Propertymark has reminded landlords already within Making Tax Digital for Income Tax that their second quarterly update must reach HM Revenue & Customs by 7 November 2026.
The deadline applies to landlords and sole traders whose qualifying income exceeded £50,000 and who entered the regime from April. It arrives as HMRC begins signing up people who should already be using the system in stages from September.
Quarterly reporting is now a live administrative task for the first group of landlords, rather than a distant tax-policy change. An update is required even where there has been no income or expenditure in the period, and it must be submitted through compatible software using digital records.
7 November deadline for MTD quarterly updates
A useful first check is whether the software record agrees with bank receipts, letting-agent statements and invoices for the period. Rent received, agent deductions and allowable expenditure need to be captured consistently. Landlords with more than one property should avoid treating a late statement or a private transfer as something that can be sorted out at the end of the tax year.
Propertymark says the 7 November submission is a cumulative update covering income and expenses for the tax year to date. It is not a tax return and does not itself create a tax payment. A landlord can correct an earlier record in the latest update without having to resubmit a previous quarter.
HMRC will not issue penalty points for late quarterly updates during 2026-27. That should not be mistaken for a reason to leave records until the year end: the updates must be filed before the taxpayer can submit a final tax return.
Landlords who have not yet enrolled but are required to use MTD this year should check their position now. The official HMRC step-by-step guidance for landlords and sole traders sets out the digital-record and software requirements.
More landlords join from April 2027
From April 2027, MTD for Income Tax will extend to landlords and sole traders with qualifying income above £30,000. The threshold falls again to more than £20,000 from April 2028. Qualifying income means gross turnover from property and self-employment before expenses are deducted, not a landlord’s profit.
This follows Residential Landlord’s June coverage of the £30,000 entry threshold. The nearer deadline now is more immediate for those already in scope, while landlords outside the first wave have a clearer reason to test whether their 2025-26 figures will bring them into the system next April.
Letting agents can help by ensuring their statements show rent received, management fees and expenses regularly and clearly, but the reporting duty remains with the landlord or their appointed tax agent. Records that arrive late or mix property income with unrelated payments will make the transition harder than it needs to be.
Residential Landlord previously reported that the first-year penalty approach is more forgiving. The practical point has not changed: checking software access and reconciling records before November is safer than relying on the temporary absence of penalty points.
Opinion
MTD is becoming a routine compliance deadline for the landlords already inside it. The absence of penalty points this year gives people time to put records right, not an excuse to discover a software or data problem when the final return is due. Landlords nearing the £30,000 threshold should treat this autumn as a preparation period.
