For landlords who started using Making Tax Digital for Income Tax in April 2026, the first quarterly update is now behind them. The next deadline is 7th November 2026.

The second update should feel more familiar. However, it is not simply a repeat of the first submission. It is an opportunity to review the digital records created since April, correct anything that was missed or categorised incorrectly and make sure the figures remain complete.

One important point is frequently misunderstood: MTD quarterly updates are cumulative. Your second update covers the tax year to date, not only the three months since your first submission.

This guide explains what that means, how to deal with errors and what landlords should check before submitting their next update.

What period does the second update cover?

Most landlords use standard update periods aligned with the tax year.

Under the standard schedule, the second quarterly update covers:

6th April to 5th October 2026

The deadline for submitting it is:

7th November 2026

Some landlords whose accounting period runs from 1 April to 31 March may use calendar update periods. In that case, the second update covers:

1 April to 30 September 2026

The deadline is still 7th November.

Your update-period choice applies separately to each property or self-employment business. HMRC says that calendar update periods must be selected before the first quarterly update is submitted. Once an update has been sent, you cannot change the update periods being used for that tax year.

If you are uncertain which basis you selected, check your compatible software or speak to your accountant before preparing the next update.

Your second update is cumulative

Under MTD for IT, each quarterly update includes totals from the beginning of the tax year to the end of the relevant update period.

That means a landlord using standard periods will not submit figures covering only 6th July to 5th October. The second update will contain cumulative totals covering 6th April to 5th October.

For example, suppose your records show:

• £12,000 of rental income and £2,500 of expenses between 6th April and 5th July
• A further £12,500 of rental income and £3,000 of expenses between 6th July and 5th October

Subject to the categories used in your software, the second update would contain cumulative totals reflecting £24,500 of income and £5,500 of expenses.

Your compatible software should calculate these totals from your underlying digital records. You should not have to add the two quarters together manually.

This cumulative approach is particularly useful when something from the first quarter needs to be corrected.

What if the first update contained a mistake?

Finding an error after submitting a quarterly update does not normally mean that you must reopen and resend that earlier update.

HMRC says that digital records should be corrected as soon as possible after an error is identified. Because subsequent updates are cumulative, the corrected record can be reflected in the next update.

Imagine that you submitted your first update and later discovered that:

• A rental payment had been omitted
• A repair had been entered twice
• A letting-agent fee had been recorded as rent
• A personal transaction had been included as a property expense
• An expense had been assigned to the wrong category

The starting point is to correct the underlying digital record in your compatible software. The revised tax-year-to-date figures should then flow into the next cumulative update.

This is different from adding a manual adjustment solely to make the quarterly total look right. The digital records themselves should remain the underlying source of the figures submitted.

HMRC also distinguishes between correcting a record and making an annual tax or accounting adjustment. Quarterly updates are summaries of income and expense records. You do not need to make tax or accounting adjustments before submitting them.

Adjustments for matters such as capital allowances, disallowable expenses, reliefs, prepayments or accruals are generally dealt with as part of the year-end process before the tax return is submitted.

If you are unsure whether something is an ordinary bookkeeping correction or a tax adjustment, ask your accountant before changing it.

Review the records behind your first update

The period between quarterly submissions is a useful time to check the quality of your record-keeping process.

Consider reviewing the following areas.

Rental income

Check that all rent received during the period has been recorded.

If a letting agent collects rent for you, compare your digital records with the agent’s statements. Make sure that the records correctly reflect rent, management fees and any other deductions shown on those statements.

The amount paid into your bank account may be a net figure after the agent has deducted fees or paid costs on your behalf. Recording only the net bank receipt may therefore leave income or expenses missing from your records.

Property expenses

Check that expenses incurred in connection with the property business have been captured and placed in an appropriate category.

Typical records may include repairs, maintenance, insurance, professional fees, letting-agent charges and costs of services. Whether an expense is allowable for tax, and whether it should be treated as revenue or capital expenditure, can depend on the circumstances. Quarterly updates do not require year-end tax adjustments, but the underlying transaction should still be recorded accurately.

Keep the supporting evidence you would normally retain for Self Assessment, including invoices, receipts, bank statements and agent statements.

Bank feeds

A bank feed can reduce manual work, but it does not remove the need to review the records.

Check for:

• Missing transactions
• Duplicate transactions
• Personal payments that should not be included
• Property transactions made through another account
• Payments whose description does not explain their purpose
• Agent deductions that do not appear as separate bank transactions

HMRC says it remains the taxpayer’s responsibility to check that digital records are accurate before a quarterly update is sent.

Digital links

If you use more than one piece of software, information must move between the products through an accepted digital link.

Digital links can include spreadsheet formulas, CSV imports, file transfers, automated transfers and API connections. HMRC’s guidance says that copying or retyping information manually between products is not an acceptable way to move digital records after they have been created and submitted.

If you use a spreadsheet alongside submission software, check that the process preserves the digital link rather than relying on manual re-entry.

What if nothing happened during the quarter?

A quiet period does not remove the quarterly reporting requirement.

If you received no property income and incurred no property expenses during the latest period, HMRC says you must still send a quarterly update. The update tells HMRC that there was no new activity.

Remember that the update is cumulative. Depending on your circumstances, the submission may therefore still show the income and expenses recorded earlier in the tax year, even though there was no new activity during the most recent period.

Do not assume that having no new transactions means there is nothing to submit.

Check jointly owned property records

Joint ownership can introduce extra points to review.

Each joint owner is responsible for reporting their taxable share of the income from jointly let property. For quarterly updates, each owner can independently choose to report either their share of the income and expenses, or their share of the income only.

If an owner chooses income-only reporting, HMRC allows their share of the joint-property expenses to be reported after the end of the tax year. The expenses must be added by resending the fourth quarterly update before the tax return is submitted. A related record-keeping easement allows the owner to create one digital record for each category of joint-property expense incurred during the tax year.

This easement applies only to jointly let property. Income and expenses relating to any solely owned properties must still be included in the quarterly updates.

Where you also own properties individually, both income and expenses for those solely owned properties must be included in the quarterly updates.

Before the second submission, check that:

• The correct ownership percentages are being used
• Each owner is recording their appropriate share
• The treatment of joint-property expenses is consistent
• The records do not duplicate the full property figures for every owner

HMRC also confirms that joint landlords do not need to digitally link their records to one another. Each person remains responsible for their own records and submissions.

UK and foreign property are treated separately

Landlords with both UK and overseas rental income should make sure the two property businesses are not mixed together.

For MTD purposes, multiple UK properties are generally treated as one UK property business. The compatible software brings those UK records together into one quarterly update.

Foreign properties form a separate foreign property business. HMRC says digital records must be maintained separately for each foreign property, including the landlord’s share where a foreign property is jointly let. Those records are then combined into the quarterly update for the foreign property business.

If you have both UK and foreign rental income, check that all required updates are being prepared and that transactions have been assigned to the correct business.

What does HMRC receive?

A quarterly update contains totals for the income and expense categories used in your digital records.

HMRC does not receive the details of each individual invoice, receipt or bank transaction as part of the quarterly update.

The update is also not a completed tax return. It does not require the full set of annual tax and accounting adjustments, nor does it finalise how much tax you owe.

After an update is submitted, your software or HMRC online account may show an estimated tax bill. Treat this as an evolving estimate rather than a final liability.

Its accuracy can be affected by incomplete records, other income that has not yet been included and differences between your accounting period and the tax year.

When can you submit?

For standard periods, the second update period ends on 5th October 2026. For calendar periods, it ends on 30th September.

You can normally submit after the relevant period has ended and before the 7th November deadline.

There is no advantage in waiting until the deadline itself. Submitting earlier leaves time to resolve authorisation, software or record-keeping problems.

What if you missed the first deadline?

If you did not submit the first quarterly update by 7th August, it still needs to be sent.

HMRC has confirmed that it will not apply late-submission penalty points for quarterly updates during the 2026–27 tax year. You must nevertheless submit the outstanding quarterly updates before you can submit the tax return for the year.

The first-year concession should not be treated as permission to ignore missed submissions. Bring the digital records up to date, submit the outstanding update and make sure the next deadline is included in your calendar.

HMRC says penalty points can still apply to a late tax return for 2026–27. After the first MTD year, late quarterly submissions will also move into the points-based penalty system.

Your second-update checklist

Before submitting, check that you have:

• Recorded all rental income received since the beginning of the tax year
• Reconciled bank transactions and letting-agent statements
• Captured expenses paid outside the main property bank account
• Removed personal or duplicated transactions
• Corrected errors found in the first quarter’s digital records
• Assigned transactions to appropriate categories
• Preserved digital links where more than one product is used
• Included the correct share of jointly owned property income
• Prepared separate records and updates for foreign property where applicable
• Submitted an update even if there was no new activity
• Reviewed the cumulative totals generated by your software
• Allowed time to resolve software or HMRC-authorisation issues
• Recorded the 7th November 2026 deadline

The key takeaway

The second quarterly update is not a fresh, isolated return. It is a cumulative summary of your property records from the beginning of the tax year.

That makes accurate ongoing bookkeeping more important than trying to reconstruct a set of figures immediately before each deadline. Review what happened in the first quarter, correct the underlying records and use the period before 7th November to establish a repeatable process.

The objective is not to make every year-end tax decision during the quarter. It is to maintain complete digital records and provide HMRC with the required summary on time.

See how landlords can maintain digital property records and submit MTD updates with Hammock.