MTD Income Tax: First Quarterly Deadline 7 Aug 2026

The first-ever Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax quarterly update covered 6 April to 5 July 2026 and was due, filed through MTD-compatible software, by 7 August 2026. That deadline has now passed. It applies to sole traders and landlords whose qualifying income topped £50,000 on their 2024/25 tax return. If you filed on time, here is what happens next; if you missed it, here is exactly what to do now.

This was a genuine milestone. After years of delays, MTD for Income Tax went live on 6 April 2026, and the 7 August update was the moment it became real for the more than 864,000 sole traders and landlords HMRC says are in scope. The reassuring part: this first quarter is far simpler than most people fear, and the penalty regime has a built-in grace period for the whole 2026/27 tax year, so a missed or late first update carries no penalty. Below we walk through who is in, what you file, what to do if the 7 August date slipped, and where the real risks sit.

What is the 7 August 2026 MTD deadline?

7 August 2026 was the filing deadline for the first quarterly update under MTD for Income Tax. That update reports your total business or property income and total expenses for the period running 6 April to 5 July 2026. You submit it digitally through MTD-compatible software, not through the old Self Assessment portal. The date has passed, but you can still file a late first update, and you should: HMRC says you need to send your quarterly updates before you can submit your tax return. The next deadline, 7 November 2026, is the one to aim for now.

A quarterly update is not a tax return and it is not a payment. It is a running set of totals that keeps HMRC informed through the year. You will file four of these updates for 2026/27, then settle everything with your tax return, sent through the same software, after the year ends. For the wider picture of how the system fits together, see our pillar guide to Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.

Who has to file a quarterly update?

Person filling out a Self-Assessment tax return

You are mandated into MTD for Income Tax from 6 April 2026 if your qualifying income was over £50,000, measured on your 2024/25 Self Assessment return. Qualifying income means your gross turnover before expenses, added across all your self-employment and property sources. It is the top-line figure, not your profit.

Sole traders: total self-employed turnover before deducting any costs.
Landlords: gross rental income before letting agent fees, mortgage interest or repairs.
Both together: if you have a trade and a rental, HMRC adds the two gross figures. Someone with £35,000 of turnover and £20,000 of rent is over the £50,000 line even though neither source alone crosses it. We cover this in our guide to combined sole trader and landlord income under MTD.

The threshold falls to over £30,000 from 6 April 2027 and over £20,000 from 6 April 2028, so more people join each year. If your gross trading income is only just above the £1,000 trading allowance and you are not yet registered, start with registering as self-employed first.

When are all four 2026/27 quarterly deadlines?

There are four standard update periods for the 2026/27 tax year, each with a fixed filing deadline about a month after the period ends. Each update covers the tax year to date, from 6 April, not just the latest three months. Here is the full calendar so you can diarise every one now.

Update	Period covered (year to date)	Filing deadline
Q1	6 April to 5 July 2026	7 August 2026
Q2	6 April to 5 October 2026	7 November 2026
Q3	6 April 2026 to 5 January 2027	7 February 2027
Q4	6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027	7 May 2027

Source: GOV.UK, Send quarterly updates.

These four dates repeat every year, so once the pattern is in your calendar it does not change.

Can I use calendar quarters instead?

Yes. If lining your records up to the odd 5th-of-the-month dates is awkward, you can choose calendar update periods instead. These also run from the start of the year to date, beginning on 1 April: 1 April to 30 June, then to 30 September, 31 December and 31 March. This often suits businesses whose accounting period runs 1 April to 31 March. You have to choose before you send your first update, and you cannot change for a tax year once an update has gone in. Importantly, the filing deadlines stay exactly the same: 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. The choice changes the period dates, not the dates you have to submit by.

What do I actually submit each quarter?

Much less than a tax return. A quarterly update is simply your total income and total expenses for the period, usually broken down into standard HMRC categories. That is it. You do not calculate tax, and HMRC does not send a bill off the back of it.

Two points make the first update easy to get right:

They are totals only, not adjusted accounts. You do not make accounting adjustments at this stage. No accruals, no prepayments, no capital allowances, no private-use adjustments. You report the cash and invoice totals from your digital records as they stand.
They are cumulative. Each update restates your year-to-date figures and overwrites the previous one. Your Q2 update in November is not just the July to October quarter, it is the whole 6 April to 5 October total. If you spot an error in an earlier quarter, you simply correct it in the next cumulative update.

All the clever bits, the accruals, the capital allowances on that new van, the adjustments that turn raw totals into taxable profit, happen once, after the year ends and before you submit your tax return.

Worked example: a sole trader with £60,000 turnover

Priya is a self-employed graphic designer. Her 2024/25 turnover was £60,000, comfortably over £50,000, so she is mandated into MTD from 6 April 2026. She keeps digital records and needs to file her first quarterly update, covering 6 April to 5 July 2026, by 7 August 2026.

For that quarter her digital records show:

Total business income: £15,400
Total allowable expenses: £4,650

Because this is the first update of the year, the cumulative year-to-date totals are simply those quarter figures: £15,400 income and £4,650 expenses. Priya submits both totals through her software and she is done. She does not deduct her £12,570 personal allowance, does not work out her 20% basic-rate tax or 6% Class 4 National Insurance, and does not claim capital allowances on a laptop she bought in June. Those all wait for the year-end adjustments and the tax return.

When Priya files Q2 by 7 November 2026, she reports the cumulative 6 April to 5 October total. If that period adds a further £16,100 of income and £3,900 of expenses, her Q2 update shows £31,500 income and £8,550 expenses year to date, replacing the Q1 figures entirely. Want a rough sense of the tax bill building behind those totals? Run the numbers through our self-employed tax calculator.

Is HMRC writing to people who missed the 7 August deadline?

Yes. HMRC is writing to sole traders and landlords who did not send a first MTD for Income Tax quarterly update by 7 August 2026. The letter asks you to set up digital records for the period, file the outstanding update quickly, and diarise the 7 November, 7 February and 7 May deadlines.

The letters began going out in October 2026, as the Association of Taxation Technicians reports, once HMRC had identified the taxpayers whose first update for all their self-employment and property businesses was still missing. The scale is why: Azets' analysis of HMRC figures estimates around 428,000 sole traders and landlords, roughly half of the more than 864,000 in scope, missed the 7 August update. It is a prompt, not a penalty notice: there is no penalty point for a late quarterly update in 2026/27. But it is a firm reminder that the update still has to be filed, because HMRC needs every outstanding quarterly update in before it will let you submit your 2026/27 tax return.

If a letter lands and you use an accountant, speak to them first and forward a copy, so they can file the outstanding update and keep the rest of your quarters on track. If you file for yourself, work through the checklist further down. Zmartly clients do not need to act on the letter themselves, as we are already filing these updates on their behalf.

What if you missed the 7 August deadline?

This is the part everyone worries about, and it is where the reassurance sits. There are no penalties for missing a quarterly update deadline in the 2026/27 tax year. The whole first year is a grace period for late quarterly submissions, so if your 7 August 2026 update did not go in on time, you have not been fined for it. File it as soon as you can through your MTD software. Because updates are cumulative, your Q2 submission due 7 November will restate the full 6 April to 5 October position, so any errors in Q1 are put right there. But a later update does not stand in for a missing one: HMRC says you need to send your quarterly updates before you can submit your tax return. The practical priority now is to make sure you are signed up, have compatible software, and are keeping digital records so the 7 November update goes in cleanly.

Penalty points for late quarterly updates only start to apply for tax years after 2026/27, meaning from 2027/28 onward. That does not make the first year a free-for-all: filing on time now is how you build the habit before real points bite. Skipping updates trains you badly for the year the penalties do count.

How the points-based regime works

From 2027/28, late quarterly updates fall under a points-based system:

You get 1 point for each submission you miss.
At a 4-point threshold you are charged a £200 penalty.
After that, it is a further £200 for each additional late submission while you remain at the threshold.
Points below the threshold expire after 24 months of good behaviour.

Our detailed breakdown of the MTD penalty points system walks landlords and sole traders through exactly how the points accumulate and clear.

Do late-payment penalties apply from year one?

Yes, and this is the trap. While late quarterly updates are penalty-free in 2026/27, late payment of your tax is not. Late-payment penalties apply from the very first year you join MTD.

In your first year, there is no penalty if you pay the tax due, or agree a Time to Pay plan with HMRC, within 30 days of the due date. After that first year, penalties start to bite much sooner, after just 15 days. So the friendly grace period covers your paperwork, not your payment. Our guide to the MTD late-payment penalty rules sets out the interest and charges in full.

Do I still file a Self Assessment tax return?

Yes, but through your MTD software rather than HMRC's old online return. You may have seen it called the Final Declaration; HMRC's guidance now simply calls it your tax return. This is the point where you make all the accounting adjustments, claim reliefs and allowances, add any other income, and confirm your final figures for the year.

For 2026/27, the tax return is due 31 January 2028, the same date as before, so your annual settle-up rhythm is unchanged. The difference is that four quarterly updates now feed into it, and they have to be sent before the return can go in. For a side-by-side comparison see Final Declaration vs Self Assessment under MTD.

Missed 7 August, or getting ready for 7 November? Your checklist

Whether you are catching up after the 7 August update or getting ahead of the 7 November one, work through these steps in order:

Check you are mandated. Was your 2024/25 qualifying income (gross turnover plus gross rent, before expenses) over £50,000? Our MTD income tax checker confirms it in seconds. If yes, you are in from 6 April 2026.
Sign up for MTD for Income Tax through GOV.UK or ask your accountant to authorise you. Signing up is a separate step from having software.
Choose MTD-compatible software. Only software on HMRC's recognised list can send updates. Bridging software counts if you prefer to keep spreadsheets.
Keep digital records of every income and expense item from 6 April 2026, in the software or linked to it.
Submit your quarterly update. If your first update (6 April to 5 July) is late, file it as soon as you can; then diarise 7 November 2026, 7 February 2027 and 7 May 2027 for the remaining quarters.

How Zmartly can help

Zmartly is a CIMA-regulated firm, and our qualified accountants are already onboarding sole traders and landlords into MTD for Income Tax. We set up your software, register you with HMRC, run your quarterly updates and handle the tax return at the year end, so the deadlines stop being your problem. If you missed 7 August, or you want the 7 November update handled properly, book a free call with Zmartly and we will get you sorted.

Frequently asked questions

Is HMRC writing to taxpayers who missed the first MTD deadline?

Yes. HMRC is writing to sole traders and landlords who did not file a first MTD for Income Tax quarterly update by 7 August 2026. The letter asks you to set up digital records, submit the outstanding update as soon as possible, and keep to the 7 November, 7 February and 7 May deadlines. It is a prompt, not a fine: there is no penalty point in 2026/27, but the update must still be filed before you can submit your tax return.

The 7 August 2026 deadline has passed. What should I do now?

File your first quarterly update as soon as you can through MTD-compatible software. There is no penalty for a late quarterly update in 2026/27, and because updates are cumulative, your next submission on 7 November 2026 restates the full year-to-date position and puts right any errors in the first. The first update still has to be sent, though, because HMRC needs all four before you can submit your tax return.

What is the first MTD for Income Tax quarterly deadline?

The first quarterly update under MTD for Income Tax covered 6 April to 5 July 2026 and was due, through MTD-compatible software, by 7 August 2026. It reports your total income and expenses for the period, not a tax calculation. The next deadline is 7 November 2026.

Are there penalties for missing a quarterly update in 2026/27?

No. There are no penalties for missing a quarterly update deadline in the 2026/27 tax year, which is a first-year grace period. Penalty points for late quarterly updates only start from 2027/28. Late-payment penalties on your tax, however, do apply from the year you join.

What do I actually submit in a quarterly update?

Just your total business or property income and total expenses for the period, as cumulative year-to-date figures. You do not make accounting adjustments, claim capital allowances or calculate tax at this stage. Those all happen after the year ends, before you submit your tax return.

Do I still file a Self Assessment tax return under MTD?

Yes, but through your MTD software. You may have seen it called the Final Declaration; HMRC's guidance now calls it your tax return. For 2026/27 it is due 31 January 2028. Your four quarterly updates must be sent first, and the return is where you make all adjustments and confirm your final tax position.