What counts
Your rent and any self-employed income, added together, before any costs. HMRC calls this your qualifying income. Your share of a partnership’s profit does not count towards it.
Making Tax Digital for landlords
Does Making Tax Digital catch your rent?
If your rent, together with any self-employed income, came to more than £50,000 before costs in the 2024 to 2025 tax year, Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax has applied to you since 6 April 2026. More than £30,000 in 2025 to 2026 brings you in from 6 April 2027, and more than £20,000 in 2026 to 2027 from 6 April 2028. Here is what it asks of a landlord, and what the software costs.
Are you in?
It turns on what came in, not what was left.
Owned with someone else
Only your share counts. A house let for £50,000 a year and owned half and half puts £25,000 towards each owner’s figure.
Which year decides
HMRC looks at a tax return from before you start: 2024 to 2025 for April 2026, 2025 to 2026 for April 2027, and 2026 to 2027 for April 2028.
Not sure? The free MTD checker works it out from your answers, and HMRC explains it in its guide to qualifying income.
What it asks of you
Records in software, four updates, then your tax return.
Records kept in software
Each rent received and each cost paid, with its date, its amount and HMRC’s category for it. A property let abroad is a business of its own, kept apart from your lettings here.
Four updates a year
The year so far, due by 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. No tax is paid with them. For a property you own with someone else, they can carry the income alone, with the costs added in the last one before your tax return.
Then your tax return
By 31 January after the tax year ends, as now, but sent through software. The year’s final figures for your lettings go in it, with the rest of your income and any reliefs.
For landlords
Letting is its own business. Stoneledger treats it as one.
- Every property on one screen. What each one earns and costs, the profit and the yield. Jointly owned, it works your share, so the yield is yours and not the whole property’s.
- Rent due against rent received, tenancy by tenancy, and whether each deposit is protected: it must be in an approved scheme within 30 days.
- Mortgage interest worked the way the law does. On a home you let it is not a cost; it buys a 20% reduction off your tax, capped, with what the caps hold back carried into later years.
- A compliance diary. Gas safety, the electrical report, the EPC, the deposit, the licence and the Right to Rent check, each dated, each with what it costs to get wrong.
- The quarterly figures, property business by property business, your lettings here and abroad kept apart, in HMRC’s categories.
- Every figure opens. Click one and you see the entries behind it. You do not have to take Stoneledger’s word for a number.
What it costs
£8 a month or £50 a year, however many properties you have.
Comparison with Hammock
| Software | Properties | A month | A year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stoneledger | Any number, one plan | £8 | £50 on the yearly plan |
| Hammock Basic | 1 to 3 | £9.60 £8 plus VAT | £92.16 £76.80 plus VAT |
| Hammock Standard | 4 to 10 | £18 £15 plus VAT | £172.80 £144 plus VAT |
| Hammock Plus | 11 to 20 | £30 £25 plus VAT | £288 £240 plus VAT |
| Hammock Beyond | 21 or more | £37.80 £31.50 plus VAT | £362.88 £302.40 plus VAT |
For a landlord who cannot claim the VAT back, the yearly plan is £42.16 to £312.88 a year less, and Stoneledger’s price stays the same however many properties you add.
Hammock’s prices as it publishes them on its own pricing page, checked on 4 October 2026, with VAT at 20% added. Rent from letting homes is exempt from VAT, so a landlord who lets only homes cannot register for VAT or claim it back, and for them the VAT is part of the price. Stoneledger is not registered for VAT, so there is none to add. Stoneledger is 30 days free with no card needed.
Your properties, your figures, one price.
Stoneledger keeps the properties, the tenancies, the certificates and the figures in one place, and shows where every number came from. It has completed its testing in HMRC’s sandbox, and sending your updates is on track for the 2027 to 2028 tax year.