The HMRC version for Making Tax Digital
Your quarterly update figures, box by box, with the checks to run before you type them into your MTD software.
What it is
On Statements, the HMRC version adds up the same payments as the Detailed statement, but into the boxes of a Making Tax Digital quarterly update. It starts with the 2026/27 tax year, the first year of quarterly updates.
Each update is a running total from the start of the tax year to the end of its quarter, so update 3 includes everything in updates 1 and 2. Pick one under Quarterly update.
The figures are your own. A joint home counts at your share, and homes owned through a company are left out, because companies aren't in Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. Not sure whether you need to send updates? Making Tax Digital for landlords explains who joins and when.
Which box each payment goes in
| HMRC box | Our categories |
|---|---|
| Total rent | Rent received |
| Premiums for the grant of a lease | None: add it in your software if it applies |
| Reverse premiums and inducements | None: add it in your software if it applies |
| Other income from property | Other income |
| Rent, rates, insurance and ground rents | Service charge, Ground rent, Council tax, Insurance, Gas and electric bills |
| Property repairs and maintenance | Repairs and maintenance |
| Non-residential property finance costs | None: it's for commercial lets |
| Residential property finance costs | Mortgage and loan interest, Mortgage and loan fees (arrangement, broker) |
| Residential finance costs brought forward | Any unused from last year, from your tax return |
| Legal, management and other professional fees | Letting agent and management fees, Property inspection charges, Accountant fees, Legal and professional fees |
| Costs of services provided, including wages | Repair and boiler cover |
| Travel expenses | Travel |
| Other allowable property expenses | Safety certificates, Bank charges, Office, software and IT, Phone and internet, Advertising (finding tenants), Other costs |
| Not in the updates | Replacing furniture and appliances, which is shown under Kept for your tax return and claimed after the year ends. Mortgage capital and improvements aren't costs for income tax. |
Mortgage interest has its own box because it isn't taken off your profit. HMRC turns it into a tax credit on your tax return. More in Section 24: how mortgage interest is taxed.
Before you send
The checks at the top look for gaps in what you've recorded for the update:
- A month with no rent recorded for a home that was let.
- Rent that looks like it's after the agent's fees, when the agent collects it.
- A home with a mortgage but no interest recorded.
- Payments that stop more than three weeks before the quarter ends.
- A bank statement upload that hasn't been finished.
- Payments not tied to a home, in a portfolio that also has company homes. They're left out, because we can't tell which business they're for.
- Homes in your own name in another of your portfolios, which go in the same update.
- Nothing recorded at all.
Each one says what to do, often with a button such as Add the rent, which opens the add-a-payment form filled in. Nothing is saved until you press Add, and then you're back on the HMRC version. Checks that pass fold into one line.
The checks can't see a payment you never added, a payment in the wrong category, or an amount typed wrong, so give the figures a last look yourself.
When a home was empty
If a home had no tenant for a month, press It was empty on its check. It adds no payment and changes no figure. It only tells the check, and the Overview's “No rent recorded” note, to leave that month alone. Marked months are listed under the checks, each with Undo. If you add rent for a marked month later, the rent counts.
Rent paid every 3 months or once a year needs nothing marking. The check works out how many months each payment covers from the home's rent a month, so keep that up to date on the home's page.
Standard or calendar quarters
Quarters normally end on the 5th: 5 July, 5 October, 5 January and 5 April. If your accounts run from 1 April to 31 March, HMRC lets you use calendar quarters instead, ending on 30 June, 30 September, 31 December and 31 March. The deadlines are the same either way.
Choose under Quarters end on, and it's remembered for the portfolio. Use the same as your MTD software: you choose there before your first update, and you can't change it for the rest of that tax year.
Getting the figures into your software
- Run down Before you send and fix anything it finds.
- Type each figure into the box of the same name in your MTD software, or press Download CSV for a file with one row for each box, to open in a spreadsheet or in bridging software that reads files.
- Send it by its deadline: 7 August, 7 November, 7 February or 7 May. They're on your Dates page too.
Found a mistake in an update you've sent? Correct it in your records here. As each update is a running total, the next one carries the correction.
What it doesn't do
- NestInsights doesn't send anything to HMRC, file your tax return or work out your tax.
- It covers the homes in this portfolio. HMRC wants one update for all your UK lets, so add the figures from any other portfolio of homes in your own name.
- Income from outside NestInsights, like self-employment or homes abroad, goes in your software separately.
- Figures go by the date each payment was made (the cash basis). If your accounts use traditional accounting instead, your accountant will need to adjust them.