Making Tax Digital
The MTD deadline checklist for landlords
Making Tax Digital replaces one deadline a year with five. None of them involve paying anything new, but four are dates a Self Assessment habit has never had to know. Here they are, with what has to be true before each one.
Five dates a year, and none of them is January
Under MTD a landlord’s year has four quarterly updates — due 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May — plus a final declaration by 31 January. The quarterly dates are the new ones, and they are the ones a Self Assessment habit does not know about.
The first one arrives before you feel ready
For landlords mandated from April 2026 the first update covered 6 April to 5 July 2026 and was due 7 August 2026. Records had to be digital from 6 April. The gap between being in scope and being due was four months.
The penalty relaxation is narrower than it sounds
HMRC is not charging late-submission penalties on quarterly updates for 2026/27 for the first mandated group. That does not cover the final declaration for 2026/27, due 31 January 2028, and it says nothing about anyone joining in 2027 or 2028.
Know your year
Whether you join in April 2026, 2027 or 2028 depends on qualifying income — gross rent plus self-employment turnover — above £50,000, £30,000 or £20,000 respectively.
Have digital records from 6 April
Every rent receipt and expense recorded electronically, near the time it happens, with date, amount and category. LetBuddy records against HMRC’s own categories and imports bank statements so nothing is re-typed.
Hit four quarterly dates
7 August, 7 November, 7 February, 7 May, each one month and two days after the quarter ends. LetBuddy calculates each quarter’s totals from the records and reminds you ahead of each date, in the same reminder system as your gas safety certificate. It keeps going while an update is overdue until it reaches HMRC.
Finalise once
The final declaration by 31 January after the tax year replaces the Self Assessment return and is where tax is actually calculated. Quarterly figures are cumulative, so a correction is carried forward rather than resubmitted.
What this is not
It is not tax advice and the dates are HMRC’s, not ours. Thresholds and penalty rules can change; GOV.UK is the authority and an accountant is the person to ask about your own position.
Submission is not yet live. LetBuddy is built against HMRC’s official MTD for Income Tax API and tested end to end in their sandbox; the production credentials application is with HMRC, and until LetBuddy is on the GOV.UK list of compatible software the submission step is marked coming soon in the product. Everything before that step — digital records against HMRC’s categories, bank import, quarter totals — works today.
Common questions
What are the MTD quarterly deadlines for landlords?
Standard quarters follow the tax year: 6 April to 5 July, due 7 August; 6 July to 5 October, due 7 November; 6 October to 5 January, due 7 February; 6 January to 5 April, due 7 May. Each deadline is one month and two days after the period ends. You can ask HMRC for calendar-month quarters instead; few landlords do.
When is the MTD final declaration due?
31 January following the end of the tax year — the same date as the Self Assessment deadline it replaces. For 2026/27 that is 31 January 2028.
Are there penalties for missing a quarterly update?
MTD uses a points system: each late submission earns a point and a penalty is charged once the points reach a threshold. For landlords mandated from April 2026, HMRC has said no late-submission penalties apply to quarterly updates in 2026/27. The final declaration is not covered by that.
Do I pay tax with each quarterly update?
No. A quarterly update is a summary of income and expenses by category — not a return and not a payment. Tax is calculated at the final declaration and paid on the usual dates.
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Read this next
- Making Tax DigitalWho has to file quarterly, from when, and what counts as a digital record.
- Spreadsheets and MTDA spreadsheet is an acceptable record; re-typing its totals is not. Where it stops being enough.
- MTD with two propertiesThe threshold is rental income, not property count — where two properties actually fall.