Every 3 months, your compatible software will add together your digital records for each business that you have. This creates totals for your self-employment and property income and expenses. These are known as quarterly updates — they are summaries, not tax returns. 

Using your compatible Making Tax Digital for Income Tax software, you need to send your quarterly updates to HMRC every 3 months for each self-employment and property business you have.   

Your software provider should have guidance on how to do this. HMRC cannot give advice about specific software products, as each product will work differently.

You do not need to make any accounting or tax adjustments before sending a quarterly update. 

Your quarterly updates will include totals for each income and expense category you used to create your digital records.

HMRC will not receive details of individual receipts or invoices in your quarterly updates. 

Income and expenses you should include

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax uses the same income and expense categories as Self Assessment. You can read more about the categories you should use in the Quarterly update direction for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. 

Each update covers the tax year so far

Each quarterly update covers from the start of the current tax year (6 April) to the end of the update period. They are automatically worked out by your software for you to check before you send them.

For each business you have, every quarterly update will show your total income and expenses for the tax year so far, based on your digital records. This is so you can make any corrections to your records if you need to, which will then be included in your next update.

After you send a quarterly update, the recent activity in your HMRC online account will say ‘You sent a quarterly update’. You’ll need to sign in to HMRC online services with the details you used when you signed up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.

Get an estimate of your tax bill

After you send an update, you can get an estimate of your tax bill for your self-employment and property income for the tax year to date. This will be in both your: 

As part of your estimate, HMRC will include any other information it already has. 

For example, if you’re repaying either a student or postgraduate loan, your plan or loan type is added automatically to calculate your loan repayments. You can find out more about telling HMRC about a student or postgraduate loan in your tax return. 

Your estimate will be less accurate if you have other income sources that you’ve not told HMRC about yet, or if your accounting period does not match the tax year. 

Other income sources 

Depending on which software you use and the income sources you have, you may be able to add other income sources in your software during the tax year, for example, savings interest.  

These other income sources will not be included in your quarterly updates but adding them in your software will give you a better estimate of your tax bill.

For example, if you’re a landlord that is employed and also has income from savings interest, your tax bill estimate would be based on your: 

• property income and expenses, when you send those totals in your quarterly updates 

• employment income (PAYE) added by HMRC  

• income from savings interest, if you choose to add it  

For jointly let properties, in your quarterly updates you can choose to include either: 

If you choose not to include your expenses for jointly let properties, you must report them after the end of the tax year. You do this by resending your fourth quarterly update before you submit your tax return using your software.

If you also solely own other properties, you need to include both property income and expenses for those properties in your quarterly updates.  

There are 2 types of update periods you can use for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax:  

• standard update periods — these are the default option in your software because they align to the tax year (6 April to 5 April)

• calendar update periods — you should use these if your accounting period is from 1 April to 31 March

The deadlines for your quarterly updates are the same for both. 

If you have an agent, they can tell you which to use if you’re not sure.

Standard update periods  

If your accounting period aligns with the tax year (6 April to 5 April), you should use standard update periods. 

Each quarterly update covers from the start of the tax year to the end of the update period.   

For example, when you send your third quarterly update, it will cover from 6 April to 5 January.

This table shows the dates for the standard update periods alongside the quarterly update deadlines. 

Calendar update periods  

If your accounting period covers 1 April to 31 March, you should use calendar update periods. This will make your record keeping simpler.   

Each quarterly update covers from the start of the tax year to the end of the update period. 

For example, when you send your third quarterly update, this will cover from 6 April to 31 December.

This table shows dates for the calendar update periods alongside the quarterly update deadlines.  

Your software will be set to use standard update periods. If you want to change this to calendar update periods, you need to select this in your software before you send your first quarterly update. 

You cannot change your update periods for the rest of the tax year after you send a quarterly update, so it’s important to check this when you set up your software.

You can send a quarterly update any time after the end of the update period up to and including the day of the update deadline.

You can also send an update up to 10 days before the end of the update period if you do not expect to record any further transactions.  

For example, you may be going on holiday and know that you will not be working for the rest of the period and will receive no further income. 

If you miss quarterly update deadlines you may get a late submission penalty — these are points based. If you reach a penalty point threshold, you’ll get a £200 penalty. 

The point thresholds depend on whether you’re required to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax or you’re volunteering. 

2026 to 2027 tax year 

HMRC will not apply penalty points for late quarterly updates during the 2026 to 2027 tax year.  

You will need to send your quarterly updates before you are able to submit your tax return using software.

Penalty points will still apply for late tax returns for this tax year. 

After the 2026 to 2027 tax year 

If you do not send your quarterly update by the relevant deadline, you will get a late submission penalty point. If you reach 4 points, you’ll get a £200 penalty. Penalty points will also apply for late tax returns. 

You can find out more about penalties for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. 

If you’re a volunteer 

Penalties do not apply to late quarterly updates whilst you’re volunteering for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.  

Penalty points still apply for late tax returns. If you reach 2 points, you’ll get a £200 penalty. 

You can find out more about penalties if you’re volunteering for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. 

You can choose to send updates more often. Most compatible software will allow you to send an update on any day. 

For example, you may want to understand how a significant business receipt or expense affects your estimated tax bill.  

If you choose to send updates more often, they still need to cover the full update period. For example, instead of sending your first quarterly update covering 6 April to 5 July (if you use standard update periods), you could choose to send 3 separate updates covering:  

• 6 April to 5 May

• 6 April to 5 June

• 6 April to 5 July 

You may need to resend your fourth quarterly update if you need to make any changes to your digital records. This could be because you need to: 

• make corrections to your records if you’ve identified an error 

• record joint property income expenses (if you did not include these in earlier updates) 

• record Rent-a-Room income (if you decided to claim Rent-a-Room relief after the end of the tax year) 

If needed, you should resend your fourth quarterly update before you make any tax adjustments. You can find out more about what digital records you need to create and when. 

After you have sent your final quarterly update for the tax year, you should check if you need to make any adjustments to your self-employment and property income before you submit your tax return using your software.