Compliance
Will Making Tax Digital apply to you in 2027?
Last updated 12 August 2026 · Reviewed by Nick Thorpe, founder
The short answer
If the 2025-26 tax return you file by 31 January 2027 shows more than £30,000 of combined gross property and self-employment income, you must follow Making Tax Digital for Income Tax from 6 April 2027. The test is gross income before expenses, and your share if property is jointly owned.
The first wave of Making Tax Digital took landlords over £50,000 in April 2026. The second wave is bigger and closer than most people think: over £30,000 from 6 April 2027, and the tax return that decides it is the one due this January.
The test is your next tax return
HMRC checks qualifying income each tax year from Self Assessment returns. For the April 2027 intake, the return that counts is 2025-26, due by 31 January 2027. Show more than £30,000 of gross property and self-employment income on it, combined, and you are mandated from 6 April 2027, with your first quarterly update due by 7 August 2027.
Gross is the word doing the work. The test is rent before a single expense comes off, plus self-employment turnover if you have any. A trade turning over £25,000 with £8,000 of rent alongside is in scope, even though neither figure alone would be.
What £30,000 looks like in Yorkshire
At the Kirklees average rent of £759 a month (ONS, March 2026), four properties gross about £36,400 a year, over the line with room to spare. Three at the Leeds average of £1,133 is about £40,800. A five-room HMO at £500 a room is £30,000 by itself, sat exactly on the line before anything else you earn.
Joint ownership changes the arithmetic: the test is your share. £48,000 of rent owned 50/50 is £24,000 each, which stays out for 2027 and comes in from April 2028, when the threshold drops to £20,000. The share rules, including the easements, are in how Making Tax Digital works for jointly owned property, and company landlords have their own answer.
What to do between now and April
Nothing about your tax changes; the bookkeeping does. Records have to live in HMRC-recognised software and HMRC hears from you four times a year, on the dates in our Making Tax Digital deadlines guide. The landlords who found the first wave easy in August were the ones whose numbers already arrived itemised each month.
So the useful preparation is dull. File the 2025-26 return early enough in the autumn to know your number rather than guessing it. Pick software before next spring, not the week of the first deadline; the two types and the free options are here. And if an agent manages your property, check what their statements give you: ours itemise rent received, our fee and maintenance at contractor cost, monthly from the portal, which is the record the software wants, and our fees are published. The wider regime, penalties included, is in does Making Tax Digital apply to landlords, and we keep both pages current as HMRC firms things up.
We are not accountants and this is not tax advice; your accountant should confirm your position, especially around ownership splits and what counts as qualifying income.