Making Tax Digital for landlords: which of your clients are in from April 2026 and 2027, and the quarterly dates

Since 6 April 2026, a landlord whose qualifying income is over £50,000 has had to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. GOV.UK says the first quarterly update was due by 7 August 2026, the second is due by 7 November 2026, and the threshold falls to £30,000 from 6 April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. Your landlords are the people affected. You are not the taxpayer, but the statements you send are the raw material for their records.

What counts as qualifying income

GOV.UK describes the figure as gross income from self-employment and property, before any allowances or expenses are taken off. It is rent received, not profit. A landlord with £60,000 of rent and £45,000 of costs is over the line; the same landlord's tax bill is small. For the April 2026 start, GOV.UK refers to income shown on the 2024 to 2025 tax return.

Because the test is gross income across all of a person's property and self-employment, one landlord may be caught by income you never see: a second business, or properties let through another agent.

How many properties puts a landlord in scope

We worked the thresholds through a typical rent of £1,250 a month, which is £15,000 a year per property, for a landlord who owns each property alone.

Three things follow. A landlord with three houses was outside the first phase and is inside the next. A landlord with two is out until April 2028. And the line is on rent received, so a void month or a rent-free period can move a landlord either side of it.

The dates

GOV.UK gives two ways to set the quarters. For the standard periods, the deadlines are 7 August (6 April to 5 July), 7 November (6 April to 5 October), 7 February (6 April to 5 January) and 7 May (6 April to 5 April). Calendar quarters, which run from 1 April, share the same four deadlines.

The updates are cumulative. Each one covers the start of the tax year to the end of the period, so the 7 November update covers 183 days, from 6 April to 5 October, not just the last three months. They carry totals for each income and expense category, not individual transactions. They do not replace the tax return, which is still due by 31 January.

For a landlord with four properties, that is four updates a year as well as the return and payment of tax.

Joint owners

For jointly held property, GOV.UK says a landlord may send income and expenses together, or income alone. If expenses are left out at first, they must be reported after the end of the tax year by resending the fourth update. We could not verify from GOV.UK how a joint owner's share counts towards the threshold, so ask the landlord to check with HMRC or their accountant rather than assuming.

What this means for your statements

Your landlords will ask for figures to the quarter-end dates, not just to the tax year-end. Useful, low-effort steps:

1. List the landlords whose gross rent through you, at today's rents, is near £30,000 or £20,000. Our tenancy deposit cap calculator shows how a monthly rent becomes an annual figure.
2. Make sure each statement separates rent received from your fee and from repair costs, so the category totals can be read straight off it.
3. Offer a cumulative income and expense summary at 5 July, 5 October, 5 January and 5 April.
4. Put the four deadlines in your compliance date tracker alongside the other dates, so a request from a landlord is not a surprise.
5. Say in writing that the landlord, not the agent, is responsible for the tax filing, unless you have agreed otherwise. We could not verify from GOV.UK the steps for an agent to be authorised to file for a client, so do not offer that until you have checked.
6. Add the change to your own compliance checklist as a client-service item. Handling client money is a separate duty; see our guide to client money protection and redress costs.

Overlyft can set up an AI assistant that turns each month's statements into a running quarter-to-date income and expense summary per landlord, flags landlords approaching a threshold, and drafts the reminder before each deadline for a person to approve.

This is general information, not tax or legal advice.