https://www.noxia.co.uk/field-notes/four-hundred-and-thirty-six-thousand-of-eight-hundred-and-sixty-four · printed from noxia.co.uk · sources checked 23 September 2026
Field note · Lettings
436,000 filed. HMRC expected 864,000.
Two official numbers, published by the same department six months apart, describe the same population and do not meet in the middle. The gap is not a scandal and the comparison is not exact, but it is the most useful thing published about Making Tax Digital this year — because the penalty holiday ends in April.
The short answer
HMRC said on 12 August 2026 that more than 436,000 sole traders and landlords had sent their first Making Tax Digital quarterly update, and over 570,000 had signed up. In February 2026 it said more than 860,000 would need to start from 6 April. No penalty points are issued for late quarterly updates in the 2026 to 2027 tax year; from April 2027 one point applies per missed deadline and four points trigger £200.
On this page · 6 sections
HMRC published both of these figures itself, six months apart, and one proportion carries the whole story.
Why the two numbers are not strictly comparable
They are not the same measurement and it matters to say so.
- The 864,000 was a February forecast of who would need to start. Forecasts of scope are built from prior-year returns and are routinely revised.
- Some of that population is exempt or deferred — certain trustees, some foreign income cases, and people who have applied on digital exclusion grounds.
- Some will have fallen out of scope: income below the threshold, a business closed, a property sold.
- 570,000 signed up against 436,000 filed is the more troubling of the two gaps, because those are 134,000 people who took the deliberate step of registering and then did not send the update.
So the honest statement is not "half the country is non-compliant". It is that a substantial share of the named population has not yet filed, and that HMRC published both numbers itself.
What happens in April
The 2026 to 2027 tax year issues no penalty points for late quarterly updates. That is a deliberate soft landing and it expires. From April 2027 it is one point per missed deadline, four points in the window triggers £200, and the threshold falls to £30,000 qualifying income at the same time — so a larger population meets a stricter regime on the same day.
A quarterly update is not a tax return. HMRC describes them as short summaries sent through compatible software, and the Self Assessment deadline of 31 January is unchanged. The work is not the filing. The work is having the records in a form the software will accept, four times a year, which is exactly the part that does not happen by itself.
What this means if you hold other people's data
If you are a letting agent, a bookkeeper or anyone whose system holds the figures a landlord needs, this is the second year running in which the useful service is the same one: a categorised quarterly statement, delivered on a schedule, without being asked.
The 134,000 who signed up and did not file are the demand signal. They were willing. Something between willingness and filing stopped them, and in most cases it is that the numbers were not in a usable shape when the quarter ended. That is a pipeline problem, not a tax problem, and it is the same argument as the threshold note made in April. The penalty mechanics are separate.
What this does not tell you
It does not tell you how many of the shortfall are genuinely late rather than out of scope, because neither release breaks that down and we are not going to estimate it. It does not cover agents filing on clients' behalf, which may be counted differently.
And it is a snapshot from August. If you are reading this months later, the filed figure has moved and the useful thing is the current release rather than this one.
Questions people actually ask
How many people have filed a Making Tax Digital quarterly update?
HMRC said on 12 August 2026 that more than 436,000 sole traders and landlords had successfully sent their first quarterly update, and that over 570,000 customers had signed up to the service. The first quarterly update period ran from 6 April to 5 July 2026.
How many people are in scope for Making Tax Digital from April 2026?
HMRC said in February 2026 that more than 860,000 sole traders and landlords would need to start using digital tax reporting from 6 April. That was a forecast of scope rather than a count, and some of that population is exempt, deferred or has since fallen below the threshold.
Are there penalties for late MTD quarterly updates in the first year?
No penalty points are issued for late quarterly updates in the 2026 to 2027 tax year. From April 2027 one point applies per missed deadline and four points trigger a £200 fixed penalty. Self Assessment tax return penalties were never suspended, and the 31 January deadline is unchanged.
Why did more people sign up than filed?
HMRC published both figures without explaining the difference. The gap of roughly 134,000 is between people who took the deliberate step of registering and people who then sent an update, which suggests the obstacle sits after the decision — most often that the underlying records were not in a form the software would accept when the quarter ended.
Sources
- HMRC, “436,000 sole traders and landlords make their tax digital”, GOV.UK, published 12 August 2026: “More than 436,000 sole traders and landlords have successfully sent their first Making Tax Digital for Income Tax quarterly update”; over 570,000 customers have signed up; the first quarterly update period ran 6 April to 5 July 2026; quarterly updates “are not tax returns; they are short summaries sent through compatible software”; no penalty points for late quarterly updates in 2026 to 2027, and from April 2027 one point per missed deadline with four points triggering a £200 fixed penalty. gov.uk ↗ — primary; the tax authority reporting its own adoption figures re-checked every 30 days
- HMRC, “Act now: 864,000 sole traders and landlords face new tax rules in two months”, GOV.UK, published 5 February 2026: “More than 860,000 sole traders and landlords need to start using digital tax reporting from 6 April”, being those earning more than £50,000 from self-employment and property. gov.uk ↗ — primary, but a forecast of scope rather than a count. The comparison between the two releases is ours and its limits are stated in the note re-checked yearly
- The two figures measure different things — a February forecast of who would need to start against an August count of who had filed — and neither release breaks down how much of the shortfall is exemption, deferral or falling out of scope. We have not estimated it. — a stated limit on the comparison above
Checked 23 September 2026. Next scheduled check 23 October 2026. Numbers that move — leaderboards, live indices — are re-checked every 30 days; annual datasets and rules in force every six months; dated research once a year. If something here has gone stale before we got to it, tell us and we will correct it and say what changed.
Cite this note
Noxia, “436,000 filed. HMRC expected 864,000”, Field notes, 23 September 2026; sources checked 23 September 2026. https://www.noxia.co.uk/field-notes/four-hundred-and-thirty-six-thousand-of-eight-hundred-and-sixty-four
134,000 signed up and then did not file.
The obstacle sits after the decision: the records were not in a shape the software would take when the quarter closed. If your system holds the figures somebody else has to file, we build the categorised quarterly statement that goes out on a schedule — and the log proving it did.
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