Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: a checklist for UK practices
MTD for Income Tax started on 6 April 2026 for sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000. The £30,000 group joins in April 2027, and you can already identify those clients from their 2025/26 figures.
Who is in, and when
| Qualifying income over | Based on the | Must use MTD from |
|---|---|---|
| £50,000 | 2024/25 tax return | 6 April 2026 |
| £30,000 | 2025/26 tax return | 6 April 2027 |
| £20,000 | 2026/27 tax return | 6 April 2028 |
Qualifying income is gross income from self-employment and property added together: turnover and rents before expenses, not profit. A landlord with £18,000 of rent who also runs a small business turning over £14,000 has £32,000 of qualifying income, and is in from April 2027.
HMRC writes to the people it identifies from their returns, but practices shouldn't wait for those letters to plan their workload.
The quarterly rhythm
Quarterly updates are cumulative and due on the 7th of the month after each quarter ends.
| Update period (standard) | Due by |
|---|---|
| 6 April – 5 July | 7 August |
| 6 April – 5 October | 7 November |
| 6 April – 5 January | 7 February |
| 6 April – 5 April | 7 May |
Clients can choose calendar quarters instead (ending 30 June, 30 September, 31 December and 31 March), with the same deadlines. After the fourth update, the tax return, with any adjustments and other income, is still due by 31 January after the tax year.
For 2026/27, HMRC has said it will not apply penalty points for late quarterly updates. That is a soft landing for the first group, not an exemption: the updates are still required, and the normal points regime is expected to apply after that.
A checklist for the next six months
- Find the 2027 group now. List every client whose combined self-employment and property turnover was over £30,000 in 2025/26.
- Choose software per client. Check that it is HMRC-recognised and handles multiple properties, jointly owned property and more than one business.
- Move records to digital. Connect bank feeds, set up receipt capture in Dext, Hubdoc or AutoEntry, and map categories to HMRC's.
- Build a quarterly calendar. Four update deadlines per client, plus 31 January, alongside VAT and year-end work.
- Agree who does what. Decide whether the client or the practice keeps the records, and reflect it in engagement letters and fees.
- Deal with exemptions early. Clients who are digitally excluded need to apply to HMRC for an exemption; don't leave it until the first deadline.
Where the extra work lands
MTD adds little new technical work, but it adds four touchpoints per client each year. For a practice with 150 affected clients, that's 600 extra updates to prepare and check, and they all fall in the same weeks of August, November, February and May.
That is repetitive, deadline-driven preparation, which suits an offshore team well: categorising transactions, reconciling the bank and drafting the quarterly figures for your review, while your practice keeps the submission and the client relationship.
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