Am I affected by Making Tax Digital?
Two numbers decide it: your gross self-employment income and your gross property income. Not your profit, not your salary, not your dividends. Put them in below and you will get your cohort, your start date and what to do about it. If you would rather read the rule than use the tool, the whole thing is explained underneath in prose.
Last verified 31 July 2026. Thresholds checked against HMRC and ICAS material. Not tax advice — confirm with HMRC or your accountant.
Under £20,000 combined — you are outside MTD for Income Tax entirely. If your gross self-employment income plus your gross property income comes to £20,000 or less, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax does not apply to you. You carry on with Self Assessment as normal. If you have no qualifying income at all, you are outside scope and cannot opt in voluntarily.
£20,001 to £30,000 — April 2028, planned. The £20,000 threshold is planned to take effect in April 2028, judged on your qualifying income in the 2027/28 tax year. That year has not started, so nothing is fixed yet — and the MTD timetable has moved before. Prepare cheaply, do not panic.
£30,001 to £50,000 — you start on 6 April 2027. This is the live deadline. Qualifying income over £30,000 in the 2025/26 tax year brings you into Making Tax Digital for Income Tax on 6 April 2027. The 2025/26 year has already closed, so your figure is already fixed — look it up rather than guessing.
Over £50,000 — you have been in MTD since 6 April 2026. Qualifying income over £50,000 in 2024/25 brought you into Making Tax Digital for Income Tax on 6 April 2026. That cohort is live now and should already be keeping digital records and filing quarterly updates. If that is news to you, speak to an accountant this week.
In every case: qualifying income is gross self-employment plus gross property income, measured before expenses. Partnership income, dividends, savings interest, PAYE employment and pensions are excluded. Once you are in, you must be under the threshold for three consecutive tax years to leave.
How this works and what it does not do. The checker adds your two figures and compares the total to the £20,000, £30,000 and £50,000 thresholds. That is the whole calculation — you could do it on paper, and you should sanity-check it. It runs entirely in your browser: nothing you type is sent anywhere, stored or logged. It cannot account for exemptions, unusual trades, jointly-owned property or anything else specific to you, and it is not tax advice. Confirm your position with HMRC on gov.uk or with a qualified accountant.
Which income counts towards the MTD threshold?
Only two kinds of income count: gross self-employment income and gross property income. Add them together, before expenses. Everything else — partnership income, dividends, savings interest, PAYE employment and pensions — is excluded and makes no difference to whether you are in Making Tax Digital.
People trip over this in both directions. Someone with a £70,000 salary and £6,000 of freelance work assumes they must be in scope, and they are not. Someone invoicing £44,000 with heavy costs assumes their £19,000 profit keeps them out, and it does not.
Counts — in full, before costs
Included in qualifying income
- Gross self-employment income from every sole trade you run — freelancing, contracting, a shop, a van, a side business.
- Gross property income — all rent received, UK and overseas, before mortgage interest, agent fees, repairs or void periods.
Does not count — at all
Excluded from qualifying income
- Partnership income
- Dividends
- Savings interest
- PAYE employment income, however large
- Pension income
- Your business expenses — they are not deducted before the test
Gross, not net — the mistake that costs people a year
Say you are a self-employed joiner. You invoice £42,000, spend £18,000 on materials, van costs, tools and insurance, and end the year with £24,000 of profit. The number that decides your MTD position is £42,000. You are in the £30,000 to £50,000 band and your start date is 6 April 2027 — even though £24,000 is the figure you think of as your income, and even though £24,000 would have put you two bands lower.
The same trap catches landlords harder, because property has such high gross-to-net compression. One flat let at £1,800 a month is £21,600 of gross property income and is already over the £20,000 line, whatever the mortgage costs. More on how this hits landlords.
The four possible answers, in one table
Whatever the checker tells you, it is telling you one of these four things. Here they are side by side so you can see where you sit relative to everyone else.
| Qualifying income | Your start date | Judged on income in | Status as of 31 July 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| £20,000 or less | Not in MTD | — | Outside MTD for Income Tax entirely. Self Assessment continues as now. |
| Over £20,000 | April 2028 | 2027/28 | Planned Not yet in force; the timetable has moved before. |
| Over £30,000 | 6 April 2027 | 2025/26 | The live deadline. The tax year that decides it has already ended. |
| Over £50,000 | 6 April 2026 | 2024/25 | Already live This cohort is inside MTD and filing now. |
Qualifying income = gross self-employment income + gross property income, before expenses. Verified 31 July 2026 against HMRC and ICAS material. Full timetable and what a year inside MTD looks like: Making Tax Digital deadlines.
Situations the checker cannot decide for you
The checker does arithmetic against three thresholds. It cannot rule on exemptions, on how jointly-owned property is split, on unusual trading structures, or on anything HMRC would treat as a judgement call. For those, the answer is an accountant or HMRC, not a web page.
- Jointly-owned property. How rental income is attributed between owners affects each person’s qualifying income. Get it right before you rely on a figure.
- Exemptions, including digital exclusion. HMRC operates exemptions from MTD. We are not going to paraphrase the criteria second-hand — read them on gov.uk.
- A part-year of trading. If you started or stopped a trade mid-year, your gross figure may not represent a normal year. Ask before you assume.
- Mixed structures. If you have a limited company alongside a sole trade, only the sole trade and property side is tested. Company income is outside MTD for Income Tax.
- Partnerships. Partnership income does not count towards your qualifying income. If most of your income arrives that way, your position may be very different from what the headline numbers suggest.
Where we stop
We publish thresholds, dates and definitions we have verified. We do not publish exact quarterly submission deadlines or penalty point values, because we have not verified them and a wrong HMRC date printed confidently is worse than no date at all. If you need those, get them from HMRC. Our research method explains why we draw the line there.
You have your date. Now what?
The preparation is bookkeeping, and the software is the last and cheapest decision. In that order.
Up to the pillar
What Making Tax Digital actually is
The full plain-English guide: what changes, what does not, and the worked example that explains gross versus profit.
Read the pillar guide →
Across the silo
Every MTD date and what a year looks like
The three mandation dates, which tax year decides each, and the four quarterly periods inside a mandated year.
See the timetable →
Across the silo
The digital records you have to keep
The migration job people underestimate. Start it a full tax year before you are mandated.
See what is required →
And when you do get to software
Do not let anyone sell you a plan on “MTD ready”. Every serious UK product is on HMRC’s recognised list — it is table stakes. What actually varies is price over two years, and whether the cheap plan does the thing you need. Three facts that cost us commission, printed anyway: FreeAgent is free permanently with NatWest, RBS, Ulster Bank or Mettle; Sage has a genuinely free sole trader tier at five invoices a month; and QuickBooks is £121.20 cheaper than Xero over 24 months (£186 against £307.20, ex VAT). Watch the VAT trap though — QuickBooks Sole Trader at £10 cannot file a VAT return.
Vendor sites, plain public UK links, earning us nothing today: Xero UK · QuickBooks UK · FreeAgent · Sage UK. Check HMRC’s own recognised-software list on gov.uk before you subscribe.
Am I affected? Common questions
How do I know if Making Tax Digital applies to me?
Add your gross self-employment income to your gross property income, before any expenses. If the total is £20,000 or less you are outside Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. Over £50,000 in 2024/25 means you started on 6 April 2026. Over £30,000 in 2025/26 means you start on 6 April 2027. Over £20,000 in 2027/28 is planned for April 2028.
Does my PAYE salary count towards the MTD threshold?
No. PAYE employment income is excluded, as are pensions, dividends, savings interest and partnership income. Only gross self-employment income and gross property income count. Someone earning £80,000 employed with £5,000 of weekend freelancing is not in MTD on those figures.
Do I use turnover or profit?
Turnover. Qualifying income is measured gross, before expenses. A sole trader invoicing £42,000 with £18,000 of costs is measured on the £42,000, not the £24,000 of profit, and is therefore in the 6 April 2027 cohort. This is the single most common error people make about MTD.
I have two businesses and a rental property. Do they all count together?
Yes. Every sole trade you run is added together, then your gross property income is added on top, and the combined total is compared to the thresholds. They are not tested separately, so two £18,000 trades put you at £36,000 and into the 6 April 2027 cohort.
If my income drops, can I leave Making Tax Digital?
Not immediately. Once you are inside MTD for Income Tax you must be under the threshold for three consecutive tax years before you can leave. One lean year does not take you back out, so treat entry as a one-way door.
Is this checker official? Can I rely on it?
No, and no. Fizoral is an independent comparison site, not HMRC and not an accountancy practice. The checker does one piece of arithmetic against thresholds we verified on 31 July 2026 — it is a fast sanity check, not a ruling. Confirm your position with HMRC on gov.uk or with a qualified accountant before you act.
Does the checker store or send my figures anywhere?
No. It is a few lines of JavaScript that run in your browser. Nothing is transmitted, nothing is saved, there is no analytics call attached to it and there is no server on the other end. Close the tab and the numbers are gone.