The April 2027 checklist for letting agents

From 6 April 2027, landlords with more than £30,000 of income before costs are in Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. That is a much larger group than the April 2026 intake, and for most agencies it is the point where this stops being someone else's problem.

Last updated 30 July 2026

Who is caught

A landlord is in from April 2027 if their qualifying income is above £30,000. Three details decide whether a given landlord is on your list:

It is income before costs. Rent received, not profit. A landlord with £36,000 of rent and a £30,000 mortgage bill is over the line, because the £30,000 is measured against the rent coming in and not against what is left after costs.
Property and self-employment are added together. A landlord with £22,000 of rent and £12,000 from a small business is at £34,000 and is in, even though neither source alone would be.
It is per person, not per property. Jointly owned property is split by share, and each owner is tested on their share.

HMRC tests this against the tax return from two years earlier. For April 2027, that is the 2025 to 2026 return, filed by 31 January 2027. HMRC writes to the landlords it identifies, but those letters land late and go to the landlord, not to you.

The checklist

1. Build the list

List every landlord you act for, with their share of gross rent for the 2025 to 2026 tax year.
Use gross rent, before your commission and before any costs you settled from it.
Split jointly owned properties by ownership share, not down the middle by default.
Flag anyone above £25,000. They are close enough that a rent increase or a new property puts them over, and you would rather know now.
Remember that self-employment income you cannot see may push a borderline landlord over. Ask.

2. Decide what you are doing about each one

Filing for them, as a service you charge for.
Providing the records and letting their accountant file.
Handing it back entirely.

All three are defensible. What is not defensible is leaving it ambiguous until the week of the first deadline. Write to the affected landlords with your answer, in plain words, well before April.

3. Get the authorisations in place

You need an agent services account with HMRC.
Each landlord you file for has to authorise you for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax specifically. An existing authorisation for other things does not automatically carry over.
Start this months ahead. It is the step most likely to be the thing standing between you and a filed return on the deadline.

4. Fix your records before you need them

Check your figures hold gross rent with your commission as a separate cost. A system that only holds what you paid over will produce wrong updates. More on that here.
Get the accounting basis right per landlord. Cash or accruals changes which quarter a payment falls into, and it is not the same for everyone.
Make sure costs you pay on a landlord's behalf are categorised, not lumped into one figure.
Collect the compliance certificate costs. Gas safety, electrical and energy performance certificates are deductible and are routinely left out because the certificate and the payment live in different places.
Chase the landlord-side costs you do not hold, particularly mortgage interest. A landlord who supplies it once a year is a landlord whose quarterly updates will be wrong three times.

5. Work out the capacity

Four filings a year for every affected landlord, on four fixed dates: 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. Multiply your list by four and decide honestly whether the current process survives that.

There is a calculator on the letting agents page that does the arithmetic with your own numbers.

6. Decide what you are charging

Landlords are being quoted a few hundred pounds a year by accountants for the same four filings, and they are already paying you to hold the records those filings come from. An agency that treats this as unpaid admin is absorbing a cost its competitors are billing for.

The dates that matter

31 January 2027. The 2025 to 2026 returns are filed. This is the data HMRC tests the threshold against.
6 April 2027. The first quarter starts. Records must be digital from this date, not from the deadline.
7 August 2027. The first quarterly update is due.
April 2028. The threshold drops to £20,000 and catches most of the rest of your book.

The trap in that list is 6 April, not 7 August. The obligation to keep digital records starts when the quarter starts. An agency that begins in July has three months of records to reconstruct before it can file anything.

If you are already behind

Landlords above £50,000 have been in since April 2026, and plenty of agencies have missed quarters already. Because the figures are cumulative, catching up is a single filing rather than a reconstruction of every missed quarter. That is covered here.

Common questions

What is the MTD threshold for April 2027?

£30,000 of qualifying income, meaning income from property and self-employment added together, measured before costs are deducted. Landlords above that line must keep digital records and send quarterly updates from 6 April 2027.

Which tax year does HMRC test the threshold against?

The tax return two years earlier. For April 2027, that is the 2025 to 2026 return, which most landlords will have filed by 31 January 2027. HMRC writes to the landlords it identifies, but do not wait for that letter to work out your own list.

Is the threshold based on profit or on rent received?

Rent received, before any costs. A landlord with £36,000 of rent and a £30,000 mortgage is over the line, because the threshold is measured against the rent coming in and not against the profit left after costs. This is the single most misunderstood part of the rules.

Do jointly owned properties count once or twice?

Each owner reports their own share, and the threshold is tested per person on their share. Two people owning a property producing £40,000 of rent are each at £20,000, so neither is caught at the £30,000 threshold on that property alone.

What if a landlord goes over the threshold later?

They join at the start of the tax year following the return that put them over, with the same two-year lag. A landlord under the line today is not permanently out, and the threshold steps down to £20,000 in April 2028 regardless.