Missed the MTD Quarterly Deadline? What to Do Now
The first Making Tax Digital for Income Tax quarterly deadline has officially been and gone.
For most sole traders and landlords who were required to start using MTD from April 2026, the first quarterly update was due by 7 August 2026. If you have only just realised that you missed it, the good news is that you do not need to panic.
HMRC has confirmed that there are no penalty points for late quarterly updates during the 2026/27 tax year. So, if your first update was late, you will not receive a penalty point for missing the 7 August deadline.
That does not mean you can forget about it, though. You still need to get your MTD records up to date and send the required update.
Here’s what you need to know.
First, were you actually required to use MTD from April 2026?
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax became compulsory from 6 April 2026 for certain sole traders and landlords.
Broadly, you should have started using MTD from April 2026 if you are registered for Self Assessment, receive income from self-employment or property, and your qualifying income for the 2024/25 tax year was more than £50,000.
Importantly, that £50,000 relates to qualifying income, not profit after expenses.
If you have both self-employed and property income, the relevant amounts are considered together when deciding whether you cross the MTD threshold.
HMRC should have written to people it identified as needing to use MTD, but not receiving a letter does not automatically mean you are outside the rules. HMRC says it remains your responsibility to check whether you are required to use MTD.
If you are unsure whether MTD applies to you, it is worth checking that point before worrying about a missed quarterly submission.
What was due on 7 August?
For people using the standard MTD update periods, the first update covered 6 April to 5 July 2026.
Some people instead use calendar update periods, in which case the first period ran from 1 April to 30 June 2026.
Whichever option you use, the deadline for the first update was the same: 7 August 2026.
The quarterly update is not another full tax return. It is created from the digital records you have been keeping in your MTD-compatible software and provides HMRC with a summary of your income and expenses.
Your normal annual tax return has not disappeared either. MTD changes the way information is recorded and reported during the year, but quarterly updates do not replace the tax return.
I missed 7 August. Will I get a fine?
For the 2026/27 tax year, no.
HMRC has introduced a first-year easement and will not apply penalty points for late MTD quarterly updates during 2026/27.
This is particularly important because you may have read about the new points-based penalty system and assumed that missing 7 August automatically gives you a penalty point.
That system will apply to quarterly MTD deadlines from the following tax year. Once it does apply, missing a quarterly deadline can result in a penalty point, with a £200 financial penalty once the four-point threshold is reached.
For this first year, however, HMRC has effectively provided some breathing room while people get used to the new system.
It is worth being clear about what that breathing room covers. It applies to late quarterly MTD updates. It does not give you a general exemption from tax deadlines. Penalties can still apply to late tax returns and late payment of tax.
So what should you do if you missed the deadline?
The best approach is simply to deal with it now rather than waiting for the next deadline.
HMRC confirmed on 12 August that customers who had not yet sent their first quarterly update could still do so through their recognised MTD software, without receiving a penalty for the late update this year.
Start by checking that your bookkeeping is up to date from the beginning of your relevant MTD period.
That means making sure your business income and expenses have been recorded digitally and that obvious mistakes, duplicates or missing transactions have been dealt with.
Then use your MTD-compatible software to send the outstanding update to HMRC.
If you use an accountant or bookkeeper to deal with your MTD submissions, speak to them rather than assuming the update has already been made.
What if you haven't even signed up for MTD yet?
This is something to tackle sooner rather than later.
If you were required to use MTD from April 2026 but have not signed up, HMRC says you can still sign up now.
HMRC has also announced that, from September 2026, it will begin signing up people who should already be using MTD but have not signed themselves up. HMRC has encouraged people affected to take action themselves rather than waiting for that process.
You will need MTD-compatible software to keep the required digital records and send your quarterly updates.
If you've spent the first few months of the tax year keeping records elsewhere, that does not mean everything is lost. HMRC guidance says that someone signing up partway through the year will need to bring their digital records up to date from the start of the tax year so that they can be included in their MTD reporting.
When is the next MTD deadline?
Once you have dealt with the first update, the next quarterly deadline is 7 November 2026.
The deadlines for the remainder of the 2026/27 tax year are:
7 November 2026
7 February 2027
7 May 2027
If you use standard update periods, your November update covers your records from 6 April to 5 October. If you have chosen calendar update periods, it covers 1 April to 30 September.
One useful feature of the system is that MTD updates are cumulative. Each update covers the period from the beginning of the tax year to the end of the relevant update period, rather than reporting an isolated three-month period. This also means corrections made to your digital records can flow into later updates without you having to keep reopening every previous submission.
Don't let one missed deadline turn into four
The lack of a penalty this year is useful, but I would not treat it as a reason to put MTD to one side until next January.
The real benefit of getting the first update sorted now is that you can work out why it was missed.
Was your bookkeeping not up to date?
Did you think your accountant was submitting it?
Have you signed up to MTD but not connected your software properly?
Or did you simply not realise there was an August deadline?
Whatever the reason, fix the underlying problem before 7 November.
For many small business owners, the easiest way to deal with MTD will be to get into the habit of keeping their records updated regularly rather than trying to reconstruct three months of transactions every time a quarterly deadline appears.
That is arguably a much bigger change than pressing the button to send the update itself.
The short version
If you were supposed to submit your first MTD for Income Tax quarterly update by 7 August 2026 and missed it:
Don't panic. You will not receive a penalty point for a late quarterly update during the 2026/27 tax year.
But don't ignore it either.
Make sure you are correctly registered for MTD, get your digital records up to date and send the outstanding update through compatible software. Then make a note of the next deadline, 7 November 2026, and use the next few months to get into a bookkeeping routine that makes the next submission much easier.
And if you're not sure whether you should be in MTD at all, that's the question to answer first.
Need some help?
If you're a Hustle Mate Support member and you're unsure whether MTD applies to you, what you should be recording or what you need to do next, you can ask your question in the members' area and we'll help you make sense of it in plain English.
This article is intended as general information and does not constitute individual tax advice. Your own circumstances may affect how the rules apply to you.
