If you need to file a Self Assessment return for the 2025/26 tax year and haven’t filed one before, you have until 5 October 2026 to register. The deadline itself hasn’t changed. The system you’re registering into has.
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax became mandatory on 6 April 2026 for sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000.
The threshold reduces to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. If your gross income from self-employment and property is more than £20,000 a year, quarterly digital reporting is likely to apply within a year or two of registering.
Knowing when that will happen, and setting up your records for it now, spares you a difficult changeover later. Start by checking whether you need to register at all.
Who Needs to Register for Self Assessment by 5 October?
You may need to register if you received income in 2025/26 that HMRC hasn’t already taxed through PAYE, although not every type of untaxed income requires a tax return. For most first-time filers, the reason for registering is one of these three:
- Self-employment: You earned more than £1,000 from working for yourself, which is the tax-free trading allowance limit.
- Property: Your property income was more than £2,500. If it was between £1,000 and £2,500, you contact HMRC instead of registering for Self Assessment.
- A partnership: You became a partner in a business partnership during the year.
This includes people who work for themselves alongside a salaried job. Our guide to side hustles explains when that extra income needs reporting.
If you’re not sure whether you need to register, HMRC’s online checker will tell you. If you registered in the past but didn’t need to file a return for 2024/25, you’ll need to reactivate your account by the same 5 October deadline.
You can register with HMRC online, and the route depends on your situation. Sole traders register as self-employed, which also registers them for National Insurance on their profits. Landlords and others with untaxed income use a separate route, and partners use a third. Our guide to registering as self-employed covers the sole trader route step by step.
Registering gives you a Unique Taxpayer Reference, or UTR. HMRC’s improved registration service, launched in September 2026, delivers it to your Personal Tax Account within 72 hours, compared with up to 15 days by post.
Registering after 5 October doesn’t automatically lead to a penalty. If you also haven’t paid all your tax by 31 January, though, HMRC may charge a ‘failure to notify’ penalty based on the amount still unpaid.
How Making Tax Digital Changes What Happens Next
Until this year, registering for Self Assessment meant one tax return a year, filed by 31 January. Making Tax Digital keeps that annual return and adds digital record-keeping and quarterly reporting for anyone over the threshold. Your tax bill, the tax rules and your payment dates stay the same. What changes is how you report, and how often. Once you’re in the scheme, you’ll need to meet three obligations:
- Digital records: You keep a record of your income and expenses in software that works with Making Tax Digital, updated as the year goes on.
- Quarterly updates: Every three months, you send HMRC a summary of your income and expenses for each business you run. These are summaries, not tax returns, prepared by your software. Each update covers the tax year to date, not just the latest three months, so you can correct earlier figures without resending an old update.
- An annual tax return: After the tax year ends, you confirm your figures, add any other income such as a salary or dividends, and submit your return through the same software by 31 January.
Who Has to Join, and When
HMRC decides whether you need to use Making Tax Digital by checking your qualifying income on an earlier tax return. The threshold is being introduced in three stages:
| Qualifying income over | Measured in the tax year | You must join from |
| £50,000 | 2024/25 | 6 April 2026 |
| £30,000 | 2025/26 | 6 April 2027 |
| £20,000 | 2026/27 | 6 April 2028 |
What Counts as Qualifying Income
Your qualifying income is your gross income from self-employment and property combined, meaning your turnover before any expenses are deducted. Employment income, dividends, pensions, savings interest and your share of partnership profits don’t count. If you own a property jointly, only your share of the rent is included.
Because the two sources are added together, you can be in scope even when neither is large on its own.
Take James, who started freelancing as a photographer in 2025/26 and invoiced £18,000 that year, while also receiving £14,000 in rent from a flat. Neither figure exceeds £30,000, but James’s qualifying income is £32,000, so James must use Making Tax Digital from 6 April 2027.
When a First-Time Filer Joins Making Tax Digital
HMRC can’t require you to use Making Tax Digital until you’ve filed at least one Self Assessment return, so your first return is always an ordinary annual one.
If you started earning in 2025/26, the earliest you can be required to join is 6 April 2027, and that depends on your 2025/26 figures.
For someone in that position whose qualifying income was over £30,000, the next two years look like this:
| Date | What happens |
| 5 October 2026 | Deadline to register for Self Assessment |
| 31 January 2027 | Deadline to file your 2025/26 return online and pay the tax you owe, plus a first payment on account if one applies |
| 6 April 2027 | Making Tax Digital begins for you |
| 7 August 2027 | Your first quarterly update is due, covering 6 April to 5 July 2027 |
| 31 January 2029 | Your first annual return under Making Tax Digital is due, for the 2027/28 tax year |
If your 2025/26 qualifying income is £30,000 or less, HMRC will test your 2026/27 income against the £20,000 threshold, which applies from April 2028.
If You Started Part-Way Through the Year
Most new businesses don’t start on 6 April, so HMRC scales part-year figures up to a full year before comparing them with the threshold. For sole traders, HMRC annualises the income itself where it has the information. Six months of trading, for example, is doubled. Landlords have to annualise their property income themselves.
This can bring you into scope sooner than your actual earnings suggest. A sole trader who started in October 2025 and invoiced £16,000 by 5 April 2026 has around six months of income, which annualises to £32,000.
That’s over the £30,000 threshold, so they would join Making Tax Digital in April 2027, even though they only earned £16,000.
No Grace Period for the 2027 Group
People who joined Making Tax Digital in April 2026 received a concession for their first year. HMRC won’t issue penalty points for late quarterly updates during 2026/27. That concession doesn’t extend to anyone joining in April 2027.
From 2027/28, each missed quarterly deadline earns a penalty point. Once you reach four points, HMRC charges a £200 penalty, and another £200 for each deadline you miss after that. For the April 2027 group, penalties can apply from the very first update on 7 August 2027.
Preparing Your Records Before Making Tax Digital Applies
Nothing stops you keeping your records the Making Tax Digital way from your first month of trading, and doing so turns the eventual switch into a minor adjustment. Once you’ve filed your first return, you can also sign up voluntarily and practise before HMRC requires you to join. Late quarterly updates don’t attract penalty points while you’re volunteering. Whether you volunteer or not, these habits will make the transition much easier:
- Open a separate bank account: Keeping business income and costs apart from personal spending makes each quarterly update quicker to prepare and easier to check.
- Choose compatible software early: Picking a package that works with Making Tax Digital now means you won’t have to transfer a year of records later. Our accounting software guide compares the main options.
- Record transactions every month: Entering and categorising income and expenses monthly, rather than once a year, matches the rhythm quarterly updates will require.
- Keep receipts digitally: Scanning or photographing receipts when you receive them avoids a backlog of paper at the end of each quarter.
Getting Your First Return and MTD Set Up Properly
The record-keeping system you set up in your first year is usually the one you keep, so registration is the best time to organise things with Making Tax Digital in mind. Getting it right now means your first return is straightforward, and your first quarterly update is routine rather than a rush.
At Double Point, we register new clients for Self Assessment, prepare and file their Self Assessment return, and work out when Making Tax Digital will apply based on their figures. We’ll help you choose software and set up your records. Once you’re in the scheme, we’ll handle your quarterly updates and annual return. Our full MTD guide covers the wider rules in more depth.
If you need to register by 5 October, or you’re not sure whether you do, book a free consultation. We’ll check your position and make sure you’re registered in time.
Disclaimer: General information only, not advice. Rules and figures can change. Take advice on your own circumstances before acting.