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MTD ITSA Quarterly Checklist (2026/27): Every Step + Every Deadline

By Remus Pantea · 28 May 2026 · 9 min read

Quick answer: Four cumulative quarterly updates a year — due 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May — plus a Final Declaration on 31 January. Each quarterly update is a six-step workflow: gather receipts, reconcile to bank, categorise, total cumulatively year-to-date, submit via HMRC-approved software, save the confirmation. The first tax year (2026-27) is a soft-landing year — no penalty points for late quarterly updates.

Who has to do this?

MTD ITSA is mandatory for sole traders and landlords whose gross income from self-employment + property exceeds the threshold for the relevant tax year. The threshold uses gross turnover before expenses, not profit, and is being phased in (full background in our Making Tax Digital UK guide):

  • £50,000 from 6 April 2026 (qualifying-income test: 2024-25 tax return)
  • £30,000 from 6 April 2027 (qualifying-income test: 2025-26 tax return)
  • £20,000 from 6 April 2028 (qualifying-income test: 2026-27 tax return)

If your gross income is below the relevant threshold you continue on the standard once-a-year Self Assessment cycle. Once you're in, you can only opt out again after three consecutive tax years below the threshold. PAYE employment income is excluded from the test — only self-employment plus property counts.

Which year is your first quarter? Our MTD Join Date + Deadline Checker tests your qualifying income for each phase and tells you whether your first quarterly deadline is 7 August 2026, 2027 or 2028 — plus the full calendar of subsequent deadlines and the Final Declaration date.

The four 2026/27 deadlines

HMRC's standard quarters run from 6 April. Each update is cumulative year-to-date — so the second update covers 6 April to 5 October (not just July to October), the third covers 6 April to 5 January, and so on. The deadline is the 7th day of the second month after the quarter ends.

QuarterPeriod covered (cumulative)Submission deadline
Q16 April – 5 July7 August 2026
Q26 April – 5 October7 November 2026
Q36 April – 5 January7 February 2027
Q46 April – 5 April7 May 2027
Final DeclarationFull 2026-27 tax year31 January 2028

You can elect to use calendar quarters instead (1 April – 30 June etc.) — the deadlines shift to the 7th of the following month accordingly. Most sole traders stick with the standard quarters because they line up with the tax-year start.

Penalties — first-year soft landing for 2026-27

HMRC's new MTD penalty regime is points-based. You get one penalty point for each late quarterly update; once you reach the threshold (currently four points for quarterly obligations) you trigger a £200 penalty. Points expire after 24 months of compliance.

For the first tax year (2026-27 only) HMRC has confirmed a soft landing: no penalty points will be applied for late quarterly updates. The final declaration (31 January 2028) is still subject to the standard Self Assessment penalty regime.

Late-payment penalties also have a 2026-27 light-touch period. The first 2% late-payment penalty normally kicks in 15 days after the due date — for the first year of operation, taxpayers who engage with HMRC have a 30-day grace period before the 2% penalty is assessed. The new harmonised regime applies in full from April 2027.

The points threshold drops to 2 points from April 2027 for everyone on Self Assessment — so the soft landing is genuinely a one-year window of grace, not a permanent reprieve.

The 6-step quarterly workflow

Step 1 — Confirm the period

Check the exact start and end dates of the cumulative period. Standard quarters run from 6 April: Q1 covers 6 April – 5 July; Q2 covers 6 April – 5 October; Q3 covers 6 April – 5 January; Q4 covers 6 April – 5 April. (Calendar quarters work the same logic, just on different start dates.) Your MTD software handles the period dates automatically once you've made the election.

Step 2 — Gather all receipts and invoices

Pull every business receipt, invoice, and bank statement covering the period. The submission itself is digital totals only — but HMRC can ask for the underlying records during an enquiry, and the only receipts that count are the ones you can produce. A receipt scanned on the day it happens needs zero memory work later; a receipt found in a coat pocket three months later is archaeology.

HMRC also requires digital record-keeping — you can't keep a paper shoebox and type figures into the software at quarter-end. Records of each transaction (date, amount, category) must exist in MTD-compatible software from the moment the transaction happens. A receipt-capture app that exports to your MTD software counts.

Step 3 — Reconcile against bank transactions

For every business bank transaction, identify the matching receipt or invoice. Anything unmatched needs explaining: was it personal use? An owner draw? A category you forgot to record? Reconciliation is what turns "raw scans" into "submission-ready figures". A dedicated business bank account makes this a 20-minute job; mixed personal/business banking turns it into a half-day archaeology dig.

Step 4 — Categorise income and expenses (cumulative)

Sort each transaction into HMRC's standard categories. The main expense categories sole traders use, mapped to the SA103F box numbers your software will use behind the scenes:

  • Cost of goods bought for resale or goods used (Box 17)
  • Construction industry — payments to subcontractors (Box 18)
  • Wages, salaries and other staff costs (Box 19)
  • Car, van and travel expenses (Box 20)
  • Rent, rates, power and insurance costs (Box 21)
  • Repairs and maintenance of property and equipment (Box 22)
  • Phone, fax, stationery and other office costs (Box 23)
  • Advertising and business entertainment (Box 24 — entertainment of clients is NOT allowable)
  • Bank, credit card and other financial charges (Box 26)
  • Irrecoverable debts written off (Box 27)
  • Accountancy, legal and other professional fees (Box 28)
  • Other business expenses (Box 30)
  • Annual Investment Allowance / capital allowances (Box 49 onwards)

Each quarterly update is cumulative year-to-date, not just the quarter on its own. So your Q2 submission shows totals for 6 April to 5 October, not just 6 July to 5 October. Your software handles the carry-forward automatically.

Step 5 — Submit via approved software

The actual submission is summary figures only — total income, total per expense category. You don't send individual transactions. But you must submit through HMRC-approved MTD-compatible software; manual web-form filing has been retired for MTD. The list of compatible software is maintained by HMRC.

Step 6 — Save the confirmation

HMRC returns a submission receipt with a reference number. Save it in your records folder for the period — alongside the receipts and the categorised totals. That receipt is part of your audit trail. If HMRC ever queries the figures, you reproduce them from the underlying records and point at the receipt as proof of submission timing.

What HMRC actually wants in each update

  • Total business income for the cumulative period (year-to-date)
  • Total expenses for the cumulative period, split by HMRC standard categories
  • Period dates (handled by your software)
  • Your unique taxpayer reference (UTR) and self-employment ID (handled by your software)

That's it. No receipt images, no transaction-level detail, no commentary. The summary IS the submission.

What HMRC does with the submission

HMRC stores the figures and shows you a running estimate of your tax liability through the MTD dashboard. No tax is actually due based on quarterly submissions — they're informational only. The Final Declaration (due 31 January after the tax year ends) is what locks in the tax for the year. Any tax owed for 2026-27 is due by 31 January 2028, with the usual payments on account on 31 January and 31 July if your bill is over £1,000.

The big shift: 1 → 5 filings a year

For most sole traders this is the most disruptive change since Self Assessment was introduced in 1996. You go from filing 5 times a year instead of 1: four cumulative quarterly updates plus the annual Final Declaration. The work isn't the submission itself — it's the discipline of keeping digital records all year round, instead of doing everything in a January panic. Most of the gain from MTD comes from forcing weekly habits.

Common mistakes to avoid

  • Submitting non-cumulative figures. Each update is year-to-date, not just the quarter. Reset-each-quarter is the most common mistake first-time filers make.
  • Trying to file through gov.uk's standard online portal. MTD ITSA submissions must go through HMRC-approved third-party software. There is no MTD ITSA web form.
  • Forgetting capital items. A laptop bought in Q2 affects the cumulative total. Under cash basis (default for sole traders since April 2024) include it with other expenses in the period of purchase.
  • Mixing personal and business spending. Every personal transaction on a business card has to be excluded — and HMRC's data-matching can flag inconsistencies.
  • Assuming the soft landing covers everything. The 2026-27 soft landing only suspends quarterly-update penalty points. Late-payment penalties (with their own grace period) and Final Declaration penalties still apply. Don't treat it as a year off.
  • Missing the threshold by ignoring property income. The threshold is combined self-employment + property gross income. A sole trader with £25,000 trade and £15,000 rental income totals £40,000 — caught from 6 April 2027.

How to halve the time per quarter

The slowest part is Step 2 (gathering) and Step 3 (reconciling). Two changes that work:

  • Capture receipts daily, not quarterly. A receipt scanned on the day it happens needs zero memory work later. A receipt found in a coat pocket three months later needs you to remember what it was for, who paid, and which job it relates to.
  • Use a dedicated business bank account. Mixed personal/business banking turns Step 3 into archaeology. A clean business account makes reconciliation a 20-minute job.
  • Pick MTD software with bank-feed integration. Software that pulls transactions automatically from your bank and matches them to receipts cuts out 80% of the manual work.
  • Block 60 minutes in the diary the week the deadline lands. Treat it like a fixed appointment, not "something I'll get to". Most missed deadlines are diary problems, not workload problems.

Bottom line

The quarterly update itself is small — you're submitting summary figures via approved software. The real work is in the prep: gathering, reconciling, categorising. Front-load the prep into daily habits and each quarterly submission becomes a one-hour task. Leave it to the deadline and it becomes a weekend ordeal. The 2026-27 soft landing is your one-year window to build the habit before penalties start biting in April 2027.

Sources

Make Step 2 a 5-minute job, not a 5-hour one.

PocketReceipt scans receipts in seconds, categorises by HMRC type, and exports a quarterly summary you can drop into your MTD software.

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