Making Tax Digital: am I in, and when?
One figure, one answer. Free, nothing to sign up for, and the threshold is your turnover rather than your profit — which is the part most people get wrong.
Everything that comes in from self-employment and property, added together, before you take off any costs, allowances or tax. Not your profit.
You are in from 6 April 2027
A qualifying income of more than £30,000 means Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies to you from 6 April 2027. The test uses your 2025-26 figure, so it is already decided.
That is 169 days away.
The dates, as they stand
- 6 April 2026 — qualifying income of more than £50,000, tested on your 2024-25 figure.
- 6 April 2027 — qualifying income of more than £30,000, tested on your 2025-26 figure.
- 6 April 2028 — qualifying income of more than £20,000, tested on your 2026-27 figure.
Checked against published guidance on 19 October 2026. These dates have moved before — check HMRC’s own guidance before you act on them.
This tells you when, not what to do about it. For that, read what Making Tax Digital actually asks of you. It is general information about the rules, not advice about your own affairs — your accountant knows your position and we do not.
It is turnover, not profit
Qualifying income means everything that came in from self-employment and property, added together, before any costs come off. A one-van electrician turning over £70,000 and taking home £40,000 is tested on the £70,000.
That one misunderstanding is worth two years. Somebody reading their profit off their tax return concludes they join in 2028 when the duty started for them in April 2026.
The decision has already been made for you
The test looks back a year. Whether you are in from April 2027 depends on your 2025-26 figures, which are already fixed. There is nothing to manage down and no quiet year that gets you out of it — the only question is whether you find out now or in the week it starts.
What TaskMyJob does, and what it does not
TaskMyJob keeps the digital record as you work — every quote, invoice, payment and cost against the job it belongs to — and connects to Xero, QuickBooks and Sage, which submit to HMRC.
TaskMyJob does not file to HMRC itself and is not on HMRC’s recognised software list. Anybody telling you their job software is “MTD compliant” is making a claim worth checking against HMRC’s own list before you buy it.
A note on what this is
General information about the rules as published, checked on 19 October 2026, not advice about your own affairs. MTD dates have been put back more than once; confirm anything that matters with HMRC or your accountant.
Built by TaskMyJob. More free reading: what Making Tax Digital asks of you, what a quarterly update actually is, or the other calculators.