Missed the 7 November MTD quarterly update? What happens now, and the 7 February deadline
Short answer: for the 2026 to 2027 tax year, HMRC will not apply penalty points for late quarterly updates. Send the missed update as soon as you can anyway: you need your quarterly updates in before you can submit the tax return from your software, and penalty points still apply to a late tax return.
What HMRC says
- 2026 to 2027: no penalty points for late quarterly updates. Penalty points still apply for late tax returns.
- From the 2027 to 2028 tax year: each quarterly update sent after its deadline gets a late submission penalty point. At 4 points there's a £200 penalty.
- Volunteers: penalties don't apply to late quarterly updates while you're volunteering; for late tax returns, 2 points means a £200 penalty.
- Each update covers the tax year so far: the update due 7 November covers 6 April to 5 October, and the next one covers 6 April to 5 January.
Source: GOV.UK, Use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: send quarterly updates (read 2026-11). Check it for your client's own position; this page isn't tax advice.
The next deadline: 7 February 2027
Standard update period 6 April 2026 to 5 January 2027, due Sunday 7 February 2027. Calendar-period clients have the same deadline. See every date on MTD deadlines.
For a practice: getting it right next quarter
- List the clients whose November update went in late or not at all.
- Ask them for their records now, not in late January. Ten days before the deadline is the latest date that works for most practices.
- Give each client one place to send things (no login), and remind them on a schedule that stops when they've sent everything.
- Check who's still outstanding each week.
MTD Chase does steps 2 to 4 from your AI assistant: "chase everyone for Q3, records by the 28th of January", then "who's still outstanding?". Free for up to 5 clients for good, then £19 a month for up to 75 (as of 2026-11). MTD Chase does not file anything with HMRC and is not HMRC-recognised software. It gets the records to you; you file from your own MTD software.