later, on a timeline HMRC has yet to set.
Exemptions you apply for. The main one for ordinary landlords is being digitally excluded: it is not reasonable for you to use compatible software to keep digital records, send updates or submit your return. HMRC gives examples such as age, health or disability, religious beliefs that rule out digital communication, and having no internet access at home or business and no suitable alternative. The application is judged case by case on your own circumstances, even if an agent or family member applies for you.
HMRC will not accept an application if the only reason is that you previously filed on paper, you are unfamiliar with accounting software, you have few records to create, or it will take extra time or cost. Partnerships do not currently need to use MTD for Income Tax, and HMRC will announce when they do.
A short checklist for landlords
- Check your 2024 to 2025 return: was qualifying income over £50,000? If not, find your future start date in the table above.
- Check whether an exemption applies, and apply if you need to.
- Sign up, or have your accountant sign you up, and choose and authorise your software.
- Decide on standard or calendar periods before your first update.
- Record every rent receipt and expense digitally from the start of the tax year.
- Put 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May in your diary, and send even if the quarter was quiet.
- Plan the annual tax return for 31 January.
If you would rather not do this yourself, Deplexify prepares the quarterly updates and the Self Assessment return for landlords. Property, job, dividends and interest are brought together in one place, and jointly owned property is split between the owners. A chartered accountant reviews and signs off every file before it is filed, and you do not need to buy software. Details are on the Deplexify landlord page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are quarterly updates the same as a tax return? No. A quarterly update is a summary of income and expense totals from your digital records, sent to HMRC. You do not pay tax when you send it. The tax return is the year-end submission that confirms your tax position, and it is due by 31 January after the tax year ends.
Do I need to submit a separate quarterly update for each business or property? You need to submit an update for each self-employment and property business you have. HMRC's direction sets out separate lists for UK and foreign property. For jointly let property, you can choose to send income only, then add the expenses by resending your fourth update.
Can my accountant submit quarterly updates on my behalf? Yes. An accountant can sign you up, hold the authorisation and send updates through compatible software. They need MTD authorisation specifically, and your records still need to be kept up to date throughout the year.
Will I be fined if I miss the 7 November deadline? Not for a missed quarterly update in the 2026 to 2027 tax year. HMRC says there are no penalties for that. You must still send every update before submitting your tax return, and penalties still apply to late tax returns and late payments. From 2027 to 2028, each missed deadline earns a point, and 4 points bring a £200 penalty.
Can I use a spreadsheet for MTD reporting? Yes, if it is digitally linked to software that can send updates to HMRC. A spreadsheet that is not linked to anything does not meet the requirement.
Sources
- Use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax - Send quarterly updates - Guidance - GOV.UK — gov.uk, read 2026-10-17
- Find out if and when you need to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax - GOV.UK — gov.uk, read 2026-10-17
- Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: quarterly update direction - GOV.UK — gov.uk, read 2026-10-17
- Penalties for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax - GOV.UK — gov.uk, read 2026-10-17
- Find out if you can get an exemption from Making Tax Digital for Income Tax - GOV.UK — gov.uk, read 2026-10-17
- Agent update: Making Tax Digital for Income Tax - GOV.UK — gov.uk, read 2026-10-17
- Making Tax Digital for Landlords: A Complete Guide to Quarterly Reporting — Affordable MTD — affordablemtd.com, read 2026-10-17
- MTD for Residential Landlords: Key Changes and Deadlines! — ukpropertyaccountants.co.uk, read 2026-10-17
- MTD for IT explained: quarterly updates and final declarations – Landlord MTD — landlordmtd.co.uk, read 2026-10-17
- MTD 7 November deadline: what UK landlords must do — harveywjames.com, read 2026-10-17
- First MTD Quarterly Update: What You Need to Do Now - Maynard Johns Accountants Devon & Cornwall — maynardjohns.com, read 2026-10-17
- What Are Quarterly Updates? MTD Explained | Sage Advice — sage.com, read 2026-10-17