Your second MTD update is due on Saturday 7 November 2026

The second quarterly update under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is due on Saturday 7 November 2026, the second of four deadlines in the first mandatory year. It arrives alongside a change in how people enter the regime: since September 2026 HMRC has been signing eligible sole traders up itself rather than waiting for volunteers. If your gross self-employment and property income cleared £50,000 on the return HMRC holds, you are in MTD whether or not you put yourself there.

What the first quarter showed

HMRC counted 864,000 sole traders and landlords in scope from 6 April 2026. By mid-August it reported more than 570,000 signed up and 436,000 first quarterly updates sent, against a first deadline of 7 August 2026. Set those figures side by side: roughly half the population HMRC considers in scope had not filed on time.

HMRC repeated its line to that group in Agent Update 146 on 20 August 2026: sign up, authorise software, create digital records, and send the first update as soon as possible. It is also blunt that a quarterly update "is not a tax return", which is worth holding onto if August went past unnoticed.

The ground rules, including what the regime is and how the software side works, are in the earlier Making Tax Digital guide for locums. What follows is what has changed since.

HMRC is signing people up on the information it already holds

From September 2026 HMRC began signing up eligible people who had not done it themselves, in stages over the following months. Notification comes through HMRC online services or by post.

The caveat is HMRC's own: it signs people up using only the information it already holds, which may not reflect recent changes, and signing up yourself first is the way to get the details right. The information it holds is the last return it processed. Someone who has since taken a part-time post, moved most of their work to trust bank shifts, sold a let flat or cut back to two sessions a week can be enrolled on a picture of their working life that is more than a year old. The notice is a thing to read and check, not simply to file.

What counts towards the £50,000

Qualifying income is gross turnover before expenses, and it comes only from self-employment and property. Employment income taxed under PAYE does not count. Neither do dividends, partnership profit shares or pensions.

For anyone running several income streams, three consequences follow.

• Payroll work sits outside the test entirely. Trust and practice bank shifts, agency work through an umbrella and a substantive part-time contract are all PAYE, and none of it counts.
• Expenses do not help you stay under it. A locum GP invoicing £62,000 of sessions who spends £9,000 on indemnity, mileage and courses is measured on the £62,000, not on the £53,000 of profit.
• Property is in. A let flat can carry someone over the line who would sit comfortably below it on clinical income alone.

The carve-out runs the other way too. A partnership profit share is outside the test, so a GP or dental partner with a modest amount of personal sessional work can be well under the threshold despite a large total income.

The periods, and the date that is fixed

Standard quarterly periods run 6 April to 5 July, 6 July to 5 October, and so on.

Calendar quarters, running 1 April to 30 June and so on, are an option, but HMRC told agents in June 2026 that the choice has to be made in the software before the first update of the year. If nobody made it, you are on the standard periods.

What each submission restates is a question for your software rather than for the calendar. HMRC's pages set the periods and the dates they fall due; if you need to know whether yours sends the quarter alone or a running figure, check its documentation or ask your accountant before you file.

7 November 2026 is a Saturday, and the guidance offers no working day extension, so treat the Saturday as the date. The annual return is untouched: 31 January 2027 remains the online filing and payment deadline for 2025/26. Quarterly updates for a tax year do have to be in before that year's return can be filed, which is why an unsent August update still matters.

No points this year, but late payment still costs

For 2026/27 there are no penalty points for missing a quarterly update deadline. From 2027/28 a points system starts: one point per missed deadline, £200 once you reach four points, and £200 for each further miss. Points clear automatically after 24 months provided you stay below four.

Late payment is a separate regime and it is already running. Nothing is charged if the tax is paid within 15 days. Once a payment is 31 days or more late, 3% of the tax owed is charged at day 15 and a further 3% at day 30, with interest then accruing at 10% a year, charged daily. A 30 day grace period applies in this first year in MTD. From the second year it narrows to 15 days and the two charges rise to 4% each.

The threshold steps down twice more

The £50,000 entry point falls to £30,000 from April 2027 and to £20,000 from April 2028. The second step changes the shape of the regime for part-time and portfolio workers: a hygienist doing one private day a week, a locum pharmacist taking occasional weekend cover, an optometrist with a small domiciliary round. Gross self-employed and property income of £22,000 sits outside the April 2027 step and inside the April 2028 one.

The figures here are as HMRC published them before the Budget of 28 October 2026. Anything changed there will be on gov.uk.

What to have done by 7 November

1. Check for a sign-up notice, in HMRC online services and in the post. If HMRC enrolled you on stale information, correct it before you file rather than after.
2. Recalculate your qualifying income on gross turnover, self-employment and property only. If you assumed PAYE bank shifts counted, you may be in the regime unnecessarily.
3. If 7 August went by without an update, send it. There are no points for 2026/27, but it has to exist before the return for that year can go in.
4. Get the quarter to 5 October into the software during the week, not on the Friday.
5. Look ahead to 31 January 2027. If 2025/26 was your first year self-employed, that payment can be the balancing amount plus the first payment on account for 2026/27, so the bill is often larger than the profit suggests. Registration for a first year of self-employment was due by 5 October 2026; if that was missed, tell your accountant now rather than in January.

Shift records, invoices and an expense log with receipt reading in Sessional produce the running totals a quarterly update draws on, and the tax guide sets out what they cover. Sessional does not send anything to HMRC: the update goes through your MTD software.

The deadline is small work if the quarter already exists in a set of records. It only becomes large if it has to be reconstructed from a bank statement on the evening of Friday 6 November.

Sources

• Check what to do if HMRC has signed you up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (HMRC via GOV.UK, page updated 11 September 2026)
• Sign up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (HMRC via GOV.UK, page updated 24 August 2026)
• Work out your qualifying income for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (HMRC via GOV.UK, page updated 11 September 2026)
• Penalties for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (HMRC via GOV.UK, page updated 30 March 2026)
• Act now: 864,000 sole traders and landlords face new tax rules in two months (HMRC via GOV.UK, 5 February 2026)
• Deadline approaches for first Making Tax Digital quarterly update (HMRC via GOV.UK, 23 July 2026)
• 436,000 sole traders and landlords make their tax digital (HMRC via GOV.UK, 12 August 2026)
• Agent Update issue 144 (HMRC, 18 June 2026)
• Agent Update issue 146 (HMRC, 20 August 2026)
• Self Assessment tax returns: deadlines (GOV.UK, undated guidance)
• Understand your Self Assessment tax bill: payments on account (GOV.UK, undated guidance)