Four updates a year instead of one return.
If your gross self-employment and property income together top the threshold, Self Assessment as you know it is replaced by quarterly updates and a final declaration, filed from software.
HMRC adds your self-employment turnover and your property income together, before expenses. People who assume it is based on profit routinely discover they are in scope when they thought they were not.
A quarterly summary of income and expenses through software, then one final declaration after the tax year that replaces the return you used to file in January.
Records have to be kept digitally and the updates have to come from that software. A spreadsheet retyped once a year is what this is designed to end.
Those joining in April 2026 do not receive penalty points for late quarterly updates for the first twelve months. The obligation is real; the penalty ramps up.
When it applies to you
- April 2026Over £50,000In force now
Sole traders and landlords. Roughly 864,000 people in this first wave.
- April 2027Over £30,000
The threshold falls, bringing in a substantially larger group.
- April 2028Over £20,000
Most sole traders and landlords of any size are now in scope.
Checked against HMRC guidance on 2 September 2026. Re-verify at each Budget.
Questions
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Records that keep themselves.
Updates that follow from them.
Financial IQ provides information and tools, not regulated tax advice.