MTD Quarterly Update Deadlines: The Full 2026-27 Calendar

In short: For the 2026-27 tax year, HMRC's Making Tax Digital quarterly updates are due by 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. Each update is cumulative from 6 April, so it covers the whole year to date, and nil updates are mandatory. The final declaration is due by 31 January after the tax year ends.

If you're mandated into Making Tax Digital for Income Tax from April 2026, your reporting calendar has changed completely. Instead of one Self Assessment deadline a year, you now have four MTD deadlines for quarterly updates, plus the familiar 31 January final declaration. Get the shape of these deadlines wrong (especially the fact that each update is cumulative rather than a fresh quarter) and you'll either panic over nothing or catch yourself out for real. Here's the full 2026-27 calendar and how it actually works.

Disclaimer: This article provides general information only and does not constitute tax advice. Consult a qualified accountant or tax adviser about your circumstances.

The full MTD deadlines calendar for 2026-27

HMRC splits the tax year into four reporting periods, each with its own submission deadline:

Look closely at the "period covered" column and you'll notice it doesn't reset each quarter: every single period starts on 6 April. That's not a typo. It's the single most important thing to understand about how MTD quarterly updates actually work.

Why the updates are cumulative, not four separate quarters

Under the old mental model (four quarters, like school terms), you'd expect each update to cover just its own three-month slice: April to June, July to September, and so on. That's not what HMRC asks for.

Every MTD quarterly update is cumulative. Your August update covers 6 April to 5 July, much like a standalone quarter would. But your November update doesn't cover 6 July to 5 October in isolation. It covers 6 April to 5 October, the whole year so far. Your February update covers 6 April to 5 January. And your final update in May covers the entire tax year, 6 April to 5 April.

In practice, each update is a running year-to-date total of your income and expenses, not a series of four independent snapshots.

This matters for one big reason: small errors mostly correct themselves without a separate amendment. If you miscategorise an expense or miss a receipt during the period covered by your August update, you don't need to go back and formally amend that submission. Fix your underlying records, and the correction flows through into the larger, more accurate year-to-date figure you submit in November. Because each update recalculates from 6 April, in-year mistakes get absorbed into the next cumulative total rather than triggering a formal correction process. It's a more forgiving system than most people expect. If you've already missed a deadline outright rather than just misfiled a figure, see what actually happens when you miss an MTD quarterly update. The cumulative structure helps there too.

The calendar-quarter election

The standard periods above end on the 5th of the month, a quirk inherited from the traditional start of the UK tax year. If that's awkward for your bookkeeping (most bank statements and invoices run to calendar months, not the 5th), you can elect to use calendar-quarter periods instead: 1 April to 30 June, 1 April to 30 September, 1 April to 31 December, and 1 April to 31 March.

The deadlines themselves don't move. You still submit by 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May; only the period boundaries shift slightly to align with calendar month-ends. Most record-keeping and filing software let you set this election once, and it applies automatically to every period afterwards.

Nil updates are mandatory too

There's no threshold below which you can skip a submission. If you had no income and no expenses in a given period (a quiet spell, time between contracts, a vacant rental), you still need to submit a nil update by the same deadline. HMRC's system doesn't treat silence as "nothing to report"; it expects an update either way, even if every box is zero. For exactly what a quarterly update needs to contain (and, just as importantly, what it doesn't), see what actually goes in a quarterly update.

After the four updates: the final declaration

The four quarterly updates aren't your tax return. Once the tax year ends, you finalise everything through your final declaration, due by 31 January, the same date the Self Assessment deadline has always fallen on. This is where you add anything the quarterly updates didn't capture, such as capital allowances or reliefs, confirm your figures are complete, and trigger your actual tax calculation. If you're already familiar with the January deadline from previous years, our Self Assessment deadline guide covers what that submission itself involves.

Frequently asked questions

What are the MTD quarterly update deadlines?

7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. Each update is cumulative: it covers from 6 April (the start of the tax year) to the end of the latest period, not just the last three months.

Do I need to send an MTD update if I had no income or expenses?

Yes. Nil updates are mandatory, so a quiet quarter still requires a quarterly update by the normal deadline.

Can I fix a mistake in a previous MTD quarterly update?

Yes, easily. Because updates are cumulative, corrected figures simply flow through your next quarterly update. There's no separate amendment process during the year.

Is there still a tax return under Making Tax Digital?

Yes. After the four quarterly updates you finalise the year through your tax return by 31 January, as before. The quarterly updates don't replace it.

Building a rhythm that hits every deadline

Four deadlines a year sounds like a lot until you realise they map onto a simple habit: capture expenses as they happen, check your categorised totals a week or so before each deadline, and submit. Quarterly updates are just category totals (HMRC doesn't want your actual receipts), so the real work happens continuously in the background, not in a scramble the night before 7 August.

That's the gap Taxr fills. It isn't MTD filing software and won't submit your updates to HMRC directly; you'll still need MTD-recognised filing software or an accountant for that. What Taxr does is keep your expense records clean: photograph a receipt and the AI extracts the vendor, date, total and VAT, then suggests a tax-aligned category for you to confirm. By the time a deadline rolls around, your expense totals are already sitting there, ready to export as Excel or PDF for your accountant, or for your own MTD software if it can import the Excel file. For a fuller picture of how a records app and filing software work together, read MTD software vs receipt apps, and if you're not yet sure which threshold wave applies to you, run your numbers through our MTD threshold checker.

Download Taxr free and stop meeting quarterly deadlines with a shoebox of paper.