MTD Penalties: What Happens If You Miss a Deadline?

Making Tax Digital is now live for landlords earning over £50,000 in gross property income. With four quarterly submissions plus an End of Period Statement each year, there are more deadlines to miss — and HMRC's new penalty system means the consequences are cumulative.

The points-based penalty system

HMRC has replaced the old fixed-penalty approach with a points-based system. Every time you miss a submission deadline, you receive one penalty point. Once you hit the penalty threshold, you get a £200 fine — and another £200 for every subsequent missed deadline.

Point thresholds by submission frequency

• Quarterly submissions (most landlords): 4 points = £200 penalty
• Monthly submissions: 5 points = £200 penalty
• Annual submissions: 2 points = £200 penalty

Late payment penalties

Separate from submission penalties, HMRC charges interest on late tax payments:

• Up to 15 days late: No penalty (but interest accrues from day 1)
• 16-30 days late: 2% of the outstanding tax
• 31+ days late: 2% of the tax outstanding at day 15, plus 2% of the tax outstanding at day 30
• After 31 days: An additional daily rate of 4% per year on the outstanding balance

How to reset your points

You can reset your penalty points to zero by achieving a period of compliance — submitting everything on time for a set period:

• Quarterly filers: 12 months of on-time submissions
• Monthly filers: 6 months of on-time submissions
• Annual filers: 24 months of on-time submissions

You must also have submitted all outstanding returns before the points can reset.

Quarterly deadline dates for 2026/27

• Q1 (6 Apr - 5 Jul): Submit by 7 August 2026
• Q2 (6 Jul - 5 Oct): Submit by 7 November 2026
• Q3 (6 Oct - 5 Jan): Submit by 7 February 2027
• Q4 (6 Jan - 5 Apr): Submit by 7 May 2027
• EOPS: Submit by 31 January 2028

Reasonable excuses

HMRC accepts reasonable excuses for late submissions in genuinely exceptional circumstances: serious illness, bereavement of a close relative, fire/flood destroying records, or HMRC's own system outages. "I forgot" or "I was on holiday" don't qualify.

How Tendmere keeps you on track

Tendmere prepares digital records and quarterly review packs for MTD. Production submission to HMRC remains disabled until approval and live credentials are complete, so customers should not rely on Tendmere as a live filing route yet.