What is the 7 February MTD deadline?

Checked against GOV.UK on 14 August 2026 · Applies from 6 April 2026 onwards.

“If it is over £50k, then you have about 8 days to submit the first MTD return, so you are running late.”

We hear this most. a landlord counting the days for someone else, OpenRent Community forum, 31 July 2026 — someone in the same position as you.

Short answer

Your third quarterly update, covering 6 April to 5 January (or 1 April to 31 December on calendar periods).

Here are the dates, in the order they arrive. Your next quarterly update is due 7 November 2026, and because updates are cumulative it covers 6 April to 5 October 2026 — so it also catches up 7 August 2026 if you missed it. Your tax return for 2026 to 2027 is due 31 January 2028, and that one is still in the points system. And from September 2026 HMRC has been signing people up itself, in stages, if they had not signed up.

You are not alone, and this is the measured version of that sentence. HMRC put 864,000 sole traders and landlords in scope for this tax year (HMRC, 5 February 2026), and reported on 12 August 2026 that 436,000 had sent a first quarterly update and 570,000 had signed up. We have not subtracted one from the other to make a "how many are behind" headline — they were published six months apart and count different things — but you can see the size of the room you are standing in.

What to do tonight

ten minutes, tonight, with a calendar open

Write down 7 November 2026. That is your next quarterly update, and it covers 6 April to 5 October 2026 — the whole run from the start of the tax year, not just the last three months.
Add 31 January 2028 underneath it. That is the tax return for this year, and unlike the quarterly updates it does carry penalty points.
Check which of your four dates fall at a weekend. Two of them do this year, and nothing in the regulations moves them to the Monday.

None of those three steps costs money. Anyone charging you to do them is selling you something HMRC gives away.

Where these come from, on GOV.UK: quarterly updates and their deadlines · the tax return · who has to use MTD, and when · working out qualifying income · the recognised-software finder · what to do if HMRC signed you up.

The free route, before anyone sells you a subscription

HMRC publishes the official list of software recognised for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, and its own guidance says plainly that “free products are available for those with simple tax affairs”. We drove that finder ourselves on 1 September 2026 and it returns recognised products costing £0 — for sole traders and for landlords, including bridging tools that submit straight from a spreadsheet you already keep. We take no commission from any of them, we rank none of them, and this site carries no affiliate links.

HMRC's official software finder (gov.uk) · how bridging software works · the free two-number check · your own four dates

Signing up for Making Tax Digital is free at GOV.UK. So is the checker on this page, and so is every answer on this site.

7 February is the third quarterly update deadline. It lands a week after the 31 January tax return deadline, which is the single most common source of confusion in the MTD year.

What the 7 February update covers

Update periods you use	Period covered
Standard (accounting period ends 5 April)	6 April to 5 January
Calendar (accounting period ends 31 March)	1 April to 31 December

Why 31 January and 7 February are not the same thing

They belong to different tax years. On 31 January you submit the tax return for the tax year that ended the previous April. On 7 February you send a quarterly update for the tax year currently running. In the first MTD year that means filing a 2025 to 2026 return the ordinary way on 31 January 2027, and sending a 2026 to 2027 quarterly update on 7 February 2027 — two different jobs, six days apart.

Penalties run separately too

A late tax return and a late quarterly update each attract their own penalty point under the new points system, and £200 is charged when you reach four points. For the 2026 to 2027 tax year, quarterly updates carry no penalty points — late tax returns still do.

MTD versus Self Assessment →

Questions people ask

Is 7 February the tax return deadline?

No. The tax return deadline is 31 January. 7 February is the third quarterly update deadline, for the tax year currently running.

Andrew at Axion Labs

The dates are the part people lose sleep over, and they're genuinely the easy part — there are four of them and they're the same every year. The bit that catches people isn't the date, it's what the update covers: it runs from the start of the tax year each time, not just the last three months. I've generated every date on this page from the regulations rather than typing them, because a site that prints one wrong deadline is worse than no site at all.

Sources

General information about UK tax rules, not tax advice. Your own circumstances and HMRC's official guidance govern your position. If you are unsure, speak to an accountant or contact HMRC. Tax rules change — if this page is more than a few months old, check the GOV.UK pages linked above. Found an error? Email hello@getaxionlabs.com and we will correct it.

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