Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: Agriculture

11th July 2025

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax requires self-employed businesses and landlords with qualifying income to maintain digital records and submit tax updates to HMRC using Making Tax Digital – compatible software. Quarterly updates will need to be submitted to HMRC providing a snapshot of income and expenses. These are cumulative so that each submission effectively supersedes the last.

Whilst many farms already submit VAT returns, so submissions to HMRC should not be too alien to them, this additional layer of complexity to the business will now include rental income such as land rents, or property income.

The timetable for compulsory compliance with the Making Tax Digital rules is as follows:

From 6 April 2026

For those with annual gross income of over £50,000 from self-employment and property letting.

From 6 April 2027

For those with annual gross income of between £30,000 and £50,000 from self-employment and property letting.

From 6 April 2028

For those with annual gross income of between £20,000 and £30,000 from self-employment and property letting.

If you are self-employed and receive property income, the gross annual income above applies to total gross income from both sources. This is assessed from the 2024/25 tax returns now being worked on or working towards completion by 31 January 2026.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax considers income from self-employment (unincorporated sole trader businesses) and property only (Self Assessment tax return box numbers SA103/SA105). It does not count employment income (PAYE), dividends, bank interest etc. as they’re NOT part of the mandating test (and can be reported annually). It also currently does not include partnerships, or a partner’s share of profits from a partnership.