Free tool — UK
Making Tax Digital spreadsheet checker for sole traders
Two questions most sole traders actually have: can I keep using my spreadsheet under Making Tax Digital, and when are my updates due. This page answers both — enter your figures for a personalised schedule, then use the tables below to check your spreadsheet holds what HMRC requires.
Last reviewed 3 August 2026. Reviewed quarterly — thresholds and dates change.
The short answer on spreadsheets
A spreadsheet is not HMRC-recognised software and cannot submit anything by itself. HMRC does allow you to keep your digital records in a spreadsheet, provided it is digitally linked to bridging software that sends the quarterly updates for you. Anyone selling you an “MTD spreadsheet” — us included — is selling you the records half of that pair. Check current recognised products on GOV.UK’s software finder.
Your situation
Three inputs. Everything updates as you type.
Your quarterly update schedule
Cumulative from the start of the tax year — each update restates the year to date.
| Update | Period covered | Due | Status |
|---|
Readiness checklist
Tick what is already true. Nothing here is sent anywhere — print the page if you want it on paper.
Can you actually use a spreadsheet for Making Tax Digital?
Yes — and this is the part most articles get vague about, so here it is in plain terms.
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax asks two separate things of you. First, keep digital records of your business income and expenses. Second, send HMRC an update every quarter through software that talks to HMRC’s API. Those are different jobs, and they do not have to be done by the same product.
A spreadsheet is a perfectly legitimate way to do the first job. HMRC explicitly permits spreadsheets as digital records. What a spreadsheet cannot do is the second job: Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice have no connection to HMRC and are not on the recognised-software list. To file, you pair the spreadsheet with bridging software — a small product whose only purpose is to read figures out of your records and post them to HMRC.
So the honest answer to “can I use a spreadsheet” is: yes, as half of a pair. If a page or a seller tells you a spreadsheet alone is MTD-compliant, they are wrong, and if they tell you that you must move to a £30-a-month accounting package, they are selling. The middle path — a well-built spreadsheet plus a cheap bridging tool — is a route HMRC deliberately left open.
One condition matters more than the rest: the connection between the two has to be a digital link. Retyping your quarterly totals into the bridging software by hand does not count.
What HMRC actually requires in a digital record
The requirement is narrower than most people fear, and stricter in one place than most people expect.
| Requirement | What it means in a spreadsheet | Common failure |
|---|---|---|
| Amount | One numeric cell per transaction. Not a monthly lump sum typed from a bank statement. | Recording “March materials — £940” as a single row instead of the individual purchases. |
| Date | The date income was received or the expense incurred, in a real date cell so it can be sorted and assigned to a quarter. | Dates stored as text, which breaks every quarter formula silently. |
| Category | The Self Assessment category the item belongs to, picked from a fixed list rather than typed freehand. | Free-text categories that never total correctly at year end. |
| Kept digitally | Spreadsheet or software. A photo of a paper ledger is not a digital record. | Keeping the real book on paper and typing up a summary once a quarter. |
| Digital link to the filing software | Linked cells, a CSV or XML export, an emailed workbook, or an API transfer. The bridging tool reads the cells. | Reading the totals off the screen and typing them into the submission form. |
| Preserved | Kept for the normal Self Assessment record-keeping period, with the underlying receipts available. | Overwriting last year’s workbook instead of starting a new copy. |
Two simplifications worth knowing
Retail takings. If you sell to the public, you may record a single digital record of your daily gross takings rather than every individual sale.
Turnover under £90,000. Below that level you may use simplified categorisation — recording amounts as income or expenses rather than splitting expenses across the full category list. Most people still split them anyway, because the year-end return wants the detail and because the split is what tells you where the money went.
Deadlines: 2026/27 and 2027/28
Four dates, and they do not move. Quarterly updates are cumulative — each one covers from the start of the tax year to the end of that period, not just the last three months.
| Update | Period covered (2026/27) | Due | Period covered (2027/28) | Due |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | 6 Apr – 5 Jul 2026 | 7 Aug 2026 | 6 Apr – 5 Jul 2027 | 7 Aug 2027 |
| Q2 | 6 Apr – 5 Oct 2026 | 7 Nov 2026 | 6 Apr – 5 Oct 2027 | 7 Nov 2027 |
| Q3 | 6 Apr 2026 – 5 Jan 2027 | 7 Feb 2027 | 6 Apr 2027 – 5 Jan 2028 | 7 Feb 2028 |
| Q4 | 6 Apr 2026 – 5 Apr 2027 | 7 May 2027 | 6 Apr 2027 – 5 Apr 2028 | 7 May 2028 |
| Tax return | Full 2026/27 year | 31 Jan 2028 | Full 2027/28 year | 31 Jan 2029 |
First-year concession, and its limits
If you were required to join from 6 April 2026, HMRC has said it will not apply penalty points for late quarterly updates during the 2026/27 tax year. That concession covers quarterly updates only. From the following year a missed quarterly deadline earns one penalty point, and reaching four points triggers a £200 penalty. Penalties and interest for a late tax return or late payment are not affected at any point, and you still cannot file the return until the updates have gone in.
Who has to join, and when
Three thresholds, phased over three years, each judged on a specific year’s tax return.
| Qualifying income | On the return for | You must use MTD from | First update due |
|---|---|---|---|
| More than £50,000 | 2024/25 | 6 April 2026 | 7 August 2026 |
| More than £30,000 | 2025/26 | 6 April 2027 | 7 August 2027 |
| More than £20,000 | 2026/27 | 6 April 2028 | 7 August 2028 |
What counts as qualifying income
Qualifying income is your total income from self-employment and property, before expenses — turnover, not profit. If you have a trade and a rental flat, the two are added together. That surprises people: a sole trader turning over £38,000 alongside £14,000 of rent is over the £50,000 line even though neither business is anywhere near it on its own.
Excluded from the calculation: employment income taxed under PAYE, your share of a partnership, dividends, the State Pension and private pensions, income covered by qualifying care relief, and transition profits from basis period reform.
If you are new to self-employment
HMRC decides who is in scope by looking at a Self Assessment return you have already filed. If you have not filed one covering the relevant year, there is no qualifying income figure to test, so you are not pulled in on that date — your first return goes through the normal Self Assessment process and MTD starts from a later tax year. That is why this checker asks when you started trading.
Exemptions
Some people are exempt, most commonly on digital exclusion grounds — for example where age, disability, location or religious belief makes it impractical to use the software. Exemption is applied for, not assumed. See GOV.UK on MTD exemptions.
How this checker works
No magic, and no data leaves your browser. Here is the whole method so you can sanity-check it.
The calculation
- Your qualifying income is tested against each threshold in order — £50,000, then £30,000, then £20,000 — and the first one you exceed sets your start date. The test is more than, so exactly £50,000 falls into the £30,000 band and starts in April 2027.
- A band is skipped if you had not started trading by the end of the tax year HMRC assesses for it. Start during 2025/26 and there is no 2024/25 return, so the April 2026 date cannot apply to you.
- The schedule is generated for whichever is later: your first MTD tax year, or the tax year running today. Quarter end dates come from your update-period choice; the four deadlines are fixed.
- Days remaining are counted in whole days from today to the deadline, in UTC, so the number does not wobble across daylight saving.
- The final declaration date is 31 January following the end of the tax year shown.
What the inputs mean
- Qualifying income
- Turnover from self-employment plus property, before expenses, as filed. Not profit, and not including employment or pension income.
- When you started trading
- Used only to work out whether HMRC has a filed return covering the year behind each threshold.
- Update periods
- Standard periods end 5 July, 5 October, 5 January and 5 April. The calendar election ends them 30 June, 30 September, 31 December and 31 March. Deadlines are identical.
- The assumption you should check
- The checker applies one income figure to every threshold. HMRC re-tests each year against that year’s return, so if your turnover moves across a threshold your start date can move with it.
- What it does not know
- Exemptions, agent arrangements, partnerships, joint property, and whether you have already signed up voluntarily. For a determination, use HMRC’s checker.
Five mistakes that cost people money
1. Counting profit instead of turnover
The threshold is gross income. A trade with £64,000 of invoices and £20,000 of costs is over the line, not comfortably under it.
2. Forgetting the rental income
Self-employment and property are added together for the threshold test, then reported as separate businesses in the quarterly updates. Two sources, one threshold, two sets of figures.
3. Retyping totals into the bridging software
It feels harmless and it breaks the digital link requirement. Point the software at the cells instead — every bridging product is built to do exactly that.
4. Treating quarterly updates as final
They are cumulative in-year figures, not a filed return. Getting a category slightly wrong in Q2 is not a disaster; it is corrected by the next cumulative update and settled at the tax return. What actually causes trouble is not submitting at all.
5. Dating entries across the year boundary
The tax year runs 6 April to 5 April, not 1 April to 31 March. Invoices dated 1–5 April belong to the previous tax year, and a spreadsheet that assigns quarters by calendar month will put them in the wrong place every single year.
Questions
Can I use a spreadsheet for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax?
Yes. HMRC allows spreadsheets as your digital records, as long as they are digitally linked to software that can send the quarterly updates. The spreadsheet keeps the records; bridging software does the filing. A spreadsheet on its own cannot submit anything to HMRC.
Is a spreadsheet HMRC-recognised software?
No. Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice are not on HMRC’s list of recognised software and cannot connect to HMRC’s API. Any spreadsheet sold as an MTD template, including ours, is a record-keeping tool. You still need bridging software or a compatible all-in-one product to submit.
What is bridging software and what does it cost?
Bridging software reads the figures out of your spreadsheet and sends them to HMRC through the Making Tax Digital API. Products vary; some are free for basic use and paid options are commonly in the region of tens of pounds a year rather than a monthly subscription. Check current prices and HMRC recognition on GOV.UK’s software finder before you buy — we do not sell, resell or take a commission on any of it.
When does Making Tax Digital for Income Tax start for me?
It depends on your qualifying income. More than £50,000 on your 2024/25 return means you should have started on 6 April 2026. More than £30,000 on your 2025/26 return means 6 April 2027. More than £20,000 on your 2026/27 return means 6 April 2028. HMRC publishes an official checker that gives you a definitive answer.
What are the MTD quarterly update deadlines?
7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. They do not move for weekends or bank holidays, and they are the same whether you use standard tax-year quarters or elect calendar quarters.
Are quarterly updates cumulative?
Yes. Each update covers from the start of the tax year to the end of that update period, not just the previous three months. The fourth update therefore restates the whole year, which is why a correction made in quarter three is picked up automatically in quarter four.
What has to be in a digital record?
For each transaction: the amount, the date the income was received or the expense incurred, and the category. Retailers may record daily gross takings instead of individual sales. Businesses with turnover under £90,000 may use simplified categories rather than the full list.
Can I type my quarterly totals into the bridging software by hand?
HMRC’s rules require a digital link between your records and the software that submits them. Acceptable links include linked cells in spreadsheets, emailing a spreadsheet, CSV or XML import and export, and API transfer. Manually retyping figures is not a digital link, so point your bridging software at the cells rather than copying the numbers across.
What happens if I miss a quarterly update deadline?
From the second year onwards a missed quarterly deadline earns one penalty point, and a £200 penalty applies once four points are reached. For anyone required to join from 6 April 2026, HMRC has said it will not apply penalty points for late quarterly updates in the 2026/27 tax year. Penalties for a late tax return or late payment are unaffected.
Do I still file a Self Assessment tax return?
Yes. Quarterly updates are in-year estimates; the year-end return is where reliefs, adjustments and other income are dealt with. It is due by 31 January following the end of the tax year, and you must have sent your quarterly updates before you can submit it. Payment dates are unchanged.
Can I use calendar quarters instead of tax-year quarters?
Yes, if your accounting period runs 1 April to 31 March you can elect calendar update periods ending 30 June, 30 September, 31 December and 31 March. The submission deadlines stay at 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. Make the election in your software before the first update of the tax year.
I have just started trading. Am I in MTD straight away?
No. HMRC decides whether you are in scope from the qualifying income on a Self Assessment return you have already filed. If you have not filed one yet, your first return goes through the normal Self Assessment process and MTD applies from a later tax year once HMRC can see your figures.
General information, not tax advice
Vendwright is not an accountant, a tax adviser or an agent, and nothing on this page is advice about your circumstances. Rules, thresholds and dates change; we review this page quarterly, but HMRC is always the authority. If your situation is at all unusual — partnerships, jointly owned property, a claimed exemption, an agent already filing for you — speak to an accountant.
Sources
Page last reviewed 3 August 2026. Next scheduled review: November 2026.