How do I sign up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax as a landlord?

Check you are registered for Self Assessment and filed a return in the last 2 years, then sign up on GOV.UK. Over £30,000 of 2025-26 rent means starting on 6 April 2027, or earlier if over £50,000 in 2024-25.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (MTD) means keeping digital records of your rent and costs and sending HMRC an update every quarter. Signing up is a short online form, but you need a few things in place first. This page follows the GOV.UK sign-up guidance as updated on 13 October 2026.

Do you need to sign up?

You need MTD if your qualifying income is over the threshold for your start year. Qualifying income is your rent plus any self-employed turnover, before expenses. It is not your profit.

Wages, dividends and pensions do not count. If you own a property jointly, only your share counts. Qualifying income of £20,000 or less is an automatic exemption, so there is nothing to apply for.

A few landlords can apply for an exemption if it is not reasonable for them to use software, for example because of age, health, disability or no internet access. Preferring paper, or the cost of software, is not enough on its own.

What you'll need

What this means for you

If your 2025-26 rent and any self-employed turnover came to more than £30,000, and your 2024-25 total was not over £50,000, you must use MTD from 6 April 2027. Over £50,000 in 2024-25 means you should have started on 6 April 2026, and GOV.UK says you can still sign up. GOV.UK lets you sign up for the current or the next tax year, so you can sign up for 2027-28 now. Many landlords will file their 2025-26 return first, because HMRC uses it to decide who joins; it is due by 31 January 2027. HMRC writes to people over the threshold, but GOV.UK says you must check your own figures even without a letter.

Landlords have one extra job once they start. If you have a mortgage, mortgage interest and other finance costs must be kept as a separate digital record and sent separately in each update.

Signing up does not change when you pay tax. A quarterly update is a report, not a payment. You still send a tax return for the year before you start in the usual way, so a 6 April 2027 starter still files the 2026-27 return as normal.

Steps to sign up

1. Check your qualifying income. Add up your rent and any self-employed turnover before expenses, using your share of anything you own jointly.
2. Make sure you are registered for Self Assessment and have sent a tax return in the last 2 years. If not, register and file first.
3. Choose software that works with MTD for Income Tax. GOV.UK has a software finder; it lists products that have been through HMRC's checks, and HMRC does not recommend any of them.
4. Gather the details in the table above, including when your letting started if it was recent.
5. Go to the GOV.UK sign-up service, sign in with your Self Assessment user ID and password, and prove your identity if asked.
6. Check every income source HMRC shows, add any that are missing, and pick the tax year you will start.
7. Set up your software and put the update deadlines in your diary: 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May.

The free MTD check tells you which start date applies to you before you begin.

After you sign up

For a 6 April 2027 start, your first update covers 6 April to 5 July 2027 and is due by 7 August 2027. Each update covers the tax year so far. Your first MTD tax return, for 2027-28, is due by 31 January 2029.

Penalties work on points. If you are required to use MTD, a late return or a late update can earn a point, and at 4 points HMRC charges £200. While you are only volunteering, GOV.UK says missed quarterly updates bring no penalties. GOV.UK gives relief from points for missed quarterly updates in 2026-27. At the Budget on 28 October 2026 the government said people who must join in April 2027 will get no penalty points for late 2027-28 quarterly updates either, though the updates must still be sent. For them, the earliest a late update can earn a point is 7 August 2028.

If you would rather not sign up yourself, an agent with an HMRC agent services account can do it for you. The landlord section has more guides on running your lets.