Making Tax Digital: Your Next Quarterly Update Is Due 7 November
It is a wet Tuesday evening and you are halfway through your receipts when you remember that someone mentioned a deadline in early November. If you are a sole trader or landlord, that conversation might have been about Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. Here is what it asks, who it applies to, and what to do in the next two weeks.
Who has to use it, and since when
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies to sole traders and landlords based on their qualifying income, which is your self-employment and property turnover before expenses, taken from your tax return. According to HMRC's guidance, the rollout is staged:
- Over £50,000 (from your 2024 to 2025 return): from 6 April 2026.
- Over £30,000 (from your 2025 to 2026 return): from 6 April 2027.
- Over £20,000 (from your 2026 to 2027 return): from 6 April 2028.
If you are under those figures for now, nothing changes yet, but the thresholds come down, so it is worth knowing what will be expected of you.
What it asks of you
- Digital records of your income and expenses, each with an amount, a date and a category, kept in software that works with HMRC. HMRC does not supply the software, and you can combine tools, for example a spreadsheet with bridging software.
- A quarterly update every three months. These are summaries, not tax returns.
- A final declaration through your software by 31 January after the end of the tax year, where you check your income, add anything else and pay what you owe.
For people who started in April 2026, HMRC's timetable gives 7 August 2026 for the first update, 7 November 2026 for the second, 7 February 2027 for the third and 7 May 2027 for the fourth. If your software shows a different date for your accounting period, follow what it shows.
A routine that stops the dates sneaking up
Most people who miss a date did not forget the rule, they forgot the day. Two small habits help. Once a week, ten minutes: log receipts and invoices received while you still remember what they were for. And a reminder set about ten days before every quarterly date, not on the day.
That second one is something Edwin, a digital assistant, can do for you with recurring reminders in your calendar. To be clear, he is not accounting software and does not submit anything to HMRC. Think of him as the person who nudges you before the date arrives. You can join the waitlist to try it.
This is general information, not tax advice. Check your own position with HMRC or your accountant.