{
  "title": "Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: the exact quarterly update categories",
  "description": "The income and expense categories a Making Tax Digital for Income Tax quarterly update must carry, by business type, copied verbatim from HMRC’s legal \"quarterly update direction\". Compiled because HMRC states them inside a legal notice split across four sections and does not publish them as a single machine-readable list.",
  "capturedOn": "15 August 2026",
  "method": "Every category is the exact wording of a cell in the tables of HMRC’s \"Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: quarterly update direction\". Nothing is paraphrased or inferred. The counts are simply the number of rows in each table.",
  "legalBasis": "This direction is made further to regulation 10 of The Income Tax (Digital Obligations) Regulations 2026.",
  "source": "https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/update-notice-for-making-tax-digital-for-income-tax/making-tax-digital-for-income-tax-update-notice",
  "sourceTitle": "Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: quarterly update direction",
  "sourceUpdated": "27 March 2026",
  "sections": [
    {
      "id": "self-employment",
      "name": "Self-employment (sole trader) — section 1 of the direction",
      "note": "A relevant person with trading income reports totals for these income and expense categories in every quarterly update. They are the same as the Self Assessment SA103F boxes.",
      "incomeCategories": [
        "Turnover",
        "Other business income"
      ],
      "expenseCategories": [
        "Cost of goods bought for resale or goods used",
        "Construction industry — payments to subcontractors",
        "Wages, salaries, and other staff costs",
        "Car, van, and travel expenses",
        "Rent, rates, power, and insurance costs",
        "Repairs and maintenance of property and equipment",
        "Phone, fax, stationery, and other office costs",
        "Advertising",
        "Business entertainment costs",
        "Interest on bank and other loans",
        "Bank, credit card and other financial charges",
        "Accountancy, legal and other professional fees",
        "Other business expenses"
      ],
      "incomeCount": 2,
      "expenseCount": 13
    },
    {
      "id": "uk-property",
      "name": "UK property — section 2.1 of the direction",
      "note": "A relevant person with UK property income reports totals for these categories. They are the same as the Self Assessment SA105 boxes.",
      "incomeCategories": [
        "Total rent",
        "Other income from property",
        "Premiums for the grant of a lease",
        "Reverse premiums and inducements"
      ],
      "expenseCategories": [
        "Rent, rates, insurance and ground rents",
        "Property repairs and maintenance",
        "Non-residential property finance costs",
        "Residential property finance costs",
        "Residential finance costs brought forward",
        "Legal, management and other professional fees",
        "Costs of services provided, including wages",
        "Travel expenses",
        "Other allowable property expenses"
      ],
      "incomeCount": 4,
      "expenseCount": 9
    },
    {
      "id": "foreign-property",
      "name": "Foreign property — section 2.2 of the direction",
      "note": "A relevant person with foreign property income reports these. HMRC groups foreign property expenses into a single allowable line rather than the itemised UK list.",
      "incomeCategories": [
        "Total rents and other receipts",
        "Premiums for the grant of a lease"
      ],
      "expenseCategories": [
        "Allowable property expenses (rent, repairs, legal fees, cost of services provided)"
      ],
      "incomeCount": 2,
      "expenseCount": 1
    },
    {
      "id": "jointly-let-property",
      "name": "Jointly let property — section 3 of the direction (income-only option)",
      "note": "For property you let jointly, the direction lets you choose: report the full section 2 categories, OR report income only during the year and add the expenses after the tax year ends, by resending your fourth quarterly update before you file. The income-only categories are listed here (UK; foreign is 'Total rents and other receipts' and 'Premiums for the grant of a lease').",
      "incomeCategories": [
        "Total rent",
        "Other income from property",
        "Premiums for the grant of a lease",
        "Reverse premiums and inducements"
      ],
      "expenseCategories": [],
      "incomeCount": 4,
      "expenseCount": 0,
      "expensesNote": "Expenses are optional in-year for jointly let property; add them after the tax year ends."
    }
  ],
  "caveats": [
    "These are the categories HMRC requires; individual software may word them slightly differently or group them, because MTD uses the same income and expense categories as Self Assessment.",
    "You can choose to categorise in less detail — a single consolidated income total and a single consolidated expense total instead of the breakdown — for any source of self-employment whose turnover is under £90,000, or where your total UK property turnover is under £90,000 (this also applies to jointly let property). At or above £90,000 the full category breakdown applies. Source: GOV.UK, \"Create and store digital records\" (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/use-making-tax-digital-for-income-tax/create-digital-records), read 22 August 2026. This dataset lists the full categories.",
    "A quarterly update is a summary, not a tax return: it carries these category totals for the year so far, and HMRC does not receive the underlying individual records.",
    "HMRC updates this direction. The linked GOV.UK direction is the live answer if this dataset has aged."
  ],
  "licence": "CC BY 4.0",
  "attribution": "Fableworks HQ — https://fableworkshq.com/mtd-quarterly-update-categories/"
}