Making Tax Digital: HMRC Will Start Signing People Up Automatically from September 2026

HMRC has confirmed that from September 2026 it will begin signing sole traders and landlords up to Making Tax Digital for Income Tax itself, without waiting for them to register. If you were due to join MTD in April 2026 and still haven't, the decision is about to be taken out of your hands — but being enrolled is not the same as being ready.

What HMRC has announced

MTD for Income Tax became mandatory on 6 April 2026 for people with qualifying income above £50,000. Take-up has been slower than HMRC hoped, so rather than chase registrations one by one, HMRC will start enrolling non-registered taxpayers automatically from September 2026, in stages over the following months. It will use the information already sitting in its systems to work out who should be in, and will write to those affected.

The rollout only covers people who are already mandated — in other words, the April 2026 group. If you are due to join in a later wave, nothing changes for you yet.

Who is affected

You are in scope for 2026/27 if your combined gross self-employment and property income for the 2024/25 tax year was more than £50,000. Two points that catch people out:

• It is gross income — turnover and rent received — not profit.

• Income from more than one trade or property business is added together. £32,000 of freelance invoices plus £22,000 of rent is £54,000, and that is over the line.

The wider timetable is unchanged:

From	Qualifying income over
April 2026	£50,000
April 2027	£30,000
April 2028	£20,000

The numbers behind the change

• Around 864,000 sole traders and landlords are expected to be in scope for 2026/27.

• Just over 570,000 had signed up by mid-August 2026.

• More than 436,000 had filed their first quarterly update by the 7 August deadline.

• That leaves roughly 294,000 people who should be in MTD and are not — the group HMRC is now targeting.

Being signed up is not the same as being compliant

This is the part worth reading twice. Automatic enrolment only handles the registration step. Everything else is still your responsibility:

• Choosing MTD-compatible software (HMRC publishes a list of recognised products).

• Connecting that software to your Government Gateway account.

• Keeping digital records of income and expenses from 6 April 2026 — including catching up on anything recorded on paper or in a spreadsheet since then.

• Filing quarterly updates, then a final declaration in place of your usual Self Assessment return.

If HMRC enrols you in, say, November, you will still be expected to account for the whole tax year from 6 April. Leaving it to the letter arriving means a backlog to unpick.

Quarterly deadlines for 2026/27

Period covered	Update due
6 April – 5 July 2026	7 August 2026
6 April – 5 October 2026	7 November 2026
6 April – 5 January 2027	7 February 2027
6 April – 5 April 2027	7 May 2027

Quarterly updates are cumulative, so a later filing can correct an earlier one.

What about penalties?

There is some good news. HMRC has confirmed it will not issue penalty points for late quarterly updates during the 2026/27 tax year — a deliberate soft landing for the first year. That easement does not extend to the final declaration, and it does not remove the obligation to file. From 2027/28, the points system applies: one point per missed deadline, and four points in a 24-month period triggers a £200 penalty, with £200 for each late submission after that.

If you don't think you should be in MTD

HMRC is working from your 2024/25 return, so its picture of you may be out of date. Contact HMRC — or ask us to — before you are enrolled if:

• You have stopped trading or wound up your self-employment.

• You have sold the property or closed the rental business.

• Your income has dropped below £50,000.

• You believe you qualify for an exemption, for example on grounds of digital exclusion.

Sorting this out beforehand is considerably easier than unpicking an enrolment after the event.

What to do now

1. Check your 2024/25 gross self-employment and property income against the £50,000 threshold.

2. If you are over it and haven't registered, sign up yourself rather than waiting — it keeps you in control of the timing and the software choice.

3. Get your records for 2026/27 into compatible software and bring them up to date.

4. Diary the remaining quarterly deadlines.

Flow supports sole traders, landlords and freelancers through Making Tax Digital day to day — from picking software that suits how you actually work, to handling the quarterly filings for you. If you'd like to talk through where you stand, you can book a free, no-obligation discovery call with one of our tax team here: https://calendly.com/flowaccandtax/discoverycall