Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: The April 2026 Deadline

For self-employed people and landlords, the way income tax gets reported is changing. Making Tax Digital for Income Tax — often shortened to MTD for ITSA (Income Tax Self Assessment) — starts phasing in from April 2026, replacing the familiar once-a-year tax return with digital records and quarterly updates for those in scope. If your income comes from a trade or from property, here is what is changing, when, and what you need to do.

This article is general information, not financial or tax advice. Thresholds and dates change; confirm your position on GOV.UK or with a qualified accountant.

What MTD for Income Tax is

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is an HMRC requirement to keep your business and property records digitally and send HMRC quarterly updates, using compatible software. It extends the Making Tax Digital approach already in place for VAT to income tax.

In practice, being in scope means three things replace the single annual return:

1. Digital record-keeping of income and expenses.
2. Quarterly updates sent to HMRC during the year.
3. A final declaration after the year ends, confirming your full position and any other income.

This is part of a wider shift to digital tax administration. For the foundations of the programme as a whole, see our overview of Making Tax Digital, which explains the principles that MTD for VAT and MTD for Income Tax both share.

Who is affected, and when

MTD for Income Tax does not arrive for everyone at once. It is being introduced in stages based on qualifying income — broadly, your gross income from self-employment and property combined, before expenses.

The phasing works on a stepping-down threshold:

Because the figures and exact dates are set by HMRC and have moved before, the single most important step is to check the current threshold on GOV.UK and work out whether your combined qualifying income crosses it. If it does, note your start date — it is tied to the threshold, not your personal preference.

The trigger is qualifying income from self-employment and property combined — not profit. People with modest profits but high turnover can still be caught, so check the gross figure.

What you will actually have to do

If you are in scope, your tax year gains a new rhythm.

Keep digital records

Paper ledgers and shoeboxes of receipts no longer satisfy the rules. Income and expenses must be recorded digitally, in a form your software can use. Many sole traders find that adopting clean digital bookkeeping is the biggest practical change — and often a welcome one. Good record-keeping also makes your first financial year-end far less stressful.

Send quarterly updates

Roughly every three months you submit a summary of your income and expenses for that period through compatible software. These are running updates, not full tax calculations — think of them as keeping HMRC informed during the year rather than settling the bill four times over.

Make a final declaration

After the tax year ends, you finalise everything: confirm the year's figures, add any other income or reliefs, and arrive at your final tax position. This replaces the role the annual Self Assessment return used to play.

The software question

MTD is built around HMRC-compatible software, and you cannot file MTD updates by simply logging into the old online portal and typing numbers in. Your options generally fall into two camps:

• Full MTD-compatible accounting software that records transactions and submits updates directly.
• Bridging software that connects spreadsheets to HMRC, for those who prefer to keep their own records in a spreadsheet.

HMRC publishes a list of approved products. When choosing, weigh up cost, ease of use, whether it links to your bank, and whether your accountant supports it. For business owners already juggling systems, this is a good moment to think about your wider end-of-financial-year checklist and make sure your tools work together.

Plenty of advisers have published practical primers on getting ready; CM Beyer's overview of the Making Tax Digital for Income Tax April 2026 deadline, for instance, walks through the same who-and-when questions from a business adviser's perspective and is a useful sense-check alongside the official guidance.

How to prepare now

You do not need to wait until your start date to get ready. Sensible steps include:

1. Check whether and when you are in scope using your gross qualifying income and the current GOV.UK thresholds.
2. Choose and learn compatible software before you have to rely on it.
3. Start keeping digital records early, so quarterly updates are routine by the time they count.
4. Talk to an accountant if your affairs are mixed (multiple trades, property, other income).
5. Diarise the quarterly dates once you know your start date.

For landlords specifically, remember that property income counts towards the qualifying threshold, so even a small portfolio can bring you into MTD when combined with self-employed earnings.

The bottom line

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax replaces the annual tax return, for those in scope, with digital records, quarterly updates and a final declaration — phasing in from April 2026 based on qualifying income. The two things to do now are to check the current GOV.UK threshold against your gross income, and to get comfortable with compatible software before it becomes mandatory. Treated as an early prompt to tidy up your bookkeeping, MTD can be less a burden and more an upgrade to how you run your finances.