Making Tax Digital, or MTD, has been rolling out in stages for a few years now, and it's easy to lose track of who it applies to and when. If you've heard the name mentioned and moved on, now's a good time to check whether — and when — it lands on your desk. The rules don't apply to everyone at once, so the first job is working out where you actually sit.

What MTD actually means

At its core, MTD means no more paper records and no more spreadsheets kept in isolation. Instead, records are kept digitally and submissions go through HMRC-approved software rather than being typed into an online portal by hand. The idea is fewer errors, less duplication, and a tax system that runs closer to real time instead of catching up once a year.

It's a genuine shift in how tax administration works in the UK, not a one-off form change. Once you're in scope, the expectation is that digital record keeping becomes the normal way you run your books, not an occasional exercise before a deadline.

The timeline

MTD isn't landing on everyone at once — it's been phased in by business type and income level:

  • VAT-registered businesses — already in scope, since April 2022.
  • Landlords and sole traders earning over £50,000 — from April 2026.
  • Landlords and sole traders earning over £30,000 — from April 2027.

If you're VAT-registered, this is already business as usual. If you're a landlord or sole trader sitting above either threshold, the clock is now running, and it's worth getting your systems sorted well before the deadline rather than scrambling in the final weeks.

What it means for you day to day

In practice, MTD means keeping digital records of income and expenses as you go, rather than reconstructing a year's worth of receipts from a shoebox in January. For income tax, it also means submitting quarterly updates to HMRC rather than one annual return — a bigger shift in habit than in actual workload, once it's set up properly.

The businesses that find this hardest are usually the ones still working from spreadsheets or paper right up until the deadline. The businesses that find it easiest are the ones who were already keeping digital records for their own benefit, MTD or not — because for them, the compliance requirement is just a formal version of something they're already doing.

Worth saying too: quarterly updates aren't the same as a full tax return four times a year. They're closer to a running summary of income and expenses, with the fuller reconciliation still happening annually. It's more frequent, but each individual submission is lighter than people often assume.

Software already sorted

Every Buzz package includes FreeAgent, which is HMRC-recognised for MTD. That means digital record keeping, bank feeds, receipt capture and the actual submissions are already built into how we work with clients — you're not left sourcing and configuring separate software on top of everything else. If you're VAT-registered, this is already in place. If you're a landlord or sole trader approaching either threshold, there's no reason to wait until April to get it sorted.

For the full breakdown of who's affected and what's required, our Making Tax Digital page covers it in more detail — worth a look if you want to check exactly where you sit on the timeline.

If you're not sure whether either threshold applies to you, or you just want the software and process sorted before the deadline arrives rather than after, that's exactly the kind of thing worth getting ahead of. It's a much smaller job done calmly in good time than it is done under pressure in the final weeks before April.