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How to choose the software you want to use and sign up.

Before you can use Making Tax Digital for Income tax, you need to make sure that you’re eligible to sign up voluntarily this year. You also need to decide which software you want to use.

Your agent (if you have one) will be able to do much of this for you.

Check that you’re eligible to sign up voluntarily

You must check if you’re eligible to help us test Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.

When you sign up, you’ll be asked some questions. This will confirm if you’re able to volunteer to help us test and develop the service.

Choose the software you want to use

You must use software that works with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.

There are a number of third party software providers you can choose from.

Authorise your agent

You can authorise an agent to act on your behalf for any Making Tax Digital service. Once authorised, your agent can:

  • sign up your business
  • use software to create and store digital records on your behalf
  • use software to view, edit and send your data to us

If you have already authorised your agent to act on your behalf for Self Assessment, you will not need to re-authorise them for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.

Sign up

If you want to sign up voluntarily to help test the service in the tax year 2024 to 2025, you should try to sign up between April and June 2024. This means you can test the service for a full financial cycle before it becomes mandatory.

It’s still possible to sign up later in the year if you have been keeping digital records and can submit quarterly updates retrospectively.

How to sign up depends on whether you are an individual or an agent:

If you have more than one business

You must use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax for each trade and business (for example, if you are a landlord and a builder).

You must also keep separate records and make separate submissions for each business.

If you receive property income from multiple properties, all properties that are:

  • in the UK are treated as one ‘UK property business’
  • outside of the UK are treated as one ‘foreign property business’

If you own property overseas in more than one country

You need to keep separate digital records for each country you receive property income from.

Authorise your software

You need to authorise your compatible software by entering your Government Gateway user ID and password into your software and following the instructions. You can ask your software provider how to do this.

You must use the Government Gateway user ID you got when you signed up for either:

  • Self Assessment
  • an agent services account, if you’re an agent

You need to repeat the software authorisation process every 18 months. Your software should remind you to do this.