Making Tax Digital quarterly update deadlines

Your quarterly updates are due by 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May, and each one covers the whole tax year so far rather than just the last three months.

If you use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, you send HMRC four updates a year. The standard update periods end on 5 July, 5 October, 5 January and 5 April, and each update is due by the 7th of the following month. That gives you four deadlines: 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May.

The dates catch people out because the deadline is the 7th, not the 5th and not the end of the month. It is also the same set of dates every year, so once you have learned them they do not move.

The four standard update periods

These are the standard update periods, which line up with the tax year. Notice that every period starts on 6 April. That is not a mistake, and it is explained below.

Update period	Deadline
6 April to 5 July	7 August
6 April to 5 October	7 November
6 April to 5 January	7 February
6 April to 5 April	7 May (in the following tax year)

Deadlines for the 2026 to 2027 tax year

The 2026 to 2027 tax year runs from 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027. If you were mandated from 6 April 2026, because your qualifying income for the 2024 to 2025 tax year was over £50,000, these are your dates. Qualifying income is your total turnover from self-employment and property income, before expenses, based on the tax return you submitted for that year.

Update	Period covered	Deadline
First	6 April 2026 to 5 July 2026	7 August 2026
Second	6 April 2026 to 5 October 2026	7 November 2026
Third	6 April 2026 to 5 January 2027	7 February 2027
Fourth	6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027	7 May 2027

Your tax return for the 2026 to 2027 tax year, and payment of the tax you owe for it, are due by 31 January 2028. Quarterly updates do not replace that step and do not calculate your tax bill. See do I still file a Self Assessment tax return for what happens at the end of the year.

Updates are cumulative, not four separate slices

This is the part most people get wrong on their first year, and it is the reason every period in the table above starts on 6 April.

Each quarterly update covers from the start of the tax year to the end of that update period, not just the previous three months. HMRC's guidance puts it plainly: "Each time you send a quarterly update it will cover from the start of the tax year to the end of the update period, not just the previous three months."

So your second update is not "July to October". It is "April to October", including everything you already reported in the first update. Your fourth update covers the whole year.

There are two practical consequences.

The first is that you should not try to work out a three month figure by hand. Your software should be sending the running total for the tax year to date. If you subtract the earlier quarter yourself, you will understate your figures.

The second is more useful: if you got something wrong in an earlier quarter, you fix it in your records and the next update carries the correction. You do not need to resend the earlier update. A missed invoice in May can simply be added to your records, and the August or November update will include it in the year to date totals.

What each update contains

A quarterly update is a summary, not a copy of every transaction. It reports totals for each income and expense category you have used for your self-employment and property income.

You send updates for each self-employment and property business you have. If you are a sole trader who also rents out a flat, that is two businesses, so two sets of quarterly updates on the same four deadlines. See Making Tax Digital for landlords and Making Tax Digital for sole traders for how each type is treated.

If you had no income and no expenses during an update period, you must still send the update to tell HMRC.

You do not need to make any accounting or tax adjustments before sending a quarterly update. Reliefs, allowances, capital allowances and any tax or accounting adjustments come after your fourth quarterly update, before you submit your tax return.

Calendar update periods, if month ends suit you better

HMRC offers a second option called calendar update periods. Instead of periods that end on the 5th, they end on the last day of the month. HMRC says to consider them if your accounting period covers 1 April to 31 March, because they make your record keeping simpler. If your accounting period lines up with the tax year, 6 April to 5 April, you should use standard update periods.

Calendar update period	Deadline
1 April to 30 June	7 August
1 April to 30 September	7 November
1 April to 31 December	7 February
1 April to 31 March	7 May (in the following tax year)

The deadlines are exactly the same. Choosing calendar periods changes which days of income and expenses fall into each update, not when the update is due.

Three rules matter here:

You choose calendar update periods in your software, for each income source, before you send your first quarterly update for that tax year.
Once you have sent a quarterly update for a tax year, you cannot change the periods for that year.
Calendar update periods keep applying in later years unless you decide to switch back to standard periods.

You cannot make this change through your HMRC online services account. It has to be done in your software.

What happens if you miss a deadline

For the 2026 to 2027 tax year, there are no penalties for missing a quarterly update deadline. HMRC is not issuing penalty points for late quarterly updates in this first year.

That is a grace period, not a reason to skip them. You still have to send your quarterly updates before you can submit your tax return, so a missed update becomes a problem at year end rather than disappearing.

From the tax year after 2026 to 2027, a points based system applies. You get one penalty point for each quarterly update deadline you miss. The threshold is 4 points, and reaching it means a £200 penalty, with a further £200 for each later missed deadline. You can only get one penalty point per deadline, even if you have more than one business and send more than one update late.

Making Tax Digital penalties covers this in more detail, including late payment.

Getting the dates into your year

The simplest way to stay on top of this is to treat the deadline as the end of a short catch up window rather than the day you do the work. The update period closes on the 5th and the deadline is the 7th of the next month, which leaves roughly a month to check your records, chase anything missing and send.

If your records are already up to date and categorised as you go, sending an update is a short job. If you leave four months of receipts in a shoebox, it is not. That difference, rather than the deadline itself, is what makes the first year hard. What digital records do I need to keep explains the standard your records have to meet.

This service keeps your income and expenses against the right business and tax year and sends the in year quarterly updates for self-employment and UK property to HMRC on these deadlines. It does not submit your end of year tax return, the step HMRC also calls the final declaration, so you will need to do that elsewhere.

Summary

Standard update periods end 5 July, 5 October, 5 January and 5 April.
Deadlines are 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May, the same dates every year.
For the 2026 to 2027 tax year: 7 August 2026, 7 November 2026, 7 February 2027 and 7 May 2027.
Every update covers the tax year to date, so mistakes can be corrected in the next one.
Calendar update periods ending on month ends have the same deadlines, and are worth considering if your accounting period covers 1 April to 31 March. You choose them in your software before your first update of the year.
No penalty points for late quarterly updates in the 2026 to 2027 tax year. Points apply from the following year.

Last reviewed 25 July 2026. This is general information about how Making Tax Digital works, not tax advice. We are not accountants. If your situation is complicated, speak to one, or check the guidance on GOV.UK.