MTD for Income Tax: What to Send by the 7 November 2026 Quarterly Deadline

The second quarterly update under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax covers 6 July to 5 October 2026 and is due on 7 November 2026. That date is a Saturday, so the realistic deadline for your practice is Friday 6 November.

This guide covers what the update has to contain, whether a late one costs anything this year, and how to get every in-scope client across the line without a last-day scramble.

The four quarterly deadlines for 2026 to 2027

These are the standard quarters. A client who has chosen calendar quarters has different dates, so check each client's own record before you rely on this table.

What a quarterly update actually is

A quarterly update is a summary: totals for each income and expense category, not individual receipts or invoices. It is sent to HMRC from MTD-compatible software. That makes the summary the quick part. Getting complete records from the client is the slow part.

Who is in scope this quarter

From 6 April 2026, MTD for Income Tax applies to sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000. The threshold falls to £30,000 from 6 April 2027 and £20,000 from 6 April 2028. Qualifying income is gross income from self-employment and property, before expenses. HMRC looks at it from two tax years earlier, so the April 2026 start used the 2024 to 2025 tax year. Limited companies and partnerships are not in scope for now.

If you are not sure who falls in, the plain-English MTD page has the thresholds and sources in one place.

Do late updates cost penalties this year?

For the 2026 to 2027 tax year, there are no penalties for missing a quarterly update deadline. That is the position on GOV.UK. Two things still apply:

• You still need to keep digital records and send the quarterly updates before the tax return can be submitted.
• From the tax year after 2026 to 2027, each missed quarterly deadline earns a penalty point. At four points there is a £200 penalty, and £200 again for each further missed deadline. A client gets at most one point per deadline, however many businesses they have.

So this quarter is a practice run with no financial penalty attached. Use it to find where your process breaks, while a miss is still cheap.

A four-week plan to 6 November

Week 1: know who is in scope. Write down every client who must send a quarterly update. Check the threshold, the software and the authorisation for each one. Our guide to authorising your practice explains the HMRC side.

Week 2: ask in a way that can be answered. "Please send your records for the quarter" gets ignored. A request that says what, by when, in which format and how to finish gets answered:

Hi [name], for the quarter ending 5 October I need your income and expenses for July to September by [date]. Send them however is easiest: a photo, a spreadsheet or a bank export. Reply "done" when they are with me.

Week 3: sort clients into three lists.

• In scope and records received
• In scope and waiting on records
• In scope and not replying to the last reminder

Three short lists work better than one spreadsheet column that says "chasing". Chase the third list personally, and check that the "received" list is actually complete.

Week 4: submit early. Aim to have every update sent by Friday 6 November, so a login problem or a missing figure does not land on the final day.

Checklist for each client

• ☐Confirmed in scope, and from which date
• ☐Software chosen, connected and tested
• ☐Agent authorisation done and confirmed
• ☐July to September income and expenses received and complete
• ☐Next deadline written down

If you can answer all five from one screen, you are ahead of most practices. If it takes three tabs and an email search, that is your project for this month. The free MTD Client Readiness Tracker is a starting point.

Check the details against GOV.UK

Dates and penalty rules are set by HMRC and can change. Before you rely on anything here, read the GOV.UK pages listed under Sources. PracticeNudge does not file anything with HMRC. It tracks which clients have sent what, and sends the reminders.