Making Tax Digital for landlords.

Does it apply to you?

HMRC checks your Self Assessment return each year. Your qualifying income is your total income from property and self-employment, before expenses.

• Jointly owned property: only your share counts. If you and a sibling each receive half of £50,000 in rent, each of you has £25,000 of qualifying income from it.
• Foreign property: counts if you're UK tax resident. If you aren't, only your UK property income counts.
• Doesn't count: employment income taxed through PAYE, dividends (including from your own company), pensions, and your share of a partnership's profit.

Quarterly updates

Each update gives HMRC your totals for each income and expense category, from the start of the tax year to the end of the quarter. You send one even if you had no rent or costs. You can choose calendar quarters instead, from 1 April, with the same deadlines.

If you own property jointly

For a jointly let property, your quarterly updates can include either the income and expenses, or the income only. If you leave the expenses out, you report them after the tax year ends by sending your fourth quarterly update again, before you file your tax return. Property you own alone must include both.

Your spreadsheet, or ours

• Keep your spreadsheet: our UK property and foreign property templates link your records to HMRC, so nothing is retyped.
• Or record as you go: add each rent and expense in Clients Assistant on HMRC's own property categories, including foreign tax credit relief for foreign property.
• Use one way for each property business in a tax year, so nothing is counted twice. You can switch at the start of a new tax year.

What it costs

Your first return is free on any plan, with no card needed. Prices are half price for your first year while the offer lasts, and annual billing saves two months.