FreeAgent is one of the better MTD ITSA platforms in the UK — but only if you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Mettle, or Ulster Bank. For everyone else (about 85% of UK current account holders), FreeAgent costs £19/month for a basic sole-trader plan or £29/month for a landlord plan. Over five years that is £1,140 to £1,740 — a meaningful sum to spend on software whose competitors offer the same MTD compliance for free. This guide walks through every "free MTD" option that doesn't tie you to a specific bank, and what each one actually costs in the long run.
Why is FreeAgent only free with NatWest?
NatWest acquired FreeAgent in March 2018 for £53 million. As part of the strategy that justified the acquisition, NatWest bundles FreeAgent free with its business current accounts as a customer-acquisition and retention tool — keeping small business customers inside the NatWest ecosystem. The economics of the deal mean FreeAgent has every reason to keep its retail (paid) pricing high enough that switching to NatWest banking looks attractive: the higher the FreeAgent retail price, the more compelling the "free with NatWest" hook becomes.
This is fine commercially — NatWest paid for the privilege — but it puts non-NatWest customers in a difficult position. To get FreeAgent free you must either move your banking (a non-trivial operational headache) or pay £19–£29/month. There is no "free for everyone" tier and there has never been any indication that NatWest intends to open one.
Which banks does VoxaMTD work with?
VoxaMTD uses Finexer, an FCA-registered Account Information Service Provider, to pull transactions via open banking. Finexer connects to the major UK banks under PSD2/Open Banking standards. The supported list as of May 2026 includes:
- High street: Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander, Halifax, Nationwide, Co-operative Bank, TSB, First Direct, M&S Bank.
- Challengers and digital: Starling, Monzo, Revolut, Wise, Atom, Chase UK, Marcus, Cynergy, Vanquis.
- SME and business: Tide, ANNA Money, Cashplus, Allica, OakNorth, Mettle, Card One Money, Recognise, Triodos, Ulster.
- Specialist landlord and property: Hampshire Trust, Aldermore, Shawbrook, United Trust Bank.
The connection is read-only. VoxaMTD reads your transactions and balances. It cannot move money, send payments, or change account details. Authorisation lasts 90 days under PSD2 SCA rules — at the end of each 90-day period you re-authorise via a one-tap flow in your bank's app. Most users do not even notice.
What about ANNA Money — is that really free?
ANNA + Taxes is free only if you also bank with ANNA. ANNA is a digital business banking platform that bundles bookkeeping and tax submission with the current account. To use the free MTD product, you have to move your business banking to ANNA. For freelancers who already use ANNA this is fine. For everyone else, you face the same lock-in pattern as FreeAgent — switch banks or pay separately for software.
ANNA's bookkeeping is competent for sole traders. It does not natively support property income, so landlords cannot file rental quarterly updates from ANNA. If you have any rental property at all, ANNA is not a complete MTD solution.
What about Starling Accounting — is that free?
Starling Accounting is included in Starling's "Business Toolkit", which costs £7/month and is available only with a Starling business current account. It is sometimes pitched as "free MTD" because the Toolkit fee is small relative to FreeAgent — but it is not actually free, and it requires Starling business banking. Like ANNA, it is sole-trader focused and does not support landlord rental property income.
Starling personal current accounts cannot use Starling Accounting. The Toolkit is business-account-only. Sole traders using a personal Starling account cannot use the bookkeeping product at all.
What about Sage Sole Trader Free?
Sage launched a free Sole Trader product in late 2025 to compete with FreeAgent and QuickBooks. It is not bank-locked, which is welcome — you can use any UK bank. The free tier covers basic income and expense tracking and quarterly MTD ITSA submissions. Limitations:
- Property income is not supported. Sage's free tier is sole-trader-only. Landlords need a different product.
- The free tier is positioned as a feeder for Sage Accounting (£14/month) — once your needs grow, you upsell.
- Bank feeds are functional but the categorisation engine is rules-based rather than learning, so you do more manual work than on platforms with stronger AI.
For a pure sole trader without rental property who is happy with Sage's UI, this is a reasonable free choice. For anyone with mixed income or landlord property, look elsewhere.
What about QuickFile?
QuickFile offers a permanent free tier with up to 1,000 ledger entries per year, MTD VAT and MTD ITSA support, and bank feeds for any UK bank via Open Banking. It is bank-agnostic and the free tier is genuinely free with no time limit. The 1,000-ledger-entry cap is fine for a small sole trader (about 80 transactions a month) but tight for a busy freelancer or a landlord with multiple properties.
QuickFile's UI is functional rather than polished — closer to a 2010-era accounting product than to FreeAgent or Xero. The MTD ITSA flow works but lacks the per-property structuring that landlords need. For a solo freelancer with simple finances and tolerance for an older interface, QuickFile is a defensible free choice.
What about Clear Books Free?
Clear Books offers a free MTD plan for sole traders and landlords with no bank lock-in. It supports MTD VAT and MTD ITSA quarterly updates and final declaration. The free tier limits some features (multi-currency, advanced reporting, projects) but the core MTD functionality is included. Clear Books's UI is older than VoxaMTD or FreeAgent but the product is robust.
The main weakness for landlords is that Clear Books treats property income generically rather than per-property. You can tag rent receipts to a property using categories, but there is no native multi-property dashboard, no Section 24 mortgage interest auto-handling, and no built-in foreign property income flow.
The only MTD software that is free with any UK bank, for both sole traders and landlords
VoxaMTD is the only HMRC-recognised MTD ITSA platform we have found that satisfies all four criteria simultaneously:
- Free for the core MTD compliance flow — quarterly updates, EOPS, final declaration — with no time limit and no transaction cap.
- No bank-account requirement — works with any UK current account via FCA-registered open banking.
- Supports both sole-trader and landlord income, including hybrid filers who have both.
- Native per-property accounting with Section 24 finance-cost handling and foreign property support.
The free tier excludes premium features — Alex AI voice accountant, multi-user agent access for accountants, and advanced reporting — but every MTD ITSA submission requirement HMRC mandates is included on the free plan with no payment ever required.
How to switch from FreeAgent to VoxaMTD
If you already have a FreeAgent account, the migration path is straightforward.
- Export your FreeAgent data. In FreeAgent, go to Accounting → Reports → Trial Balance, and export the year-to-date data as CSV. Also export your bank transactions (CSV) and any open invoices.
- Sign up for VoxaMTD. Email and password — no card.
- Connect your bank account. Use Finexer's open banking — even if it's the same NatWest account that previously fed FreeAgent. The connection is independent of FreeAgent.
- Import historic transactions. Upload the FreeAgent CSV. VoxaMTD's import handles common FreeAgent column formats and matches them to MTD ITSA categories.
- Reconcile against current bank balance. The import is at-cost — you should see the closing balance match your bank.
- Connect HMRC. One OAuth pair-up authorises VoxaMTD for MTD ITSA on your behalf. Your existing FreeAgent OAuth stays attached to FreeAgent — you can revoke it later in HMRC's online services.
- Cancel FreeAgent (optional). If you bank with NatWest, FreeAgent stays free — you can keep both running for a quarter as a parallel test if you want belt-and-braces. If you bank elsewhere and pay £19+/month, cancel after one full quarterly submission has run cleanly through VoxaMTD.
Allow about 45 minutes for the full migration. Most of that time is reviewing categorisations on the imported transactions — the AI handles 80–90% automatically but you'll want to spot-check the rest.
What does "free forever" actually mean?
VoxaMTD's free tier is funded by the optional paid tiers — Alex AI and Professional Plus — that include Alex (the voice AI accountant), priority support, and the agent portal for accountants. The free tier covers our marginal hosting cost; the paid tiers fund the development. There is no commitment or contract on the free tier — you can cancel, you can stop using it, you can keep it running indefinitely with no payment ever being requested.
We are bootstrapped with no venture capital pressure to monetise free users aggressively. The business is built around the agent portal (£3 per client per month for accountants) and the consumer Alex AI upgrade. Keeping the consumer free tier free is core to the strategy because it drives word-of-mouth and lets accountants standardise on one tool across all their clients.
If you'd like to start now, VoxaMTD is free for any UK landlord or sole trader, with any UK bank, with no NatWest account required.