The MTD Notebook · Getting ready · 13 August 2026

Preparing for MTD in April 2028: the £20,000 wave, and the year that decides it

The third and final announced wave of Making Tax Digital for Income Tax starts on 6 April 2028, for sole traders and landlords whose qualifying income is over £20,000. Two things make this wave different from the ones before it: £20,000 is the floor — there is no lower threshold on the timetable — and the tax year that decides whether you are in it, 2026–27, is the one you are living through right now. Here is who is in, how to check, what to get ready, and why this wave was confirmed later than the others. Every figure is checked against GOV.UK and dated.

1. Who joins in April 2028 — and why £20,000 is the floor

MTD for Income Tax is being switched on in three waves, each set by a lower threshold of qualifying income. The April 2028 wave is the £20,000 one — and it is the lowest threshold on the published timetable.

GOV.UK is explicit: if your qualifying income is over £20,000 for the 2026 to 2027 tax year, you will need to use MTD from 6 April 2028. Below that, the timetable stops. There is no announced wave under £20,000 — GOV.UK says only that partnerships “will also need to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax in the future” and that the timeline for them will be set out later. So for individual sole traders and landlords, £20,000 of qualifying income is the line between being in the system and being outside it for the foreseeable future.

What qualifying income is — and the two things people get wrong

Qualifying income is your total income from self-employment plus property, before expenses — the turnover figure, not the profit. Two consequences trip people up, and they matter more at £20,000 than at £50,000 because far more people sit near this line:

• It is turnover, not profit. A landlord with £22,000 of rent and £9,000 of mortgage interest and costs has £13,000 of profit — and is still in the April 2028 wave, because £22,000 of rent is over £20,000. The bill you pay tax on is not the figure that decides whether you are mandated.
• Employment and investment income does not count. A salary, a pension, dividends and savings interest are all excluded. Only self-employment and property turnover go into the test. Someone earning £45,000 in a job with an £8,000 side trade is not mandated on that basis.

The threshold is “more than” £20,000. Qualifying income of exactly £20,000 does not cross it, and £20,000 or less carries no MTD start date under the current timetable. On the boundary between having a legal obligation and not, that one word settles it.

2. The year that decides it is the one you are in

Here is what makes the April 2028 wave different to watch than the first two. The £50,000 and £30,000 waves were decided by returns that had already been filed by the time anyone was preparing. The April 2028 wave is decided by your 2026–27 return — and the 2026–27 tax year runs from 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027. It is happening now.

That 2026–27 return will be due by 31 January 2028, just over two months before the wave starts. But you do not need to wait for the return to be filed to know where you stand: add up your self-employment and property turnover for the year so far, project it to 5 April 2027, and you have your answer well ahead of time. This wave was also confirmed later than the others — the £20,000 extension was announced at the Autumn Budget in November 2024 and only firmed up in legislation during 2025 — so a lot of people in the £20,000–£30,000 band still do not realise a start date now applies to them.

3. How to check where you stand

You do not need to wait for a letter. For the year in progress, add together:

• your self-employment turnover (total takings/sales, before expenses), and
• your property income (total rents received, before expenses).

If the total for 2026–27 is over £20,000, your start date is 6 April 2028. HMRC also publishes a checker that walks through the same test and tells you when you need to start and whether you might be exempt. To sign up when the time comes you must be registered for Self Assessment and have submitted a return in the last two years — and you still need to file your ordinary 2026–27 and 2027–28 Self Assessment returns as usual before MTD begins.

If your total is over £30,000, you are not waiting until 2028 at all — you are in the April 2027 wave, decided by your 2025–26 return. Working it out now is the only way to know which of the two applies to you.

4. What “getting ready” actually means

The requirement is narrower than the marketing around it suggests. From your start date you must do two things: keep digital records of your business income and expenses, and send a quarterly update to HMRC four times a year using compatible software. That is it. There is no extra return, and the quarterly updates carry no payment and no tax calculation.

So “getting ready” is mostly about the records, not the filing. The people who find the first quarter painful are the ones who arrive at the deadline with the figures still in a carrier bag; the people who find it a five-minute job are the ones already recording income and expenses digitally, in something that totals itself. If you do nothing else before April 2028, move your bookkeeping into a spreadsheet or app that keeps a running total — the format the quarterly update needs.

5. You have the longest run-up of any wave — use it

The April 2028 wave has an advantage the first two never had: it goes last. Two full cohorts will have filed real quarterly updates before you start, and every rough edge they hit will have been written up. You also have the option to sign up voluntarily before 6 April 2028, to practise while the stakes are lower.

One caveat worth knowing before you volunteer or worry: the penalty-free easement for missed quarterly updates applied to the 2026–27 tax year only. By the time the April 2028 wave starts, the points-based late-submission penalties are fully live, so this wave — like the 2027 one — does not get a free first year for its quarterly updates. That is not a reason to panic: a point is not a fine, the threshold takes several misses to reach, and points clear after a period of compliance. It is a reason to have your records working before April 2028 rather than learning on the job. Our penalties note explains exactly how the points and the separate late-payment charge work.

6. Your first year, on one calendar

If your 2026–27 income puts you over £20,000, this is the run-up and the first year:

Quarterly updates are cumulative — each one restates the tax year to date rather than reporting a single quarter, so a mistake in one is superseded by the next. They carry no payment. Your liability is still worked out once, at the final declaration, and your payments on account on 31 January and 31 July are unchanged. MTD changes the reporting, not the paying.