Easy MTD Income Tax Approval Delay: What You Need to Know

We are very sorry to confirm that Easy MTD's Making Tax Digital for Income Tax functionality will not be available before the first quarterly update deadline on 7 August 2026.

The functionality required to submit quarterly updates has been developed and tested. However, HMRC must separately approve Easy MTD for live Making Tax Digital for Income Tax submissions before we are permitted to enable it for customers.

Easy MTD is already approved for Making Tax Digital for VAT, but Income Tax requires a separate HMRC approval process.

Why Has Approval Taken So Long?

We began the HMRC approval process more than three months ago and have completed the technical work and testing requested from us.

HMRC has confirmed that testing of the relevant Income Tax endpoints was successful. The remaining approval work has included HMRC analysing the fraud prevention information sent by Easy MTD, which is required before live access can be granted.

HMRC's guidance states that checking an application to go live can take up to 10 working days. Unfortunately, the Easy MTD approval process has continued for considerably longer than this published timescale.

We have continued to communicate with HMRC and provide any information requested, but final approval has not been received in time for the first quarterly update deadline.

Until HMRC grants the necessary production approval, Easy MTD cannot connect to the live Income Tax services required to send customers' information. This means we cannot simply activate the functionality while approval remains outstanding.

What Is the 7 August Deadline?

For most customers using standard update periods, the first quarterly update covers digital records from 6 April to 5 July 2026. Customers using calendar update periods will generally report information covering 1 April to 30 June 2026.

The submission deadline for both types of update period is 7 August 2026.

A quarterly update is not a tax return. It is a summary of the income and expenses recorded for each relevant self-employment or property business.

Further guidance is available on the HMRC quarterly updates page.

Will I Be Fined If I Do Not Submit by 7 August?

HMRC has confirmed that it will not apply penalty points for late quarterly updates during the 2026/27 tax year. Customers who do not submit their first quarterly update by 7 August 2026 will therefore not receive a penalty for missing this particular deadline.

You will still need to:

• Continue creating and maintaining digital records.
• Submit the outstanding quarterly update at a later date.
• Submit all required quarterly updates before submitting your final declaration.

The penalty concession applies to quarterly updates during 2026/27. It does not remove the requirement to keep digital records, and it does not change the deadlines or penalties that apply to the late submission of the final declaration or late tax payments.

Further information is available in HMRC's guidance on Making Tax Digital for Income Tax penalties.

What Are My Options?

You have two options

Wait for Easy MTD Approval

You can continue maintaining your income and expense records and wait for Easy MTD to receive approval.

Once HMRC grants approval, we will release an Easy MTD update enabling customers to connect the Income Tax section to HMRC and submit their quarterly updates.

As HMRC is not applying penalties to late quarterly updates during 2026/27, customers may decide that waiting for Easy MTD is the simplest and least disruptive option - especialy if you already use Easy MTD for submitting VAT returns.

Please keep your records up to date while waiting. Customers using a spreadsheet should continue entering their transactions in the normal way so that the required totals are ready when submissions become available.

Use Another Software Product

We understand that some customers may prefer to submit by the deadline rather than wait.

HMRC provides a service for finding software that is currently recognised for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax:

Find software that works with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax

Before selecting another product, check that it supports:

• All your relevant income sources.
• Self-employment, UK property or foreign property income, as required.
• Your chosen quarterly update periods.
• The way you currently maintain your digital records.

You may return to Easy MTD once its Income Tax functionality has been approved and enabled. You are not forced to stick to one MTD solution and you can change to another at any time.

Make sure you retain your digital records and details of any submissions made using another product, as quarterly updates contain cumulative figures covering the tax year to date.

Customers who use an accountant or tax agent may also wish to discuss the available options with them before changing software.

What Is Easy MTD Doing Now?

We are continuing to pursue the approval with HMRC and will provide any further information required to complete the process.

As soon as approval is received, we will:

• Release an updated version of Easy MTD.
• Enable the appropriate Income Tax functionality.
• Update the Easy MTD website.
• Contact customers with instructions about how to prepare for and submit a quarterly update.

We do not want to provide a speculative release date while the final decision remains with HMRC. However, the necessary Easy MTD development work for quarterly updates has been completed, allowing us to act quickly once approval is granted.

We Sincerely Apologise

We recognise that you selected Easy MTD expecting to use it for your Making Tax Digital for Income Tax obligations. We are extremely sorry that HMRC's approval delay means this will not be possible before the first quarterly deadline.

Although the delay is outside our direct control, we understand the inconvenience and uncertainty it causes. We must also apologise for leaving this announcement so close to the first quarterly update deadline - we had hoped HMRC were going to approve Easy MTD at the eleventh hour.

Customers can either continue maintaining their records and submit through Easy MTD once approval is received, without incurring a penalty for the missed quarterly deadline, or use another approved product and return to Easy MTD when its Income Tax functionality becomes available.

We will publish further information as soon as there is a meaningful update from HMRC.