Getting your Agent Services Account ready for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax
If you have clients who are sole traders or landlords with gross income (before expenses and tax are deducted) from self-employment, property or both, they will be legally required to use Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax from:
- April 2026, if their qualifying income is more than £50,000 in the 2024 to 2025 tax year
- April 2027, if their qualifying income is more than £30,000 in the 2025 to 2026 tax year
- April 2028, if their qualifying income is more than £20,000 in the 2026 to 2027 tax year — the government has set out plans to introduce legislation to lower the qualifying income threshold to this level
The qualifying income is the gross income (before expenses and tax are deducted) that sole traders and landlords receive in a tax year from self-employment and property combined.
Get ready for MTD step by step
Agents can get ready for MTD by following the MTD agent step-by-step guide and HMRC’s agent toolkit.
To sign up your clients for MTD you will need an Agent Services Account (ASA). If you do not currently have an ASA, you can create an ASA now.
If you already have an ASA, you can use it for MTD for Income Tax.
Add your Self Assessment client authorisations to your ASA
You must have authorisation to act for your client in your ASA before you can sign them up to MTD for Income Tax.
You can add your existing Self Assessment authorisations in bulk to your ASA by transferring them from your HMRC Online Services for Agents account. This can be done either during registration for an ASA or from a link on the ASA dashboard under the ‘client authorisation’ section.
Adding existing client authorisations allows you to act on behalf of your clients for MTD without the need to reauthorise. Adding your authorisations will not remove any access from your current Self Assessment for Agents Service.
To add your existing client authorisations to your ASA:
- Compile details of all the Government Gateway credentials you use for filing your clients’ Self Assessment returns.
- Head to the client authorisation section of your Agent Services Account homepage and select ‘add existing Self Assessment authorisations to this account’. Follow the instructions.
- Repeat this process for each Self Assessment code you use — only one Government Gateway per code needs to be added. That will add all existing Self Assessment client authorisations under the code.
If you are not already authorised to act for a client you can authorise them within your ASA using the digital handshake process — this can be as either a main or a supporting agent. Once you have added your client authorisations to your ASA, you can sign them up to MTD for Income Tax
Sign up
In order to sign up any clients to MTD, it is important to use the correct sign-up link.
If you have clients that must join MTD in April 2026 but do not want to join testing, you can sign them up now for an April 2026 start using the sign-up links.
Resources and timelines
HMRC has made available communications resources agents can share with their clients, alongside a high-level timeline for HMRC’s external communications.
