RentDue Stays · UK Tax Guide

Making Tax Digital for Holiday Lets: What Changed, and What to Do Before 7 November

August 13, 2026 · 7 min read

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax stopped being a future problem on 6 April 2026. The first quarterly update fell due on 7 August, and HMRC reported on 12 August 2026 that more than 436,000 sole traders and landlords had filed one, out of more than 864,000 in scope.

The next deadline is 7 November 2026. Below is who MTD catches, what it demands in practice, and where a phone app fits without pretending it files anything for you.

Does Making Tax Digital apply to my holiday let?

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies to you from 6 April 2026 if your qualifying income was more than £50,000 in the 2024-25 tax year. HMRC counts more than 864,000 sole traders and landlords in scope for this first wave. The threshold drops to £30,000 in April 2027 and to £20,000 in April 2028.

The £20,000 step is already legislated rather than merely announced, and HMRC estimates it pulls in around 970,000 more people. At that level, most hosts with a single well-booked property are inside the system. Source: GOV.UK guidance on when you need to use MTD.

Why does £50,000 catch more hosts than it sounds like?

Qualifying income is gross turnover before expenses, not profit, and HMRC adds your self-employment and property income together. A host with two well-booked cottages billing £26,000 each is over the line, even though cleaning, commission and mortgage interest leave far less in hand. Most hosts who assume they are under the threshold are measuring the wrong number.

HMRC states it plainly: "Qualifying income is your total income from self-employment and property. This is the amount before expenses (also known as turnover)." Your share of a jointly owned property counts, and so does foreign property if you are a UK tax resident. Employment income, dividends and pensions do not.

What are the MTD deadlines for 2026/27?

Four quarterly updates and one tax return make up an MTD year. The deadline is always one month and two days after the period ends, so the next one falls on 7 November 2026. Each update is cumulative from 6 April rather than a standalone quarter, which means a mistake in the first update gets corrected by filing the second one properly.

Signing up is not automatic, and that trips people up. From September 2026 HMRC will start enrolling people who should already be using MTD and have not signed up, which removes the excuse but not the work.

How many updates do I send if I have three cottages?

One quarterly update covers every UK property you let, however many cottages you run, because HMRC treats all UK land and property as a single property business. Overseas property counts as a second business and needs its own update. A host with three places in Cornwall files four updates a year; add an apartment in Spain and it becomes eight.

What counts as a digital record?

A digital record under the 2021 regulations is transaction-level: the amount, the date and the category of every booking and every expense. A monthly total typed into a spreadsheet does not meet that bar. RentDue Stays stores each booking and each cost that way on the phone as the season runs, which is the raw material the rules ask for.

The legal wording is specific. Regulation 6 of the Income Tax (Digital Requirements) Regulations 2021 requires records of "each of the transactions made in the course of the business", with the amount, the date and the category of each one. Reconstructing that in April from bank statements and a shoebox is where most of the pain lands.

Can I still use a spreadsheet or an app that isn't MTD software?

Yes, provided the handover to HMRC is a digital link rather than retyping. HMRC accepts linked spreadsheet cells, CSV or XML import and export, and API transfers, and it explicitly bans copy-paste between systems. RentDue Stays is not MTD-compatible software and files nothing to HMRC: the app keeps the records, and compatible software or an accountant sends them.

Nearly every MTD guide you will read is published by a software vendor, and they all end the same way: buy this. The honest version is that MTD splits into two jobs. Keeping dated, categorised records as the year happens is one job, and filing them through the HMRC API is a different one. A host who already tracks bookings properly needs the second piece, not a replacement for the first.

The one rule that matters when you combine tools: once a record has gone to HMRC in a quarterly update, you must not retype or copy-paste it between systems. HMRC's list of acceptable digital links appears in its guidance on creating digital records.

Being concrete about our own tool: the report RentDue Stays produces is a PDF for your accountant, not a digital link into filing software. If you file through an agent, that PDF is what they price the job from; if you file yourself, the numbers still have to reach compatible software.

What happens if I miss the November update?

No penalty points apply to late quarterly updates during 2026/27, the first year of MTD. From 6 April 2027 each missed update earns a point, and four points trigger a £200 penalty plus £200 for every later miss. Late payment charges are separate and already live: 3% of the tax outstanding after 15 days.

The grace year covers quarterly updates only. Penalties for a late Self Assessment return and for late payment apply as normal, so treating 2026/27 as a free pass on everything is the expensive reading.

What changed when the furnished holiday lettings regime ended?

The furnished holiday lettings regime ended on 6 April 2025 for individuals, and holiday lets are now taxed like any other residential property income. Four reliefs went at once: capital allowances, full mortgage interest deduction, the capital gains reliefs for trading assets, and counting the income as relevant earnings for pension contributions.

Two details do real damage and rarely make the summaries. First, kitting out a new property now attracts nothing: capital allowances are gone and Replacement of Domestic Items Relief only covers replacements, so the second washing machine is deductible and the first one is not. Second, the 50:50 default catches couples who used to split profit freely; changing it needs genuinely unequal beneficial ownership plus Form 17 within 60 days.

One myth worth killing: the end of the FHL regime does not by itself open the three-year window for Business Asset Disposal Relief. HMRC says so directly in CG73505: "The abolition of the FHL rules does not mean that a business has ceased for BADR purposes."

Do I have to register my holiday let in England?

No national registration scheme is running in England as of August 2026. GOV.UK files the section under the heading "Register your property (not yet in force)" and still calls the scheme "expected to begin in 2026". No regulations have been laid, and the most recent ministerial answer, on 14 July 2026, says only that "user testing is ongoing".

The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 gave ministers the power in December 2023, and the consultation closed in June 2023. Three years on, the formal response has never been published and the department says it is still assessing legislative vehicles. Compare that with Scotland, which has licensed short-term lets since 2022 and had granted 32,647 licences by June 2025.

Two things do bind an English host today. London keeps its 90-night limit per calendar year under the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973, and planning permission elsewhere is decided case by case by the local authority. Watch out for guides claiming England has a "C5" use class for short-term lets: that class exists in Wales, not in England.

What should I do before 7 November?

Three steps close the gap before the November deadline: check last year's gross rental turnover against £50,000, sign up or confirm your accountant has done it, and get every booking and expense since 6 April into dated, categorised records. RentDue Stays covers that last step on the phone, and its PDF report is what your accountant works from.

1. Check the right number. Gross turnover from property plus self-employment, before any expense, on your 2024-25 return.
2. Confirm you are signed up. Enrolment is manual until HMRC starts auto-enrolling in September 2026, and an accountant can do it for you.
3. Close the record gap. Every booking and cost since 6 April needs a date, an amount and a category — not a monthly total.
4. Decide who files. Compatible software or an agent. Records kept in a spreadsheet or in RentDue Stays are fine, as long as the handover to whoever files is a digital link and not retyping.

Keep reading: Short-Term Rental App for 1–3 Properties: Bookings and Real Profit · Why Your Rent Data Should Stay on Your Phone, Not the Cloud

This article explains published HMRC rules and is not tax advice. Thresholds and deadlines are those on GOV.UK as of 13 August 2026; check your own position with an accountant.