Making Tax Digital: the 7 November deadline sole traders and landlords can’t skip

Illustration only. Published .

Gareth, an illustrative self-employed plumber in Cardiff, has spent six months getting used to a new routine. Every receipt for copper pipe and every invoice for a new boiler now goes into software on his phone, rather than a shoebox he empties in January. In August he sent HMRC his first quarterly update. The second is due by 7 November.

Gareth is one of the sole traders and landlords who moved onto Making Tax Digital for Income Tax on 6 April 2026. This autumn is when the system starts to feel real.

Who’s in it now

You’ve had to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax from 6 April 2026 if your qualifying income was over £50,000 in the 2024 to 2025 tax year. Qualifying income means your self-employment and property income added together, before expenses. That’s your turnover and your rent, not your profit, so a landlord with £30,000 of rent and a side business turning over £25,000 is in, even if neither makes much after costs.

From September 2026, HMRC has been signing people up itself if they should be in the system and haven’t joined. If you think you should be in and haven’t heard anything, GOV.UK says you can still sign up yourself, and doing it yourself means your income sources and circumstances are up to date from the start. Some people are exempt, and GOV.UK has a checker for that.

What the November update covers

A quarterly update isn’t a tax return. It’s a summary of your income and expenses for each business or property income source, worked out by your software from your digital records and sent straight to HMRC.

Each update covers the tax year so far. If you use standard update periods, which most software is set to by default, the 7 November update covers 6 April to 5 October. If your accounts run from 1 April to 31 March and you use calendar update periods, it covers 1 April to 30 September. The deadline is the same either way.

The four deadlines in every tax year are 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. Once you’ve sent an update, you can see an estimate of your tax bill for the year so far in your software or your HMRC online account.

No penalty points this year, but it isn’t optional

Here’s the part that’s easy to misread. For the 2026 to 2027 tax year, HMRC won’t give penalty points for late quarterly updates. That doesn’t make them optional. You still need to keep digital records and send every quarterly update before you can submit your tax return.

From 2027 to 2028, each missed deadline earns a point, and you can only get one point per deadline even if you run more than one business. Reach four points and you get a £200 penalty, with another £200 each time you miss a further deadline. Points under the threshold drop off after 24 months. Once you’ve hit four, clearing them takes 12 months of sending everything on time, plus catching up on anything still outstanding.

Penalties still apply now for a late tax return or a late tax payment.

Your 2025/26 return still goes the usual way

For Gareth and everyone else who joined in April, the tax return due by 31 January 2027 covers 2025 to 2026, the year before Making Tax Digital. It’s filed the usual way, and the old Self Assessment penalties apply to it. Their first tax return sent straight from Making Tax Digital software is for 2026 to 2027, due by 31 January 2028.

Who’s next

The threshold drops from April. If your qualifying income for 2025 to 2026 is over £30,000, you’ll need to use Making Tax Digital from 6 April 2027. If it’s over £20,000 for 2026 to 2027, you’ll join from 6 April 2028. That brings in smaller landlords and part-time sole traders who haven’t had to file quarterly before. GOV.UK lets you sign up voluntarily before you have to, which gives you time to get used to it first.

Setting the money aside

The quarterly estimate is useful for more than ticking a box. If you’ve never known what you owe until January, seeing a running figure in November makes it easier to put money aside as you go.

Our Emergency Fund tool can help you build a separate pot for the tax bill so it doesn’t come out of your day-to-day money. The Budget Planner shows how much you can move across each month. And if you’re weighing up self-employment against a salaried job, the Take-Home Salary calculator shows what an employed wage would leave you after tax.

For Gareth, the software does the adding up. The bigger change is knowing, in autumn, roughly what January will cost him.

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Sources

All checked 19 October 2026.

Disclaimer

Gareth is an illustrative example, not a real person, and the landlord figures are illustration only. This article is general information, not financial or tax advice, and Money Engine is not regulated by the FCA. Check your own position on GOV.UK or with HMRC or an accountant.