Send a quarterly update

A quarterly update sends HMRC a cumulative (year-to-date) summary of your income and expenses for a chosen quarter. You do not type any totals: the app builds the figures from the transactions you have recorded, and you review and confirm them on the Send update to HMRC screen.

Supported tax years

Quarterly filing through this service starts at 2026/27. Earlier records and submission history remain available, but earlier returns need your existing filing service. Keep the actual transaction dates, including 1 to 5 April records that can belong to a calendar update.

What a quarterly update is

A quarterly update is one of the two things HMRC tracks under Making Tax Digital (quarterly updates and your tax return). It sends HMRC a cumulative, year-to-date summary of your income and allowable expenses for the chosen quarter.

There are four standard quarters in a tax year:

• Q1: 6 April to 5 July
• Q2: 6 July to 5 October
• Q3: 6 October to 5 January
• Q4: 6 January to 5 April

Important: The figures are built automatically from the transactions you record in the app. There is no box for typing a total. The sanctioned way to bring in figures from a spreadsheet or bank export is Import transactions from CSV, which brings each row in as a real transaction. Your quarterly figures are then calculated from those records.

Before you start

1. Record your income and expenses first. Add each item against the property or business it belongs to, either by hand or with CSV import. See Recording income and expenses.
2. Connect HMRC and set your National Insurance Number. Both are required before any submission. See Connect your HMRC account.

Note: Recording and reviewing your figures is free on every plan. The submission screen tells you if filing needs a subscription on your account and offers MTD Lite in place. Record your income and expenses first, then submit once HMRC is connected and your National Insurance Number is set.

Send a quarterly update

1. Open Send update to HMRC. Go to /tax/submit. You can also reach it from the dashboard or from the Deadlines page using Prepare update or Send now. The page heading is Send update to HMRC.
2. Pick the tax year and a quarter. Choose the tax year, then select a quarter tile on the timeline. Which quarters appear, and which are overdue, come from HMRC's own obligations, not from a date the app guesses.
3. Review the figures. Check the Cumulative figures · year to date cards (income, expenses, and finance costs). Each card's large figure is the year to date in pounds and pence (on a jointly owned property, your share), so you can check it to the penny against your records; This period under it is the chosen quarter on its own. The expenses card shows all your allowable expenses; anything in it that goes with your year-end figures instead, such as replacing domestic items, is noted under it. If you have chosen to send your share of joint-property expenses with your year-end figures, the card shows your expenses after that is held back, with a note of how much. If the screen cannot work out your share, it shows your expenses before it is held back, the Send to HMRC panel gives no figures, and the confirm dialog says the figure is worked out when sent; your update still holds your share back. The Send to HMRC panel beside the cards says exactly what this update will send, whenever the screen can work it out.
4. Send. Click Send Qx to HMRC (or Send now if the quarter is overdue).
5. Confirm. In the Confirm and send dialog, tick I confirm these figures are correct and click Send. HMRC usually responds within a few seconds and a success screen appears.

Tip: If a quarter button reads Opens with a date and is locked, its submission window has not opened yet. Wait until the displayed date. The app shows your due dates (from HMRC) on the Deadlines page: see Your deadlines and HMRC obligations.

Self-employment is per business

Self-employment updates are filed per business at /self-employment/[businessId]/submit (breadcrumb Self-employment / Submit). If you have a single business, opening /tax/submit takes you straight there; with more than one business, or with both income types, you first choose which to file. Self-employment quarter requirements are trading-date-aware, so a business that started part-way through the year only shows the quarters from its start onward. The steps on the page are the same as above.

Note: Tracking self-employment is available on every plan. The submission screen tells you if filing needs a subscription on your account, the same as property.

See your next update before you send it

If the card at the top of your Transactions or All transactions page has a Preview next update button (it is also on the home page and beside a property deadline on the Deadlines page), it opens Your next update so far, which shows what your next UK property update would carry from what you have recorded up to now: the dates it covers, your income, expenses and finance costs, and each figure HMRC would receive. On jointly owned properties it sets the amounts you recorded in full beside your share, which is what counts. Notes explain anything that is left out or sent later, such as capital spending or replacing domestic items.

It is a preview. Nothing is sent until you submit the update on this screen, and the figures change as you add or edit transactions.

The figures are cumulative

Every quarterly update carries the whole tax year to date, so a later update naturally supersedes an earlier one. You do not amend a single quarter in isolation: you record the change and your next update carries it. After your last quarterly update, use Send Q4 again on the Q4 update until you submit your tax return (if it is not shown there, contact support); after that, use Amend this return. Anything still outstanding is settled at the end of the year, when you submit your tax return, which covers everything HMRC holds for you for the year. See The cumulative model and corrections.

If something goes wrong

• Submit is disabled with "Complete HMRC setup to enable submission". Your National Insurance number or HMRC connection is not set up yet. Connect HMRC and enter your National Insurance number in Settings. See Connect your HMRC account.
• You see "No filing obligations" instead of a quarter timeline. HMRC returned no obligations for that year (for example, you are not signed up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax for that year, or the year is out of scope). The app will not invent a timeline. Check the earliest fileable year shown, or see Not signed up for Making Tax Digital yet?.
• A business says "No quarterly updates" or "Annual reporting". HMRC has that business on annual reporting for the year (possible in a new business's first tax years), so it expects no quarterly updates for it. Settings, then HMRC, shows each business's reporting for those years.
• When you choose what to send, a business is marked "not linked here". HMRC expects updates from a self-employment business that no business in the app is linked to, so nothing can be sent for it from here. Open it to see HMRC's quarters on What's due; Settings, then HMRC, lists every income source HMRC holds for you.
• When you choose what to send, a card says "We could not load your businesses" or "We could not load your properties". The app could not read your businesses or properties, usually a brief connection problem, so it does not offer to add them again. Anything you have already sent to HMRC is not affected. Reload the page in a moment; if it keeps happening, raise a support ticket from Support in the sidebar.
• A banner says you are not signed up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. Your HMRC account is not signed up yet. Sign up via the link in the banner, then come back and refresh. If the banner remains after HMRC confirms your sign-up, use Reconnect in Settings so the fresh authorisation picks up your enrolment.
• "Your figures have changed since you reviewed them, so nothing was sent." Your records changed after the screen loaded, for example in another tab. Reload the page, check the figures, then send the update.
• "We could not confirm your business's start date for this update, so nothing was sent." The screen could not confirm when your business started, so its figures may have been counted from the wrong date. Reload the page, check the figures, then send the update.
• "This update is no longer a nil update." (self-employment) You confirmed a nil update, but there is now income or expenses in this period. Reload the page and send the update with the normal declaration.
• A quarter button reads "Qx ends before commencement" and is locked. The quarter ended before your business started trading, so HMRC will not accept it. Pick the quarter that contains your start date, or a later tax year.
• "We could not load your figures for Qx" with a Try again button. Part of the figures for that quarter did not load, on the property or the self-employment screen, usually a brief connection problem. Anything you have already sent to HMRC is not affected. Click Try again. If it keeps happening, reload the page; if that does not help, raise a support ticket from Support in the sidebar.
• "We could not load your HMRC connection" with a Try again button. The screen could not read your HMRC connection details, usually a brief connection problem. Anything you have already sent to HMRC is not affected. Click Try again. If it keeps happening, reload the page; if that does not help, raise a support ticket from Support in the sidebar.
• "Subscribe to see and send this quarter's figures" on a self-employment business. Working out the year-to-date figures you send to HMRC is part of the paid plan. Your records are saved. View plans shows your options. See Plans and pricing.
• "This update was already sent to HMRC." HMRC already has this quarter's update, so nothing new was sent, and the quarter now shows as sent. Reload the page to see where your updates stand. To change the figures, add or correct your records: they go in your next update, or, when your Q4 update shows Send Q4 again, use that (available until you submit your tax return, or while you are amending it).
• "We could not start sending this to HMRC, so nothing was sent. Please submit it again." The app could not get your update ready to send, usually a brief connection problem on our side, so it stopped before contacting HMRC. Nothing reached HMRC. Send it again; if it keeps happening, contact support.
• "Your HMRC connection has changed since this page loaded, so nothing was sent. Reload the page and try again." Your HMRC connection was changed (for example reconnected in another tab) after the page opened, or, on the self-employment screen, while the update was being sent. Nothing was sent. Reload the page so it uses your current connection, then send the update.
• "This could not be matched to your current HMRC connection, so we did not send it again. Please submit it again." The update was waiting to be sent again automatically, but your HMRC connection no longer matches the one it was first sent under, so it was not sent. Send it again from Send update to HMRC: sending a quarterly update again is safe, because each update replaces the year-to-date figures.
• A quarter you sent earlier shows as not sent after you changed the National Insurance number on your HMRC connection. An update sent under your earlier number stays on record under that number, and HMRC holds nothing from it under your current one, so the Send update screens, What's due and Year-End show the quarter as still to send. Send it again from your current records (for a tax year this app no longer files, use your existing Self Assessment filing service). A tax year whose tax return you have already sent is not affected: it stays as it was, unless you start an amendment for it, when it shows like any other year. Sent to HMRC still lists every update you sent, under either number, and marks the earlier ones "Not matched to your current National Insurance number".
• "Your figures for this quarter have not finished loading." Send was pressed before the figures had loaded. Wait for them to load, or reload the page, then send again. If the confirmation box says your figures are reloading, Send there waits until they have loaded.
• The Send panel says sending updates to HMRC is not included in your plan, with an Upgrade to send button. Your figures show as a preview; sending them needs a plan that includes it. Upgrade to send shows your options. See Plans and pricing.
• The page shows an HMRC planned maintenance notice. HMRC has closed its systems for the period shown (UK time). Updates cannot be sent until the end time in the notice; nothing already sent is affected, and you can keep recording in the meantime.
• "Submission failed. See submission history for details." HMRC rejected the update. Open Sent to HMRC (in the tax section of the sidebar, or go to /tax/submissions) and look for the explanation under the failed entry (headed Why it failed, Not accepted or, when HMRC never confirmed it, Not confirmed by HMRC, depending on your layout); it explains what HMRC said and what to do next. If HMRC's records show it has since received that quarter (sent another way, or covered by a later quarter's update), the entry may instead be headed Received by HMRC: nothing needs sending for it, and the note explains why and what comes next. If it does not say your next update from this app will send the year so far, and the figures still need to change, raise a support ticket from Support in the sidebar.
• "...so we could not confirm whether HMRC received it. Do not send it again yet." The message starts with what broke: "Sending this to HMRC took too long", "The connection dropped while sending this to HMRC" or "The connection to HMRC failed while sending this". HMRC's answer never came back, so your update may or may not have reached HMRC. Do not send it again straight away. After a few minutes, open Sent to HMRC (/tax/submissions), choose the tax year it was for and look at the newest entry for it: Accepted means HMRC has it and nothing more is needed; Failed or Rejected shows the reason underneath, and you can then send it again; Submitted means the answer has not come through yet, so check again a little later. If it still shows Submitted after 15 minutes, raise a support ticket from Support in the sidebar and we will check with HMRC and settle it.
• "HMRC did not confirm this submission when it was sent, so it is not recorded as filed." HMRC had a temporary problem while your update was being sent. Open Sent to HMRC (/tax/submissions) first: if the update is not shown as sent, send it again from Send update to HMRC at /tax/submit. Check What's due too: if that quarter shows as done there and this was not a correction of an update HMRC had already accepted, HMRC already has an update for it (it reached HMRC after all, was sent from other software, or is covered by a later quarter's update, which includes the year so far), so do not send it again; the next update you send from the app carries the year so far. If Sent to HMRC still asks you to send it, choose that tax year on What's due (for a year before the ones listed, press View earlier obligations first), press Refresh next to it, and then reload Sent to HMRC and choose that tax year there again. Sending a quarterly update again is safe, because each update replaces the year-to-date figures. If an HMRC outage or maintenance notice is showing, wait until it has cleared. A failed Send Q4 again can simply be sent again from Send update.
• "HMRC could not find the income source for this update, so nothing was filed." HMRC rejected the update because it cannot find your property or business on its side. Open Settings, go to the HMRC tab and check that your property business or self-employment business is shown as linked to HMRC. If it is not, click Retry Lookup, then send the update again. If it is linked and the message returns, you are most likely affected by a known HMRC issue (September 2026) where a small number of customers' income source details are missing from one of HMRC's systems. HMRC is correcting those records itself, and sending the update again will not help until it has. Raise a support ticket from Support in the sidebar (see Getting help) and we will raise it with HMRC. Nothing was filed, so there is no duplicate to worry about.

Note: Sent to HMRC shows your progress for the year as, for example, "3/4 submitted". When HMRC's records are available, it counts only the quarters you owe: a business that started part-way through the tax year owes fewer than four, and a quarter none of your businesses owes is marked Not due. If a business stopped trading during the year, the page still counts against four quarters. To see exactly which quarters HMRC expects for each business, use What's due.

Note: Sent to HMRC at /tax/submissions is a read-only history of what you have already sent. You cannot submit from there: use Send update to HMRC at /tax/submit. Use the View submission history link to review past updates.

For anything about whether you must file, deadlines, or penalties, check with HMRC or your accountant, or see the Making Tax Digital guide.

Unexpected HMRC outages

If an unexpected HMRC outage notice appears, wait for recovery before trying to send your update again. Recording income and expenses is not affected by the HMRC issue. Check submission history before retrying an update whose outcome was unclear. The same notice appears on the Support page and stays open until our team confirms recovery. Open pages refresh the notice automatically; no restoration time is assumed.

Frequently asked questions

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