Landlord Tax Calendar — Every Date That Matters

Rates and thresholds are 2026/27 unless another date is given. Where a rule is devolved, the nation it applies to is named — property transaction taxes in particular differ between England and Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, and Scotland sets its own income tax bands. Print this page or save it as a PDF from your browser's print dialogue: the navigation and the calls to action drop away, and you are left with the dates.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax — the quarterly cycle

Standard periods are tax-year aligned, and these four dates are the whole rhythm. They do not move for weekends, holidays, tenants or agents.

7 AugustQuarterly update for the period 6 April to 5 July

7 NovemberQuarterly update for the period 6 April to 5 October

7 FebruaryQuarterly update for the period 6 April to 5 January

7 MayQuarterly update for the period 6 April to 5 April — the fourth and final update for the tax year that has just ended

If you elect calendar quartersPeriods ending 30 June, 30 September, 31 December and 31 March may be used instead. The deadlines are exactly the same — 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. The election changes the period, not the date

What an update containsTotals for each income and expense category. They are summaries, not tax returns: HMRC does not receive individual digital records such as a receipt or an invoice, and you do not need to make any accounting or tax adjustments before sending one

What is not due quarterlyTax. Making Tax Digital does not change the way you pay tax, or the dates payments are due

Late updates in 2026/27

There are no penalties for missing a quarterly update deadline for the 2026 to 2027 tax year. Each update still has to be sent before the tax return can be submitted. After 2026/27, late updates earn points too: one point per missed quarterly update or return, a threshold of four points, then a £200 penalty and £200 for each further miss. The new penalty regime applies from the tax year in which you join MTD.

Are you in it, and from when

Each threshold is decided by the tax year before the one in which the obligation starts, which is why the answer is fixed long before the April it bites in.

6 April 2026 — already liveQualifying income over £50,000, tested on the Self Assessment return submitted for 2024/25

6 April 2027Qualifying income over £30,000, tested on the 2025/26 return

6 April 2028Qualifying income over £20,000, tested on the 2026/27 return

How it is measuredGross, not profit. Qualifying income is total income from self-employment and property before expenses. The two are added together, and a share of jointly owned property counts as that share

Automatic exemptionsQualifying income of £20,000 or less; no National Insurance number before the start of the tax year; trusts; personal representatives; non-resident companies; Lloyd's members. Partnerships are not currently in the regime and no date has been set

Self assessment — the dates that did not change

The return survived Making Tax Digital. So did every payment date attached to it.

31 JanuaryTax return filed for the tax year that ended the previous 5 April. Where you are mandated into Making Tax Digital, the return goes in through MTD software rather than HMRC's online Self Assessment service — but it is the same return, and the same deadline

31 JanuaryBalancing payment for that tax year, plus the first payment on account for the current one

31 JulySecond payment on account. This is the one that catches new landlords: the first year of letting carries no payments on account, so year two arrives as a balancing payment plus two instalments inside the same twelve months

Inside the returnHMRC pre-populates employment, pension and state benefit income. Dividends, savings interest and chargeable gains have to be added by you — an easy thing to lose when the filing route changes

60 days from the declarationForm 17, where spouses or civil partners want jointly held property income taxed other than 50:50. It works only where the beneficial interests are genuinely unequal, it must be made jointly, and the 60-day limit has no power of extension. Only income arising after the declaration date is covered

When you sell — the 60-day window

The most commonly missed deadline in the whole of landlord taxation, because nothing prompts it. No return is issued and no letter arrives; the 60 days simply start on the day the sale completes.

Within 60 days of completionReport and pay capital gains tax on a UK residential property disposal. This applies to completions on or after 27 October 2021 — it was 30 days before that. The clock runs from completion, not from the tax year end and not from the tax return

Rates18% on gains falling within the basic rate band and 24% above it. Since 30 October 2024 those are the rates for other assets too, so residential property no longer carries a rate penalty

Annual exempt amount£3,000 for individuals and personal representatives, and £1,500 for trustees — unchanged across 2024/25, 2025/26 and 2026/27

If it was ever your homePrivate Residence Relief may cover part of the gain, and the final 9 months of ownership are exempt for disposals on or after 6 April 2020 where the property was your only or main residence at some point (s.223 TCGA 1992)

If you are non-residentEvery disposal of UK property or land must be reported — even if there is no tax to pay, and even if you made a loss. Non-resident capital gains tax was extended to all UK property and land from 6 April 2019

Non-Resident Landlord Scheme

This runs on its own calendar, separate from self assessment, and it does not stop existing because you also file a return.

30 June, 30 September, 31 December, 31 MarchThe scheme's tax quarters. Payment is due within 30 days of each quarter end

5 JulyAnnual return on form NRLY, together with the certificate given to the landlord

Who has to operate itA letting agent must operate the scheme regardless of the rent collected, unless HMRC has approved payment gross in writing. Where there is no agent, the tenant must deduct if they pay more than £100 a week

What is deductedBasic rate income tax on the rent, net of deductible expenses. The scheme applies to a landlord who lives abroad for more than six months of the year

Property companies and SPVs

Section 24 does not apply to companies — mortgage interest is fully deductible. What a company gets instead is a second layer of tax on extraction, and a set of dates of its own.

Nine months and one day after the accounting period endCorporation tax payment due. Large companies pay by quarterly instalments instead. The rate is 19% on profits up to £50,000 and 25% above £250,000, with marginal relief between the two

The trap with several SPVsBoth limits are divided by the number of associated companies, and pro-rated for short periods. Four associated companies means the small profits rate reaches only £12,500 and the main rate starts at £62,500

Twelve months after the period endCompany tax return filed. The payment date comes first, which catches people out — the money is due three months before the return is

At least once every 12 monthsConfirmation statement at Companies House, on the company's own cycle. Accounts are filed there too, and they are publicly visible

Annually, for the 1 April to 31 March periodATED — the Annual Tax on Enveloped Dwellings — payable mainly by companies owning UK residential property valued over £500,000, and also reaching partnerships with a corporate partner and collective investment schemes. For 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 the chargeable amounts are £4,600 (£500k to £1m), £9,450 (£1m to £2m), £32,200 (£2m to £5m), £75,450 (£5m to £10m), £151,450 (£10m to £20m) and £303,450 above £20m

6 April 2026 — already in forceDividend rates rose to 10.75% at the ordinary rate and 35.75% at the upper rate; the additional rate is unchanged at 39.35%. That is the cost of taking money out of a property company, and it went up

Letting rules with dates attached

Not tax, but on the same calendar, and with the same consequences for getting it wrong.

1 May 2026 — in forceRenters' Rights Act 2025, Phase 1. Section 21 no-fault evictions abolished; assured periodic tenancies replace fixed terms; rent increases limited to once a year with at least two months' notice; no more than one month's rent in advance may be requested; landlords have 28 days to consider a tenant's pet request. It applies to existing tenancies as well as new ones

27 December 2025Local councils gained new investigatory powers to inspect properties, demand documents and access third-party data

Since 1 April 2020MEES. You cannot let, or continue to let, a property covered by the regulations with an EPC rating below band E in England and Wales. The cost cap is £3,500 including VAT, exemptions must be registered on the publicly searchable PRS Exemptions Register, and penalties run to a maximum of £5,000 per property

From April 2028High Value Council Tax Surcharge on residential property in England worth £2 million or more, in four bands: £2,500 a year up to £2.5 million, £3,500 up to £3.5 million, £5,000 up to £5 million and £7,500 above that. It is levied on the owner, not the occupier, so it lands on landlords. First bills are issued in March 2028

Coming, with a date

Far enough away to plan around, near enough to stop building on the current position.

6 April 2027Property income gets its own income tax rates in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: 22%, 42% and 47%. The Section 24 tax reducer moves to the property basic rate of 22% at the same time — two points back, against two points more on every pound of property profit

6 April 2027The £30,000 Making Tax Digital threshold, decided by your 2025/26 return

6 April 2028The £20,000 Making Tax Digital threshold, decided by your 2026/27 return

2027/28 penaltiesLate payment charges step up. The 3% at day 15 and the further 3% at day 30 both become 4%, with the 10% a year on the outstanding balance unchanged. In the first tax year you are under the new penalties, you have 30 days to pay or set up a payment plan with HMRC before any late payment penalty applies; in later years it is 15 days. The new late payment penalties never apply to payments on account

To 5 April 2031The inheritance tax nil-rate band stays frozen at £325,000, and the residence nil-rate band at £175,000 — which matters a great deal to a landlord whose estate is mostly property

Dates announced but not yet in force

EPC band C by 1 October 2030. On 21 January 2026 the government confirmed that private landlords in England and Wales must meet a higher standard, equivalent to EPC band C, by 1 October 2030, with a cost cap of £10,000 per property. Spending on recommended improvements from 1 October 2025 counts towards the cap, and a property rated C or above on an EPC issued before 1 October 2029 counts as compliant until that EPC expires. The regulations are still to be made, and the government aims to bring them into force in 2027. Until the new standard applies, the minimum you must meet is band E, as it has been since 1 April 2020.

Phases 2 and 3 of the Renters' Rights Act are not in force yet. The mandatory PRS Database and the Landlord Ombudsman are expected in Phase 2, which the government's roadmap places from late 2026. In Phase 3, the government's Decent Homes Standard policy statement of 28 January 2026 says the standard will apply to privately rented homes from 2035, and no date has been set for extending Awaab's Law to private rentals.

One more thing has no deadline but does have a clock: the Let Property Campaign, HMRC's voluntary disclosure route for landlords with undeclared rental income. You notify HMRC first, and then have 90 days from the acknowledgement of your notification to calculate and pay. The point of going first is that it avoids the higher penalties, and the risk of prosecution, that follow HMRC finding out before you tell them.

How to use this page

Print it, or save it as a PDF — the site furniture drops away and you are left with the dates. Then do the one thing that makes the rest of it easy: put the four quarterly update deadlines in the calendar as recurring commitments, and set the bookkeeping to be current by the fifth of August, November, February and May rather than the seventh. Almost every unpleasant surprise on this page is downstream of records being assembled after a period rather than kept during it.

If you would rather not run any of it yourself, that is what we are for. A free property tax review will tell you which of these dates actually bite for you and which do not. If you want to settle the biggest question first, the MTD checker takes about a minute, and the other calculators put numbers on the two things that cost the most: the finance cost restriction, and the tax on a sale.

The landlord tax calendar