Missed the 7 August MTD Deadline? Here’s What to Do Before 7 November

By Robert Marjoram, Together Accounting, August 2026

If your first MTD quarterly update didn’t reach HMRC by 7 August, you haven’t broken anything. There are no penalties for a missed quarterly update in the 2026-27 tax year, and Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is built in a way that lets your next submission put most of it right. The date that matters now is 7 November 2026.

I’d rather you heard that from us than spent August assuming a fine is in the post. Plenty of sole traders and landlords in the first wave missed 7 August, some because the software wasn’t talking to HMRC, some because a quarter of receipts was still in a carrier bag.

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What Happens If You Miss an MTD Quarterly Update Deadline

HMRC put a soft landing on the first year, and the wording is worth quoting exactly: “There are no penalties for missing a quarterly update deadline for the 2026 to 2027 tax year.” No penalty point, no £200 charge, no interest.

It doesn’t stay that way. From 6 April 2027 the points-based late submission regime switches on. You pick up one penalty point per missed deadline, and at four points you get a £200 penalty, then another £200 for every miss after that. Points do clear, but only once you’ve kept a run of deadlines and filed everything outstanding.

Here’s my honest view. The easement isn’t there so you can ignore the first year, it’s there so you can get the habit wrong once without paying for it. Treat 2026-27 as optional and you’ll reach April 2027 with no routine, no clean records, and a penalty regime live from day one.

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Your Next MTD Quarterly Update Is Due 7 November 2026

The most misunderstood thing about Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is what an update period covers. Your second quarterly update doesn’t run from 6 July. It runs from 6 April again.

HMRC puts it like this: “Each time you send a quarterly update it will cover from the start of the tax year to the end of the update period, not just the previous three months. This means you can correct your records without having to resend previous updates.”

So the update due on 7 November covers 6 April to 5 October, a full six months. It includes every figure that would have been in your 7 August submission plus the three months since. That’s why missing Q1 isn’t the disaster it feels like.

The cumulative structure doesn’t delete the obligation, though. HMRC is explicit that you still need to keep digital records and send quarterly updates before you can submit your tax return, so don’t read “no penalty” as “skip it”. Send the Q1 update as soon as your figures to 5 July are in the software. It takes minutes and it turns November into a routine submission rather than a catch-up.

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What to Do Between Now and 7 November

Four steps, in order.

1. Get your records to 5 July into your software. Bank feeds, sales invoices, receipts, mileage. This is the bit people put off, and the only bit that takes real time.
2. Check your software is connected to HMRC, then send the missed Q1 update. A lot of first-wave misses were authorisation failures, not forgetfulness. If you never saw a confirmation, it never arrived.
3. Code July, August and September as you go. A steady monthly bookkeeping routine makes each quarterly update a ten minute job instead of a November scramble.
4. Diary 7 November now. Before you close the laptop.

One silver lining if you haven’t submitted anything yet. You can’t change your update periods for a tax year once you’ve sent a quarterly update, so if your books run 1 April to 31 March, calendar update periods are the tidier option and that door is still open. Decide before you file the late Q1.

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What Goes in a Quarterly Update

Here’s the thing that calms most people down: a quarterly update under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax isn’t a tax return, and it isn’t four tax returns. You’re not calculating tax, claiming reliefs or making adjustments four times a year.

It’s a running total of your income and expenses by category, sent to HMRC for each business you run. Summary figures, not individual transactions. HMRC doesn’t see your invoices, only the category totals from your digital records. Capital allowances, private use adjustments and the mortgage interest restriction all wait until the Final Declaration.

The categories mirror the old Self Assessment boxes. Self-employed: turnover and other business income, against goods for resale, CIS subcontractor payments, wages, car and travel, premises, repairs, admin, advertising, loan interest, bank charges, bad debts, professional fees and a catch-all. UK property: total rents received, lease premiums and rent-a-room income, against premises costs, repairs, financial costs such as mortgage interest, professional fees, cost of services, travel and other allowable costs.

HMRC is firm on one point: report gross income. If a letting agent or booking platform takes its cut before paying you, the full rent is your income figure and the fee goes in separately as an expense.

If a business turns over less than £90,000 you can report consolidated expenses instead of the full breakdown. Ignore that shortcut. Your Final Declaration needs the detail anyway, so consolidating now just banks work for January 2028.

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Two Scenarios to Make This Concrete

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Common MTD Quarterly Update Mistakes

• Treating each update as a standalone three months. Every update is cumulative from 6 April. Don’t reset to zero.
• Forgetting the second business. Self-employment plus property means two updates. Two trades means two updates.
• Applying the mortgage interest restriction too early. Enter the full interest paid in financial costs. The restriction to a basic rate 20% credit is a year-end job at the Final Declaration.
• Reporting rent net of agent commission. Some software imports the agent’s net payment straight off the monthly statement. Check it’s pulling gross rent.
• Assuming the old Furnished Holiday Lettings rules still apply. That regime went from 6 April 2025. A former holiday let reports through the standard UK property categories.
• Acting on the in-year tax estimate. It ignores your other income and year-end adjustments, so it isn’t your tax bill.

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What the Soft Landing Doesn’t Cover

Two things aren’t waived, and this is where I have to be blunt.

The Final Declaration deadline of 31 January 2028 still bites. The easement is written for quarterly updates only, so miss the return deadline and you pick up a penalty point like anyone else. All four quarterly updates have to be in before you can file it.

The late payment rules still apply too. Pay within 15 days of the due date and there’s no penalty. At 16 to 30 days late it’s 3% of the tax owed at day 15, or nothing if it’s your first year in the regime. From 31 days you’re looking at 3% at day 15 plus 3% at day 30, and on top of that an annual rate of 10% charged daily from day 31 until the tax is paid. From 2027-28 those percentages rise to 4%. The detail sits on HMRC’s penalties guidance.

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We Can Take This Off Your Plate

Around three in four businesses in your position already work with an accountant, and a missed first deadline is usually the moment that starts to look sensible. We handle Making Tax Digital for Income Tax start to finish, from digital records and expense categories through to submitting each quarterly update on time and pulling it together for the Final Declaration in 2028.

If 7 August came and went and you’d rather not spend October second-guessing which category the van insurance goes in, get in touch. We’ll get the missed update filed and November lined up. If you’re still on the basics, our guide to Making Tax Digital for landlords and sole traders covers sign-up and software.

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MTD for Income Tax: Frequently Asked Questions

What happens if I missed the 7 August MTD deadline?

Nothing, financially. HMRC’s guidance says there are no penalties for missing a quarterly update deadline in the 2026-27 tax year. You still need to send it, because all four updates are required before you can file your Final Declaration.

When is my next quarterly update due?

7 November 2026. It covers 6 April to 5 October 2026, so it includes the figures from the quarter you missed.

Do I still need to do a tax return?

Not the old Self Assessment return. The Final Declaration replaces it and it’s due 31 January 2028 for the 2026-27 tax year. Our self-assessment service covers both the quarterly updates and the year-end declaration.

What if I have both self-employment and property income?

You send a separate quarterly update for each income source. Same deadlines, distinct submissions, cumulative totals of income and expenses by category in each.