9:34 AM, 6th August 2025, About 5 months ago 26
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Landlords earning more than £50,000 will have to adopt Making Tax Digital (MTD) for paying their income tax from April 2026.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) says it wants to modernise financial reporting by mandating digital record-keeping and quarterly submissions through compatible software.
To help landlords, it has published an updated list of complaint software programs that landlords can use – which we list below with links to the providers.
Around 780,000 self-employed individuals and landlords will need to comply by updating their income and expenses and then submitting summaries every three months.
This change is expected to ease the burden of annual tax returns, allowing business owners to dedicate more time to their core activities.
HMRC’s director of making tax digital, Craig Ogilvie, said: “MTD for Income Tax is the most significant change to the Self Assessment regime since its introduction in 1997.
“It will make it easier for self-employed people and landlords to stay on top of their tax affairs and help ensure they pay the right amount of tax.”
He added: “By signing up to our testing programme now, self-employed people and landlords will be able to familiarise themselves with the new process and access dedicated support from our MTD customer support team, before it becomes compulsory next year.”
James Murray, the exchequer secretary to the Treasury, said: “MTD for Income Tax is an essential part of our plan to transform the UK’s tax system into one that supports economic growth.
“By modernising how people manage their tax, we’re helping businesses work more efficiently and productively while ensuring everyone pays their fair share.”
HMRC says that by April 2027, another 970,000 taxpayers with incomes of more than £30,000 will join MTD, with the threshold dropping to £20,000 in 2028.
The move to quarterly updates aims to create a near real-time tax system, reducing the end-of-year scramble and helping businesses maintain better financial oversight.
HMRC is urging those affected to join a testing programme on Gov.uk to prepare for the transition (see below).
The initiative builds on the success of MTD for VAT, which has supported more than two million businesses in reducing errors.
To comply with the rules, landlords must use MTD-compatible software to record self-employment and property income, send quarterly updates and submit tax returns by 31 January annually.
Software options include tools that create digital records by linking to bank accounts, scanning receipts or manually logging transactions.
Alternatively, bridging software can integrate with existing spreadsheets or accounting tools.
Taxpayers can opt for a single product or multiple tools, depending on their needs, such as supporting multiple income sources or working with agents.
HMRC’s software finder tool on Gov.uk helps landlords identify suitable products and currently lists:
Other leading accountancy packages, such as Xero and Sage, also offer MTD functionality.
More information on MTD
The sign-up page for HMRC’s Making Tax Digital testing programme is here.
The National Residential Landlords Association has also produced a helpful step-by-step guide to help landlords understand Making Tax Digital.
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Ryan Stevens
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Member Since January 2024 - Comments: 290
10:09 AM, 6th August 2025, About 5 months ago
I will be ensuring that the majority of my clients do not need to join MTD ITSA for the foreseeable future.
It is a complete waste of time and money. The only sectors benefiting will be software companies and HMRC (who will be charging penalties for not filing pointless returns).
Alan Bromley
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Member Since August 2014 - Comments: 39
10:50 AM, 6th August 2025, About 5 months ago
In a recent conversation with my accountant, a medium sized firm in Brighton, he said that they are still in the dark about the proposed procedure and that the ‘approved’ software still has many bugs.
If you use an accountant they will decide on the software and it’s undoubtedly going to be far more complicated that most of us need. My accountant is hoping to accept an Excel spreadsheet which I can create from my fairly simple finance software and upload that. He said that this process could be done by someone more junior, thereby minimizing the extra cost to me.
I did try Apari (now Aparipro) for a year and that worked well if you only have a few properties plus income from pensions. They are not in the list but they say they are ‘HMRC recognized’.
Martin Thomas
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Member Since August 2018 - Comments: 156
10:57 AM, 6th August 2025, About 5 months ago
The landlord group that I belong to, the Association of Local Landlords (Wessex) ALLWESSEX, received a presentation from a firm of accountants recently. Apparently, if you operate as a limited company or a partnership, then you’ll escape MTD. Can anyone confirm that please?
Ryan Stevens
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Member Since January 2024 - Comments: 290
11:02 AM, 6th August 2025, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Martin Thomas at 06/08/2025 – 10:57
Yes, that is correct. Where possible, I will be advising clients to operate as partnerships. Companies are trickier to use because often properties are in own name(s).
Rob Thomas
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Member Since August 2017 - Comments: 149
11:56 AM, 6th August 2025, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Ryan Stevens at 06/08/2025 – 10:09
I entirely agree with you that this is a complete waste of time.
How does forcing small businesses to do more admin support growth and make us more efficent as the government claims? All it does is multiple annual tax admin by four by forcing us to do accounts every quarter.
Ryan – how can you ensure the majority of your clients don’t need to follow this?
Jo Westlake
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Member Since June 2015 - Comments: 304
13:03 PM, 6th August 2025, About 5 months ago
I’m a bit confused with the solely owned or jointly owned aspect. Does it mean if the turnover from my 2 solely owned properties is below £50K I don’t need to do MTD even if my share of the turnover from my jointly owned properties is well over £50K?
When I checked on the government suitable software finder thing a few days ago it asked about various types of income such as PAYE, CIS, interest, dividends and things like contributions to SIPPs or student loan repayments. When I ticked the relevant options it said a suitable software didn’t exist and I may need to use at least 2 different ones. How is that going to work?
I’m currently using both Landlord Vision and Hammock to see which one will be most suitable going forward. It’s a very expensive experiment (over £1100 a year). LV is nice but doesn’t recognise the correct ownership split or correct share of the mortgages on properties with 3 unequal owners.
It’s still early days with Hammock and I haven’t come to a conclusion yet. It’s certainly much cheaper.
It’s disappointing to find that we will need to pay for another software package on top of either of those.
Ryan Stevens
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Member Since January 2024 - Comments: 290
13:54 PM, 6th August 2025, About 5 months ago
If you have a partnership for the jointly owned properties then the income from those will be separate to the solely owned income.
If you do not have a partnership for the jointly owned ones then your share of income will be aggregated with the income on the solely owned properties.
I wouldn’t bother spending £1k+ per annum on software, unless there are other benefits. You can do the accounts on a spreadsheet, or any accounts package, and just file the quarterly totals using free/cheap bridging software.
moneymanager
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Member Since February 2018 - Comments: 627
14:40 PM, 6th August 2025, About 5 months ago
I plead old age and infirmity and got exemption for me and my late wife on two companies and for MTDVAT and oyr personal names, that latter automatically gives MTDITSA exemption.
Dylan Morris
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Member Since August 2016 - Comments: 1179
17:28 PM, 6th August 2025, About 5 months ago
I only have an Ipad and Iphone will I need to buy a laptop ?
Ryan Stevens
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Member Since January 2024 - Comments: 290
14:07 PM, 7th August 2025, About 5 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Dylan Morris at 06/08/2025 – 17:28
You can keep your records on loo paper.
As long as you add the figures on the loo paper up quarterly and put the totals on a spreadsheet you can submit the totals on the spreadsheet using free, or very cheap, bridging software.
This should work on iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, BBC Computer, Sinclair Spectrum, etc.
Just remember to keep the loo paper for at least 5 years, in case HMRC wants to see it. Loo paper records for purchases of property, improvements, etc should be retained indefinitely (at least 5 years after the property is sold).