Does Making Tax Digital Apply to Landlords?
MTD for Income Tax applies to landlords whose total qualifying income — property income plus any self-employment income — exceeds the threshold. The threshold has been £50,000 since April 2026. It falls to £30,000 in April 2027 and £20,000 in April 2028. Income below these thresholds is not currently subject to MTD for Income Tax, though this may change.
What Landlords Need to Do for MTD
- Check whether your qualifying income exceeds the MTD threshold.
- Choose and set up MTD-compatible software approved by HMRC.
- Register for MTD for Income Tax through your Government Gateway account.
- Keep digital records of all property income and allowable expenses.
- Submit quarterly updates by each HMRC deadline.
- Complete and submit your Self Assessment tax return through MTD-compatible software after the tax year.
MTD for Landlords with Multiple Properties
If you own multiple rental properties, all income and expenses from your UK property business are combined for MTD purposes — you don’t report each property separately to HMRC. Overseas property is a separate property business from UK property and is treated separately for MTD.
For example, a landlord with three UK buy-to-let flats records each property’s rent and expenses individually in their software through the year, then the software totals them into one combined UK property income figure for each quarterly update — the same single figure whether you own one property or twenty.
Landlords with a Job or Self-Employment Income Too
The £50,000 / £30,000 / £20,000 thresholds are based on your total qualifying income, not property income in isolation. If you’re employed and also let out a property, your PAYE salary doesn’t count towards the threshold — only your gross property income does. But if you’re both self-employed and a landlord, your self-employment turnover and gross rental income are added together to test against the threshold.
That means someone with £35,000 of self-employment income and £20,000 of gross rents has £55,000 of combined qualifying income — over the £50,000 threshold — even though neither source alone would trigger MTD by itself.
Joint Ownership and Married Couples
Where a property is jointly owned, each owner tests their own share of the gross rental income against the threshold, not the total rent the property generates. Two people who jointly own a property generating £70,000 in gross rent, split 50/50, each have £35,000 of qualifying property income from that property — below the £50,000 threshold, even though the property’s total income is above it, unless either has other qualifying income that pushes them over.
Married couples and civil partners who jointly own property are taxed on their beneficial ownership share by default (usually 50/50), unless a valid Form 17 election and matching beneficial ownership are in place to split income unequally.
MTD Software for Landlords
HMRC publishes a list of recognised software compatible with MTD for Income Tax. General cloud accounting platforms like Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent all support UK property income, and property-specific tools such as Hammock and Landlord Studio add per-property rent reconciliation and tenant tracking on top of MTD-compliant reporting. If you keep records in a spreadsheet, bridging software can link it to HMRC without moving to a new system.
Quarterly Update Deadlines for Landlords
Once you’re in MTD, you send four quarterly updates of your property income and expenses, plus a year-end tax return. Using the standard quarters:
- 6 April – 5 July — due 7 August
- 6 April – 5 October (cumulative) — due 7 November
- 6 April – 5 January (cumulative) — due 7 February
- 6 April – 5 April (cumulative) — due 7 May
Your Self Assessment tax return is then due by 31 January after the tax year ends. You can elect to use calendar quarters instead if that suits your records better — the submission dates stay the same.