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What is MTD income sources?
Last verified 31 October 2026
MTD income sources are the separate self-employment and property businesses you report through Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. You send quarterly updates for each source.
Why it matters to landlords
HMRC treats all your UK properties as one UK property business, including UK furnished holiday lets from April 2025, and all foreign properties as one foreign property business. Renting out another property of the same type is not a new source. A new self-employment or property source is added in your HMRC online account before you submit your return, with its start date.
Digital records and quarterly updates for a newly added source only begin after you have submitted a return that includes it for the first time, though you can choose to start earlier. If a source stops while others continue, you finish the updates for it up to the stop date and then report it on your return. Selling one UK property while you still let others does not need notifying, because the property business carries on. Partnership, dividend and employment income are not added as sources this way.
Example
Rhys has a UK property business with two houses and starts self-employed gardening on 1 July 2026. He adds the gardening source in his HMRC account. Under HMRC's example for a source starting that date, it goes into his 2026 to 2027 return, due 31 January 2028, and quarterly updates for it start on 6 April 2028.
MTD for Sole Traders With Rental Income (2026) →
Related terms
- UK property business
- Foreign property income
- MTD for Income Tax (MTD ITSA)
- Quarterly update
- HMRC online services account