The short answer
A quarterly update is a set of totals, not a tax return. For each source of income you send HMRC the total for every income and expense category you use, four times a year, straight from your software. No individual invoices, no receipts, no tax calculation and no payment. HMRC has said the submission itself takes around ten minutes once the records are in order, and that phrase, once the records are in order, is where all the real work sits.
The first ever deadline under the regime fell on 7 August 2026 for more than 864,000 sole traders and landlords. The next falls on 7 November 2026. This guide sets out precisely what goes in each one, when they are due, what is deliberately left out and how to fix a figure you got wrong.
Key takeaways
- Totals only. Income and expense category totals per source of income. HMRC never sees a single invoice.
- Four deadlines: 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. They do not move and they are the same for calendar quarters.
- Updates are cumulative. Every period starts on 6 April, so quarter three covers nine months, not three.
- A mistake corrects itself. Send the right cumulative figure next quarter and the earlier update stays where it is.
- No tax is due quarterly. Payment dates are still 31 January and 31 July, payments on account included.
- A nil quarter still files. No income and no expenses is still an update HMRC expects.
- Year one forgives late updates. No penalty points for late quarterly updates in 2026 to 2027, but the return and the payment are not covered.
The four submissions
One tax year, four windows, four deadlines
Each update covers a three month period and is due one month and seven days after it closes.
Quarter 1
6 April to 5 July
Due 7 AugustQuarter 2
6 July to 5 October
Due 7 NovemberQuarter 3
6 October to 5 January
Due 7 FebruaryQuarter 4
6 January to 5 April
Due 7 MayTotals are cumulative, so a figure corrected in a later quarter carries the correction forward. Nothing here changes when you pay: 31 January and 31 July stand.
Rather not watch four dates a year? We run the updates from your records and tell you only when something needs a decision.
Have us run the quartersWhat actually goes into a quarterly update
Each update contains, for each separate source of income, the running totals for the categories you have used. A sole trader posting to turnover, cost of goods, motor, premises, professional fees and insurance sends six figures plus the income figure. A landlord sends rent received and the categories of cost they have recorded.
Every trade is a separate source. Every property business is a separate source, and UK property and overseas property count as two. Someone running a consultancy alongside a let flat sends totals for both in the same submission window, from the same software, as two distinct sources.
Two relaxations are worth knowing. Landlords whose property turnover is under £90,000 may categorise transactions simply as income or expense rather than breaking costs down, although residential finance costs still have to be identified separately because relief on them is restricted. Landlords with jointly let property can keep a single quarterly record per expense category instead of entering each cost individually. The detail of how those records have to be built sits in our companion guide on UK quarterly tax reporting and digital records.
What is deliberately not in it
- No tax calculation. Your software may show an estimate. It is an estimate for planning, not a demand.
- No payment. Nothing is due on 7 August, 7 November, 7 February or 7 May.
- No invoices, receipts or bank statements. Those stay with you as supporting documents and still have to be kept.
- No accounting adjustments. Capital allowances, private use restrictions, stock movements and the rest are dealt with after the fourth update, not inside each one.
- No income from outside MTD scope. Employment, pensions, dividends, savings interest, capital gains and partnership shares never appear in a quarterly update. They go on the tax return.
That last point resolves most of the anxiety we hear on the phone. A quarterly update is a bookkeeping submission, not a tax event.
A quarterly rhythm without the quarterly stress
Total Books prepares and files all four updates from your digital records, checks the categories before anything goes to HMRC, and gives you a short call each quarter so you know where your tax bill is heading. Fixed annual fee, quarterly filings included.
Book a free 15 minute call or phone 029 2002 6505.
The four deadlines, and why every period starts on 6 April
Standard update periods follow the tax year. The deadline is always the seventh of the month a month after the period ends.
Standard update periods
Quarter 16 April to 5 July
Due 7 August
Quarter 26 April to 5 October
Due 7 November
Quarter 36 April to 5 January
Due 7 February
Quarter 46 April to 5 April
Due 7 May in the following tax year
Read the left column again. Quarter two is not July to October, it is April to October. Quarter four is the whole year. Every update is cumulative from the start of the tax year, which is the single most important design feature of the regime and the one least well understood.
The reason it matters is correction. Post a supplier payment to the wrong category in June, notice it in September, and you simply send the correct cumulative figures in the November update. You do not amend, resubmit or contact HMRC. The wrong figure is superseded rather than corrected. That is a considerably gentler system than the one people were braced for.
Your deadline calendar
| Quarter 1, 2026 to 2027 | 7 August 2026 (now passed) |
|---|---|
| Quarter 2, 2026 to 2027 | 7 November 2026 |
| Quarter 3, 2026 to 2027 | 7 February 2027 |
| Quarter 4, 2026 to 2027 | 7 May 2027 |
| Tax return, 2026 to 2027 | 31 January 2028 |
| Quarter 1, 2027 to 2028 | 7 August 2027 (£30,000 wave joins) |
| Quarter 2, 2027 to 2028 | 7 November 2027 |
| Quarter 3, 2027 to 2028 | 7 February 2028 |
| Quarter 4, 2027 to 2028 | 7 May 2028 |
Payment dates have not changed and do not appear above for a reason. Balancing payments and payments on account are still due on 31 January and 31 July.
7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May, whichever quarter pattern you file on
Calendar quarters: the option most people should take
Working to 5 July and 5 October is awkward for anyone whose bookkeeping runs to month ends, which is almost everyone with a bank feed. HMRC allows a calendar quarter election that shifts the period ends to the end of the month.
| 1 April to 30 June | Due 7 August |
|---|---|
| 1 April to 30 September | Due 7 November |
| 1 April to 31 December | Due 7 February |
| 1 April to 31 March | Due 7 May |
The deadlines are identical. The only thing that changes is where the period ends, and that small change removes the need to split a month across two periods every quarter.
Three rules govern the election. It is made per source of income, so a trade and a property business can differ. It has to be set in the software before the first update of the year is sent. And once an update has gone for that tax year, the choice is locked until the next one. We set this deliberately at onboarding rather than accepting whatever the software defaults to, because a default chosen by accident costs a year.
The bookkeeping half of the job
A long-standing self assessment client described what the working relationship actually looks like: “Very patient with my bookkeeping, always explain every step and I file with the confidence I haven’t over paid my taxes but also that I am being completely transparent.”
Patience with bookkeeping used to be an annual virtue. Under quarterly filing it becomes a quarterly one, and the clients who came to us with untidy records have generally found the four-times-a-year rhythm easier than the one-big-push version, because nothing accumulates.
★★★★★ Eva B., in her own words, Google review, January 2025
Nil quarters, and the quarter you think you can skip
A quarter with no income and no expenses still needs an update. A landlord between tenancies files. A seasonal trader out of season files. A consultant on parental leave files. The submission is a set of zeros, it takes moments, and skipping it counts as a missed deadline in exactly the same way as forgetting a busy quarter.
The quarter that catches people out
This is the most common avoidable miss we expect to see in the 2027 to 2028 year, once the penalty easement has gone. A quarter that feels like nothing happened does not feel like a filing obligation, right up until the point it produces a penalty point.
How to correct a mistake
Because updates are cumulative, correction is built into the design rather than bolted onto it.
Fix the digital record in your software so the underlying transaction is right.
Send the next quarterly update as normal. It carries the corrected cumulative totals from 6 April, so the error disappears.
Where the error is in quarter four, resend that update before you submit the tax return, since there is no later quarter to absorb it.
Where the error is only found at the year end, deal with it in the adjustments before the return. The quarterly updates are not the final figures and were never meant to be.
What you should not do is leave a category wrong on the assumption it will come out in the wash at the year end. It will, but the estimated tax position you see each quarter will be wrong until it does, and the whole point of quarterly visibility is to make that number trustworthy. Getting the category structure right at the start is the cheapest fix available, and it is the first thing our bookkeeping service does on a new engagement. Aligning categories with what you can actually claim, as set out in our guide to self-employed allowable expenses, makes the year-end adjustments smaller too.
Worked example one: a sole trader’s cumulative year
Totals as they ran
What the correction did
The June error never needed a correction submission. The cumulative figure sent in November simply told the truth, and the earlier update was superseded. This is the mechanic worth understanding before your first mistake rather than after it.
Every update restates the year to date, which is why the next one carries the correction
Landlords: what your quarterly update looks like
Property is its own source. Rent received goes in gross, and the costs you have recorded go in by category, with residential finance costs identified separately so the restriction can be applied correctly at the year end.
Jointly owned property is reported by each owner on their own share, in their own software, under their own obligation. Two owners of one flat send two sets of totals. Neither owner’s software talks to the other’s, and the shares need to match, which is a good reason to agree the split and the figures at the same time each quarter rather than separately.
Overseas property is a second property source with its own totals. Furnished holiday lets no longer sit in their own category following the abolition of the regime, and the treatment of those properties has changed enough that it is worth reading our guide on the furnished holiday lettings changes before assuming the old approach still applies.
Quarterly submission also makes historic gaps considerably more visible than annual filing ever did. Any landlord who has not declared rental income in full is better served dealing with that voluntarily through the Let Property Campaign than waiting to be asked. We handle those disclosures as a matter of routine, and the difference in outcome between a voluntary approach and a prompted one is substantial.
Working out how you want to trade
A freelance client wrote that she found the practice “extremely knowledgeable and helpful in advising on various solutions to work as a freelancer.”
Quarterly filing has made that conversation more common, not less. How you invoice, how often, and whether income falls either side of a period end all interact with the update cycle now, and it is a better conversation to have in month one than in month eleven.
★★★★★ Helen M., in her own words, Google review, April 2021
What happens after the fourth update
The fourth update covers the full tax year, and it is still only bookkeeping totals. The year-end work happens afterwards.
- Adjustments. Capital allowances, private use restrictions, stock, accruals and prepayments where you use the accruals basis, and anything else that turns bookkeeping into taxable profit.
- Everything outside MTD scope. HMRC pre-populates employment income, pensions, Construction Industry Scheme deductions, residential property Capital Gains Tax disposals and Marriage Allowance. You add savings interest, dividends including any from your own company, and any partnership profit share.
- Final declaration. You confirm the information is correct and complete, and the return is filed from the software rather than through the HMRC website.
- Deadline: 31 January. Unchanged. For the 2026 to 2027 year that is 31 January 2028.
Anyone who has read older material about an End of Period Statement can put it aside. HMRC removed that step before launch, so there is one declaration rather than two.
Missing a deadline: what it costs
What a missed deadline costs
Late submission runs on points. One point per missed deadline, and at four points a £200 penalty, with a further £200 for each subsequent miss while you stay at the threshold. Below the threshold, a point falls away 24 months after the deadline it relates to. At or above it, points only clear after 12 months of filing everything on time and catching up anything outstanding from the previous 24 months.
HMRC is issuing no points for late quarterly updates in the 2026 to 2027 tax year. That easement is genuine and it is worth understanding precisely. It covers quarterly updates. It does not cover the tax return, and it does not cover payment. Late payment for 2026 to 2027 costs nothing within 15 days, then 3% of the outstanding tax once you pass 15 days, another 3% once you pass 30 days, and 10% a year accruing daily from day 31. Our guide to HMRC interest and penalty changes covers the wider regime.
The practical read on the easement is this. Year one is the year to build the habit in, precisely because the cost of getting it wrong is temporarily low. Year two is not forgiving, and four quiet quarters is a threshold you can reach in a single year.
From our casework
What we saw in the run up to 7 August was not panic about the submission. It was people opening their software for the first time since April and finding four months of uncategorised bank transactions waiting.
The clients who found the deadline uneventful were, without exception, the ones whose records were being kept monthly rather than assembled quarterly. The update is genuinely a ten minute job. Everything upstream of it is not.
Records kept, updates filed
Four filings a year, prepared from your own records and checked before they reach HMRC
One fixed fee covering the quarterly updates and the return, for sole traders and landlords with one source or several.
See how our MTD ITSA service worksWorked example two: a landlord with two sources
| Source A | UK property, one let house in Newport |
|---|---|
| Source B | Self-employed photography |
| Quarter 2 cumulative rent received | £11,600 |
| Quarter 2 cumulative property costs | £3,850, with £2,400 of it residential finance costs shown separately |
| Quarter 2 cumulative photography turnover | £19,200 |
| Quarter 2 cumulative photography expenses | £6,340 |
| Submissions made | Two sets of totals, one per source, in the same window |
| Tax due on 7 November | None. Payment dates remain 31 January and 31 July. |
Two sources, one software package, one submission window and no payment. The finance cost figure is separated at record level rather than at the year end, which is what makes the eventual relief restriction straightforward instead of a reconstruction job.
Do you still need an accountant if the software does it
The submission is not the work. The work is the category structure, the digital links between whatever pieces of software you use, the split between capital and revenue, the accounting adjustments that sit between your totals and your taxable profit, and knowing which of the four estimates your software shows you should actually act on.
Where your affairs are simple and your bookkeeping is already clean, filing yourself is a realistic choice and we say so on the phone. Where you have more than one source, jointly held property, a mix of capital and revenue spending or a history of catching up in January, the quarterly cycle turns a once-a-year problem into a four-times-a-year problem. That is the case for handing it over, and it is the case our MTD ITSA service page sets out in full.
Digital first, long before it was compulsory
A client who came to us five years before the mandate wrote simply that we were a “Great digital accountant in Cardiff, very helpful and provided a lot of insightful advice.”
Cloud bookkeeping was how the practice already worked, which is why the clients who joined us before April 2026 barely felt the change. The software was in place, the bank feeds were running, and the only new thing was a submission button.
★★★★★ Angela, in her own words, Google review, July 2021
Quarterly updates prepared and filed from Cardiff, Newport and Bristol, and UK wide through the Virtual Finance Office.
Frequently asked questions
Do I pay tax every quarter under MTD?
No. A quarterly update carries no payment and no tax calculation. Payment dates remain 31 January and 31 July, including payments on account. The estimated figure your software shows is a planning tool, not a demand.
What exactly do I send HMRC each quarter?
Totals for each income and expense category you use, for each source of income, running cumulatively from 6 April. No invoices, no receipts and no supporting documents. Those stay with you.
I had no income at all last quarter. Do I still file?
Yes. A nil update is still an update. Skipping it counts as a missed deadline in exactly the same way as missing a busy quarter, so it is worth setting a reminder for quiet periods rather than assuming they do not count.
Can I change to calendar quarters part way through the year?
No. The election is made per source of income, in your software, before the first update of that tax year goes to HMRC. Once an update has been sent you are locked in until the following year, so it is worth setting deliberately at the start.
I made a mistake in an earlier update. How do I fix it?
Correct the underlying digital record, then send your next update as normal. Because every update is cumulative from 6 April, the corrected running total supersedes the earlier figure. There is no amendment process to go through and no need to contact HMRC.
What if I miss the 7 November deadline?
In the 2026 to 2027 tax year, no penalty point is issued for a late quarterly update, so the immediate cost is nothing. That easement ends with the year. From 2027 to 2028 a missed deadline earns a point, and four points produce a £200 penalty. Late tax returns and late payments are outside the easement and carry charges now.
Does my accountant submit the updates or do I?
Either. Where we act as your agent we prepare and file all four from your digital records through our HMRC Agent Services Account, and you approve the figures beforehand. Some clients prefer to keep the filing in-house with us reviewing the categories, which works equally well.
I run a business and let a property. Is that one update or two?
One submission window, two sets of totals. Each trade and each property business is a separate source with its own categories. UK property and overseas property count as two sources again.
Read next
Three guides that answer the questions readers ask straight after this one.
Who is in
Which income counts towards the qualifying income test, and which wave of the rollout you join.
The MTD ITSA income threshold, explainedWhat changes
How income tax filing itself is changing, from the sign-up letter through to the final declaration.
HMRC’s MTD income tax changesBackground
The wider Making Tax Digital picture, including how the VAT regime set the pattern.
Our full guide to Making Tax DigitalHand the four deadlines over
Four filing dates a year, off your desk and onto ours
Total Books files quarterly updates for sole traders and landlords across Cardiff, Newport and Bristol, and UK wide through the Virtual Finance Office. Records reviewed before anything reaches HMRC, a short call each quarter, and a fixed fee that includes all four filings and the return.
Written by Buhir Rafiq MAAT, founder of Total Books Accountants Ltd, HMRC Registered Tax Agent and Xero Certified Advisor. More about Buhir.
This guide is general information about UK tax rules current at 10 August 2026 and is not advice for your circumstances. Deadlines, penalty easements and HMRC guidance on Making Tax Digital can change. Any client outcome described is a past result for that client and not a promise of a similar result. Total Books Accountants Ltd is an AAT licensed practice and an HMRC registered tax agent. Please take advice before acting.
