HMRC has removed the easiest route into Making Tax Digital sign-up, with the next quarterly deadline on 7 November
HMRC updated its Making Tax Digital for Income Tax sign-up guidance on 13 October 2026 and removed the security-questions route to identity verification. Signing up now requires the HMRC app together with a passport or a UK driving licence. The second quarterly update deadline for the current cohort is 7 November 2026.
HMRC’s Agent Update 148, published 15 October 2026, also confirms that the service is automatically enrolling people who meet the criteria but have not registered themselves, and that the threshold drops to bring in those with qualifying income above £30,000 from 6 April 2027.
Why this matters
The identity verification change is small on paper and consequential in practice. Self-employed people who are tax-resident in the UK but living elsewhere, or who hold a non-UK driving licence, or whose passport is with an immigration authority, have just lost the one route that did not depend on holding a specific document. If you are a British freelancer living in Spain and your licence is Spanish, the passport is now your only option.
The quarterly rhythm is the larger adjustment. Making Tax Digital replaces one annual return with four in-year updates plus a final declaration, which changes bookkeeping from an annual task into a continuous one. For anyone invoicing in more than one currency, the practical effect is that exchange-rate decisions and categorisation have to be settled four times a year rather than once.
Auto-enrolment is worth knowing about if you have assumed silence means you are outside the regime. Being enrolled without having registered does not remove the obligation to file.
Context
The qualifying income thresholds are moving downwards by design: above £50,000 for the current cohort, above £30,000 from April 2027, and above £20,000 thereafter. That is a deliberate widening of the regime rather than a revised figure.
What to watch
The 7 November deadline, and whether HMRC restores any alternative verification route. As it stands, a document requirement has become a gateway to a statutory filing obligation.