If your rental income is over £50k (2026), £30k (2027) or £20k (2028), you need MTD-compliant software. Some are built just for landlords.
Landlords face MTD Income Tax in waves based on gross rental income. Property-specific tools (Hammock, Landlord Studio, RentalBux) understand deposits, multiple units and service charges in a way generic accounting tools don't.
13 providers match this situation. Free options first.
The government's own MTD tool, free, but basic.
HMRC has its own free software for simple MTD Income Tax cases. No bank feeds, no receipt scanning, no fancy dashboards, but for a sole trader or landlord with straightforward affairs, it does the legal minimum at zero cost.
Free if you have a NatWest Group business account, otherwise £19–£33/mo.
FreeAgent is a polished UK-built accounting platform owned by NatWest. It's free if you hold a business current account with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland or Ulster Bank, or a free Mettle business account, and you make at least one transaction a month. Outside that, it's a paid subscription. Strong for sole traders and landlords wanting automation.
UK-built, genuinely free under 1,000 transactions/year.
QuickFile is a UK cloud accounting platform with a generous free tier, free for small businesses with fewer than 1,000 nominal transactions in a year. Full MTD support for VAT and Income Tax.
Free tier from an established UK accounting brand.
Clear Books offers a free tier aimed at small sole traders and landlords. HMRC-recognised for both MTD VAT and MTD Income Tax.
Mobile-first property management + MTD.
Landlord Studio handles rent tracking, tenant management, expenses and MTD Income Tax submission, designed landlord-first.
Free MTD tool for landlords.
RentalBux offers a free plan for landlords needing basic MTD compliance, digital records, quarterly submissions, property income reporting.
Free cloud bookkeeping with built-in MTD submission.
Pandle is UK cloud bookkeeping software with a genuinely free, unlimited tier. HMRC-recognised for MTD Income Tax, you keep digital records and submit quarterly updates directly, with no bridging tool needed. The paid Pro tier adds bank feeds and cash-flow forecasting.
Mobile-first accounting + MTD filing for the self-employed.
Coconut is a UK accounting app for sole traders and landlords. HMRC-recognised for MTD Income Tax, it keeps digital records, auto-categorises income and expenses, and submits quarterly updates and year-end returns. Customers who open a Zempler Bank business account get Coconut free for up to two years.
Purpose-built for landlords.
Hammock is a UK property-specific finance platform, built specifically for landlords with one or many properties. MTD Income Tax ready.
Cheap bridging software for spreadsheet users.
123 Sheets is a low-cost bridging tool, keep your records in Excel, it handles the HMRC submission. No bells, no whistles, just cheap compliance.
Simple MTD Income Tax for individuals.
GoSimpleTax is a UK tool focused specifically on Self Assessment and MTD Income Tax for individuals, sole traders and landlords. Keeps it lean.
The accountants' favourite. Simple plan is good value.
Xero is the most widely used cloud accounting platform among UK accountants. The £7/mo Simple plan is the cheapest entry from a major provider and covers most sole trader or landlord needs for MTD.
Established UK brand, trusted by accountants.
Sage's cloud accounting product. Solid, enterprise-backed, wide accountant adoption. Has a dedicated landlord flow.
The rules phase in by gross rental income (before expenses): from April 2026 if you receive over £50,000, April 2027 if over £30,000, and April 2028 if over £20,000. Income is measured across all your UK property combined, not per property. If you also have self-employment income, the two are added together to test the threshold. Once you're in, you stay in unless your income drops below the limit for two consecutive years.
If you own a property jointly, each owner reports their share of the rent against their own threshold. A couple splitting a £60,000 rental 50/50 would each report £30,000, meaning neither crosses the April 2026 £50k threshold individually. HMRC looks at your share of rental income, not the property's total. Couples with a Declaration of Trust altering the split should report their actual beneficial share.
MTD treats all your UK property income as a single business for reporting. You don't file four quarterly updates per property, you file one combined update covering everything. Software with multi-property tracking still matters because you need to allocate income and expenses per property internally for accurate accounting and your end-of-year final declaration. Foreign property is treated as a separate business and reported separately.
The Furnished Holiday Let tax regime was abolished from 6 April 2025. Short-term lets (Airbnb, holiday cottages, serviced accommodation) are now reported as standard UK property income, alongside long-term tenancies. The old perks, capital allowances on furnishings, mortgage interest as a normal expense, pension-relevant earnings, are gone. For MTD this simplifies things: it's one property business, one quarterly report.
Generic tools (Xero, FreeAgent, QuickBooks) handle the MTD submission fine, but they're built around invoices and customers, concepts that don't map cleanly to rent, deposits and service charges. Property-specific tools (Hammock, Landlord Studio, RentalBux) give you per-property profit and loss out of the box, deposit ringfencing, rent-due reminders, and tenant communication. If you have more than two properties, the property-specific UX saves real time. If you have just one, the cheapest MTD-compliant tool (HMRC's free tool, Hammock's free single-property plan, or QuickFile) will do.
Yes. HMRC publishes a free tool that handles the legal minimum. For a more usable option, Hammock offers a free plan for landlords with a single property, and Landlord Studio has a free tier for a small number of properties. QuickFile and Clear Books also have free tiers that work for landlords with simple affairs.
Free options exist: HMRC's own tool, Hammock (single property), Landlord Studio (limited properties), QuickFile and Clear Books. If you need bank feeds and per-property tracking and you're outside the free tiers, expect to pay around £7–£15 per month, Xero Simple (£7/mo), FreeAgent (free with a NatWest/Mettle account), or Hammock paid plans.
No. MTD treats all your UK property income as one business, one quarterly update covering everything. You don't need separate software per property. Multi-property tracking is useful for your own accounting (knowing which property is profitable) but it's not an MTD requirement.
From April 2026 if your gross rental income is over £50,000. From April 2027 if it's over £30,000. From April 2028 if it's over £20,000. Gross means before expenses, and it's measured across all your UK property combined.
Yes, as long as you pair it with bridging software that submits the totals to HMRC for you. Free bridging tools (My Tax Digital, VitalTax free tier) work for landlords with straightforward spreadsheets. See our spreadsheet bridging guide for details.
Both of you, separately. Each owner reports their share of the rental income against their own MTD threshold. So a £60,000 rental split 50/50 is £30,000 each, neither partner crosses the April 2026 £50k threshold from that property alone.
The Furnished Holiday Let tax regime was abolished from April 2025. Short-term lets are now reported as standard UK property income, alongside any long-term tenancies, as one property business under MTD.