Business
Making Tax Digital: Does It Apply to Me?
Work out whether Making Tax Digital for Income Tax catches you, and from which April. It adds up your qualifying income the way HMRC defines it - gross income before expenses, across every trade and every property business - shows the sum, names the threshold that catches you, counts your quarterly updates, and gives you the first period and its deadline. Guidance as at 2026-09-20; gov.uk is the authority. Runs in your browser.
Privacy
Your file never leaves your device. It is read and converted by your own browser, so nothing is uploaded, queued or logged — which is what makes this safe for a client’s books.
Tips
- Qualifying income is gross, before expenses. A landlord with £31,000 of rent and £14,000 of mortgage interest, agent fees and repairs has qualifying income of £31,000, not £17,000. That is the mistake that puts people on the wrong side of a threshold.
- It is added up across everything. A plumber turning over £24,000 who also lets a flat for £9,000 has qualifying income of £33,000 and is caught from April 2027, even though neither figure alone is near a threshold.
- Whether you are in is judged on the tax return for the year two years earlier. The April 2026 start is decided on your 2024-25 return, which you have already filed - so for that one the figure is settled, not a forecast.
- Every threshold, date and deadline this page uses sits in one clearly-marked block at the top of the engine file, labelled 2026-09-20. It was not verified against a live gov.uk page. Check anything you are about to act on against gov.uk, and treat this as a prompt to look, not as the answer.
- Quarterly updates are counted per business. Two trades and a UK property business is three businesses, so twelve updates a year plus one Final Declaration - not four.
- Being just under a threshold is not the end of it. A good year two years before a start date pulls you in, so watch the figure rather than filing it away.
- MTD for VAT is separate and much older. If you are VAT registered you have been in it since April 2022 whatever your turnover, and the digital links rule - no copying a total from one system into another by hand - applies to you now.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly is qualifying income?
Gross income before expenses, from self-employment and from property, added together. Turnover from every trade plus the rent from every property, UK and overseas, before a single cost comes off. It is not your profit, it is not your taxable income, and it does not include employment income, pensions, dividends or savings interest. If you take one thing from this page, take that.
Which return is it judged on?
The tax return for the year two years before the start year. The 6 April 2026 start is judged on your 2024-25 return, the 6 April 2027 start on 2025-26, and the 6 April 2028 start on 2026-27. That is why a quiet year now does not get you out of a busy year two years ago - and why a good year now matters for a date that feels a long way off.
How many quarterly updates will I have to send?
Four a year for each business. Each separate trade is a business; your UK property letting is one property business and overseas property is a separate one. A sole trader who also lets a UK flat sends eight updates a year, plus one Final Declaration by 31 January after the tax year ends.
Are these figures right?
They are the rules as understood on 2026-09-20, written into one constant block so they can be reviewed and corrected in one place. They were not checked against a live gov.uk page, and the things least certain are printed on the results as "what to re-check". Treat this as a way of framing the question for your accountant or for gov.uk, not as a ruling.
Can this get me out of it?
No, and it does not try. It cannot grant an exemption, decide a digitally excluded application, tell you what HMRC holds on your record, or say when partnerships will be brought in. It works out one thing - whether your qualifying income crosses a threshold, and when - and tells you plainly what it has not decided.
Is anything I type sent anywhere?
No. Every figure is added up in your browser, and the PDF and text summary are written there too. Your turnover and your rent never leave the device, and nothing is logged.
Sources, and when this was last checked
The rules, rates and thresholds this tool applies were last checked on . They change — usually at a Budget or a notification, sometimes between one. Anything you are going to rely on, check against the source.
- gov.uk — Check if you are eligible for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax — the thresholds, the start dates and what qualifying income means
- gov.uk — Use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax
- gov.uk — Use Making Tax Digital for VAT — what has applied to every VAT-registered business since April 2022
- gov.uk — Find software compatible with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax