Making Tax Digital for Income Tax has applied since 6th April 2026 to landlords with qualifying property income over £50,000, based on the 2024-25 tax period. 

The first quarterly update was due on 7th August and 294,000 did not register in time. 

Landlords without an accountant, used to thinking about tax just once a year, were expected to abandon that habit on the back of a letter from HMRC informing them they’d now need to file four times a year, on top of their annual return. 

That was never going to be enough on its own, and the numbers reflect this. 

So, what happens next if you did miss the deadline? 

HMRC has confirmed it is no longer waiting for people to come forward. It’s now signing up outstanding people directly, so if your income was over £50,000 in 2024-25 and you haven’t registered, don’t assume you’ve slipped through unnoticed. 

You’ll likely be enrolled whether you’ve acted or not, and being signed up automatically doesn’t erase the quarterly update you’ve already missed, although there’s no penalty attached to that this year.

That last point matters more than it might seem. 

HMRC has confirmed there are no penalties for late quarterly updates during the 2026-27 tax year. 

The next deadline is 7th November, covering income from 6th April to 5th October, and getting that one right, even a little late, is far more useful than worrying about the one you’ve already missed.

You will need software. HMRC doesn’t provide its own, so the responsibility for finding something compatible sits with you. 

If you already keep records on a spreadsheet, as most landlords I speak to do, bridging software can plug into that directly rather than forcing you to change how you work. 

If you use an accountant, bring them into this now, since they’ll need explicit authorisation within the software to act for you. If you don’t use an accountant, and a lot of the people caught out by this deadline don’t, take the time to test a couple of packages properly before committing to one.

I’d also gently push back on treating this as a one-off scramble to catch up. The quarterly updates are cumulative, so a mistake in one doesn’t need to be corrected retrospectively, it simply carries forward into the next submission. 

It is a more forgiving system than the old annual return in some ways, but it only works if you get into the habit of reviewing your figures every few months rather than once a year. 

This year’s grace period is the best chance you’ll get to build that habit before it starts costing you money.

And it will start costing money. From April 2027, a points-based penalty system applies, and the qualifying threshold drops to £30,000, pulling in far more landlords than are currently in scope. It falls again to £20,000 in 2028. 

So, while there’s no reason to panic about missing the first deadline, there’s also no reason to relax. Use the time HMRC has given you.

It’s no surprise that registration remains low when so many people still aren’t clear on what’s expected of them. There’s a real awareness gap, especially among those without an accountant to flag this for them. 

HMRC must urgently step up its awareness campaign and specifically target those sole traders and landlords that don’t use an accountant before the next reporting deadline arrives in November.

If you missed the deadline, register as soon as you can, get software sorted before November, and don’t let one missed date convince you that you’re already behind for good. 

Vicks Rodwell is managing director of IPSE which has a bank of advice and resources on its website.