MTD quarterly update deadlines: periods and due dates

Under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, a quarterly update is a summary of your income and expenses that your software works out from your digital records and sends to HMRC. HMRC describes them as summaries, not tax returns. You do not need to make any accounting or tax adjustments before you send one.

HMRC receives a total for each category you used, such as turnover or repairs. It does not receive individual receipts or invoices. After each update you can see an estimate of your tax for the year so far in your software and your HMRC online account.

You send a separate update for each business. A sole trader with one trade sends one update per period. Someone with a trade and rental property sends two, one for the self-employment and one for the UK property business.

Standard update periods are the default. They follow the tax year, which starts on 6 April. Each period starts on 6 April and runs to the end of the quarter, because each update covers the whole year so far.

Calendar update periods are an option that lines up with calendar quarters. They suit you if your accounting period runs from 1 April to 31 March. In that case you start your digital records from 1 April of the relevant tax year. The deadlines do not change.

You must choose calendar periods in your software before you send your first update for the tax year. Once you have sent an update, you cannot change your update periods for the rest of that tax year.

MTD quarterly updates are cumulative. Each one covers the period from the start of the tax year to the end of the update period, not just the latest three months. Your second update repeats everything from the first, plus what happened since.

This makes mistakes easier to deal with. If you find an error in a record that went in your first update, you fix the record and the corrected figure goes to HMRC in your next update. Here is how the totals build up for a fictional sole trader using standard periods.

You can send an update at any time after the update period ends, up to and including the deadline day. You do not have to wait until the deadline.

You can also send up to 10 days before the end of the update period if you do not expect to record any further transactions in it. If something does come in after that, it goes into your next update, because that one covers the year to date.

You can send updates more often than quarterly if you want to. Each one must still cover the full period from 6 April.

Yes. GOV.UK says that if you have not received any income or had any expenses during an update period, you must still send your quarterly update. This is sometimes called a nil update.

Because updates are cumulative, a quiet quarter usually means sending the same year-to-date totals as last time. For a business that has had nothing at all since 6 April, the totals are zero.

During the year, a correction to your records is included automatically when you send your next update. You do not resend the earlier one.

After your fourth update, you can either resend the fourth update or adjust the category total in your software. GOV.UK also says you may need to resend the fourth update to add expenses for jointly let properties if you left them out, or to add Rent-a-Room income.

Your quarterly updates are not your tax return. After the tax year ends you make any year-end adjustments and submit your tax return, which HMRC calls the final declaration, by 31 January.

For the 2026 to 2027 tax year there are no penalties for missing a quarterly update deadline. You must still send every update before you can submit your tax return, so send an overdue update as soon as possible.

For tax years after 2026 to 2027, each missed deadline gives you a penalty point, with only one point per deadline however many businesses are late. At 4 points you get a £200 penalty. The government announced at Budget 2026 on 28 October 2026 that points will not apply to 2027 to 2028 updates for people who must start in April 2027, but this is not yet in HMRC’s guidance. Our article on MTD penalties covers points, expiry and late payment.

The dates in this article are HMRC’s standard dates. Your own deadlines come from HMRC and show in your MTD software and your HMRC online account. If you started part way through a year, or HMRC signed you up, check there rather than working dates out yourself.

For the full dated calendar for the 2026 to 2027 tax year, including the 2025 to 2026 Self Assessment return and payments, see our MTD for Income Tax deadlines 2026 to 2027 article. In SimpleTaxFlow, each update shows the period and deadline HMRC returns for that business.

Tax rules can change and your circumstances matter. Use HMRC’s current guidance to confirm what applies to you.