If you were required to send your first Making Tax Digital for Income Tax update by 7 August 2026 and missed it, the next step is to get your records and submissions back on track. HMRC will not apply late-submission penalty points to quarterly updates for 2026 to 2027. However, the updates remain required and must be sent before you can submit your tax return.
The next quarterly deadline is 7 November 2026. Use the time now to resolve the first update, bring your digital records up to date and agree who will prepare, check and send the next submission.
Does this apply to you personally or to your company?
The first mandatory group generally comprises sole traders and landlords with combined qualifying income over £50,000 on their 2024 to 2025 tax return, subject to exemptions. Qualifying income means gross self-employment and property income before expenses, not profit. Salary and dividends do not count towards that threshold.
A limited company is not within MTD for Income Tax. A director may nevertheless be affected personally through rental income or a separate sole trade. Check your own position rather than using company turnover to decide.
I missed August. What should I do now?
Start by checking the submission history in your software or asking your accountant for confirmation. A prepared update is not necessarily a successfully submitted update.
If it is outstanding, check that you are signed up, your software is authorised and any accountant acting for you has the necessary MTD authorisation. Gather the missing records and arrange to send the overdue update promptly. Ask your accountant or software provider to confirm the outstanding obligations and how to clear them; do not assume sending the November update automatically resolves every earlier obligation.
Agree a short recovery plan: what is missing, who will provide it and when the submission will be checked. For example, “letting-agent statements outstanding” is a problem someone can resolve; “MTD not ready” is too vague to act on.
The first-year relief is specific to late quarterly updates. It does not remove penalties for late annual tax returns or the consequences of paying tax late.
What records should be current now?
By late September, April onwards should be recorded and reconciled as far as the latest available information allows. Complete the remaining period-end records once available. This is a practical working target, not an additional HMRC filing deadline.
Before preparing the next update, check:
- Income completeness: compare sales, fees and rents with invoices, bank receipts and letting-agent statements. Where an agent pays rent net of fees, check that the records capture the underlying rent and charges correctly.
- Expenses and evidence: obtain missing invoices and receipts, review categories and separate private spending from business items.
- Bank and cash records: investigate duplicate imports, gaps in bank feeds, transfers mistaken for income and transactions outside the main bank account. A bank feed alone may not capture everything.
- Separate activities: keep each sole trade and property business identifiable. Ask your accountant about jointly owned property or other circumstances requiring different treatment.
- Digital records: retain the date, amount and relevant category for transactions, subject to any permitted simplifications. Keep supporting documents too.
- Software links: if records pass between products, check the required digital links. Avoid relying on manually retyping totals as your MTD process.
Keep a short query list for uncertain items and assign someone to resolve each one. Do not leave the whole bookkeeping exercise until every tax question has been answered.
What must the November update cover?
For standard update periods, the second update covers 6 April 2026 to 5 October 2026. For calendar update periods, it covers 1 April 2026 to 30 September 2026. Both are due by 7 November 2026.
These are cumulative figures. Check April onwards, including corrections to earlier records, rather than submitting only the latest three months. Confirm which period your software uses; you cannot switch the period basis for the tax year after sending an update.
Quarterly updates summarise income and expenses; they are not completed annual accounts or tax returns. Accounting and tax adjustments are not required before sending an update. An update is still required if there has been no income or expenditure in the latest period.
How can you make the next deadline manageable?
Now: confirm whether August was successfully submitted, clear the backlog and check software access.
After your period ends: finish the records, reconcile balances and investigate unexpected movements in the cumulative totals.
During October: agree a review and submission date with your accountant. Allow time for missing information and software problems rather than aiming for the final day.
After submission: retain the confirmation and diarise the next bookkeeping review. If an error emerges, correct the digital records so it flows into the next cumulative update; changes after the fourth update may require that update to be resent.
Do I need to pay tax in November?
The quarterly update deadline does not itself create a new quarterly tax payment. Existing Self Assessment payment obligations, including payments on account where applicable, continue.
The 2026 to 2027 tax return is due by 31 January 2028. Do not confuse this with the earlier deadline for the 2025 to 2026 return, 31 January 2027. Keep both years’ responsibilities in your plan.
Any tax estimate produced during the year is provisional. Use it as an input to cash-flow planning, allowing for other income, reliefs and year-end adjustments.
When is it worth asking for help?
Seek help now if the first update is outstanding, you cannot reconcile the records, your software is not connected or nobody is clearly responsible for filing. If your process already works, a focused review may be enough; changing software is not automatically the answer.
Accendo’s focus is audit, company reporting, corporation tax and advisory for established organisations. For personal MTD filing, work with an adviser who provides that service. If you need to separate these responsibilities from your company’s reporting and tax processes, discuss your company reporting needs with Accendo.
HMRC sources
Before you use this guide: scope and first-year timetable
Penalties for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax
This article reflects HMRC guidance checked on 27 September 2026, including the guidance updated on 7 September 2026. It provides general information; advice should reflect your circumstances.