Does Making Tax Digital apply to limited company landlords?

The question comes up every time Making Tax Digital is in the news: does any of this apply to a company landlord? The short answer is no, and unusually for tax, the long answer is also no.

Companies are out, and staying out

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is a Self Assessment reform. It catches individuals: sole traders and landlords holding property in their own names, tested on gross income against the thresholds. A company is not an individual, so rent earned inside one never touches the test.

There was a plan, once, for a corporation tax version. HMRC consulted on it in 2020 and then went quiet. Its Transformation Roadmap, published on 21 July 2025, settled the question by saying HMRC will not introduce Making Tax Digital for Corporation Tax and will modernise its internal corporation tax systems instead. A company landlord’s routine is unchanged: accounts to Companies House, a CT600 each year, corporation tax due nine months and one day after the period ends.

Where company landlords still get caught

The trap is mixed holdings. Plenty of landlords ran up a personal portfolio first and incorporated later purchases, which leaves rent arriving on both sides of the line. The personal side is tested exactly as if the company did not exist: gross personal rent, plus any self-employment turnover, against £50,000 now and £30,000 from April 2027. Two personally held properties at the Leeds average rent of £1,133 a month (ONS, March 2026) gross about £27,200, which clears the £20,000 threshold arriving in April 2028 on their own. Salary and dividends from your company do not count towards the test, so paying yourself more does not pull you in.

Whether your personal side crosses in 2027 is worked through in will Making Tax Digital apply to you in 2027, and the dates that follow if it does are in the Making Tax Digital deadlines guide.

Incorporating to dodge quarterly updates is the tail wagging the dog

Every threshold change produces a wave of landlords asking whether to move the portfolio into a company. Sometimes incorporation is right, usually for mortgage interest relief or retained profits. But moving existing property in is a disposal: stamp duty on the way in, capital gains to reckon with, refinancing on company terms. Set against that, quarterly updates are a bookkeeping chore. Do not restructure a portfolio to avoid a filing rhythm; if the numbers already argue for a company, that is a different conversation and an accountant should lead it.

Either way the filings run on data, and that is the part we cover: owner statements that itemise rent, fee and maintenance monthly, whether the owner is you or your company. The full regime is in does Making Tax Digital apply to landlords.

We are not accountants and this is not tax advice; structure decisions in particular belong with yours.