Authorising Your Practice for MTD for Income Tax: What GOV.UK Says (October 2026)

Before you can send quarterly updates for a client under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, you need their authorisation to act for them. HMRC updated its guidance on this on 7 October 2026. This post summarises what it says for MTD for Income Tax and turns it into a workflow for your practice.

It is a summary. The exact steps are on GOV.UK, linked under Sources, and you should follow them there.

Registering and being authorised are two different steps

The guidance starts from a simple point: once you have registered as a tax agent, you must then get authorisation from each client so that you can transact for them. Registering yourself does not give you access to any client.

What not to do

GOV.UK is explicit: you should not use your client's HMRC sign-in details or access their online tax account. Clients sometimes offer their login to save time. Say no, every time, and use an authorisation route instead.

The routes, and which one applies to MTD for Income Tax

HMRC lists several ways to get client authorisation, depending on the tax service. They include the digital handshake for services in the agent services account, Online Agent Authorisation, asking the client to authorise you through their business tax account, and paper form 64-8.

For Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, the guidance table gives these options:

• Apply using the digital handshake, or
• Add Self Assessment authorisations from your HMRC online services account to your agent services account.

For this service the table lists no paper route. Online Agent Authorisation and form 64-8 appear against other services such as Self Assessment, Corporation Tax and PAYE, so do not assume an authorisation you hold for one service covers another. Authorisation is per service.

Clients who are digitally excluded

If a client is digitally excluded, give them the authorisation request link and a number to contact HMRC. They are passed through to HMRC's Extra Support Team, who talk them through the process over the phone. Build that into your onboarding for older or less confident clients rather than discovering it in the last week of a quarter.

A simple authorisation tracker

Authorisation is the step that quietly blocks a quarterly update, because nothing reminds you it is missing. For each client, record:

• ☐In scope for MTD for Income Tax, and from which date
• ☐Route used: digital handshake, or existing Self Assessment authorisation added
• ☐Authorisation requested (date)
• ☐Authorisation confirmed (date)
• ☐Software connected and tested
• ☐Digitally excluded? If yes, phone support route noted

Review the list at the start of each quarter. A client who is in scope but has no confirmed authorisation by the middle of the quarter needs a call, not another email.

How this fits the 7 November update

The second quarterly update is due on 7 November 2026. Authorisation has to be settled before you can submit, so it belongs in the first week of your plan. Our guide to the 7 November deadline has the four-week plan, and the plain-English MTD page has the thresholds.

Check the current guidance

HMRC changes these pages. Before you act on anything here, read the GOV.UK guidance under Sources. PracticeNudge does not file or authorise anything with HMRC. It tracks which clients have done what and sends the reminders.