“I’m not really a business, I just tutor”
Ask most private tutors what they do and you’ll hear about GCSE maths, reading recovery or getting a nervous Year 6 through the 11+. Very few will say “I run a small business”. Yet that’s exactly what HMRC thinks you do, and from April 2027 Making Tax Digital will start treating many full-time tutors rather more like one.
The change is called Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, usually shortened to MTD. It’s been talked about for so long that plenty of tutors have quietly filed it under “probably won’t affect me”. For a part-time tutor fitting a few students around another job, that may well be true for now. For anyone tutoring most evenings and weekends, it almost certainly isn’t.
This post explains what MTD is, whether it applies to you, and what to do about it, in plain English and without the jargon accountants seem to love.
What Making Tax Digital actually is
At the moment, most self-employed tutors do their tax once a year. You gather up your invoices, bank statements and receipts, total everything, and file a Self Assessment return by 31 January.
MTD changes that in three ways:
- Digital records. You keep a record of your income and expenses in software as you go, rather than in a notebook, a shoebox or your head.
- Quarterly updates. Every three months, the software sends HMRC a short summary of your income and expenses for that quarter. It’s a set of totals, not a full tax return, and you don’t pay any tax at that point.
- A final declaration. After the tax year ends, you make any adjustments, add any other income, and confirm your figures. This replaces the old Self Assessment return and has the same 31 January deadline.
The software has to be on HMRC’s list of compatible products. You don’t need an accountant to use it, although many tutors will be glad of one, at least for the first year.
Does Making Tax Digital apply to you?
MTD is being phased in by income. It applies to sole traders and landlords whose qualifying income is above these thresholds:
| You must use MTD from | If your qualifying income is over | Based on your tax return for |
|---|---|---|
| 6 April 2026 | £50,000 | 2024/25 |
| 6 April 2027 | £30,000 | 2025/26 |
| 6 April 2028 | £20,000 | 2026/27 |
The crucial word is qualifying. It means your gross income from self-employment and property, before any expenses or allowances are taken off. In other words, it’s your turnover, not your profit. A tutor who earns £32,000 from lessons but spends £5,000 on resources, travel and software still has qualifying income of £32,000.
A quick worked example. Say you charge £45 an hour, teach 20 hours a week and work 38 weeks a year. That’s £34,200 of qualifying income. If your 2025/26 tax return shows a figure like that, you’ll need to use MTD from April 2027. Drop to £25,000 and you’d join a year later, in April 2028.
A few points that catch people out:
- It’s combined. If you also rent out a property, the rental income is added to your tutoring income when working out whether you’re over the threshold.
- Employed work doesn’t count. Wages from a school, or from an agency that pays you through PAYE, aren’t qualifying income. Only your self-employed income is.
- Platform work usually does. If you find students through a tutoring website but are self-employed, that income generally counts as self-employment, even though the platform takes its cut first. Check how the platform treats you if you’re unsure.
- Part-time tutors may be unaffected for now. If your self-employed tutoring income is below £20,000, MTD doesn’t apply to you yet, and you carry on with Self Assessment as normal.
GOV.UK has a free checker that tells you whether and when you’ll need to join. It’s worth five minutes, even if you think you’re well under.
What changes in practice
If you join in April 2027, your year will look like this:
| Quarter | Covers | Update due by |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 April to 5 July 2027 | 7 August 2027 |
| 2 | 6 July to 5 October 2027 | 7 November 2027 |
| 3 | 6 October 2027 to 5 January 2028 | 7 February 2028 |
| 4 | 6 January to 5 April 2028 | 7 May 2028 |
| Final declaration | The whole 2027/28 tax year | 31 January 2029 |
The same pattern repeats every year after that, and it’s the same for everyone who joins in 2028.
Three things worth knowing:
- You still pay tax the same way. The quarterly updates are just information. As far as I know, payment deadlines and payments on account aren’t changing, so your tax bills still fall due in January and July as before.
- Your last ordinary return still happens. If you’re joining in April 2027, you’ll still file a normal Self Assessment return for 2026/27 by 31 January 2028.
- Quarterly updates are lighter than they sound. If your software is set up properly and you’ve been recording things as you go, sending an update is usually a few clicks. The work is in keeping records up to date, not in the submission itself.
Making Tax Digital penalties, and the soft landing you probably won’t get
MTD comes with a new points-based penalty system. Each late submission earns a point, and once you reach the threshold a fine follows. For quarterly updates, four points triggers a £200 penalty. Late payment penalties and interest are separate and work as they always have.
You may have read that there’s a penalty-free first year. That’s true, but only for the first group. HMRC confirmed at the 2025 Budget that it won’t issue penalty points for late quarterly updates during the 2026/27 tax year. That “soft landing” applies only to people who joined in April 2026. Anyone joining from April 2027 onwards doesn’t get the same concession.
For tutors, that matters. Very few tutors earn over £50,000 in turnover, so most of you will be joining in 2027 or 2028, and penalty points will apply from your very first quarter. It’s a good reason not to leave getting set up until the last minute.
What to do now
You don’t need to do everything at once, but a few steps this term will make 2027 much calmer.
- Work out your qualifying income. Look at the self-employment turnover on your last return, or add up what you’ve invoiced since 6 April 2025. If it’s anywhere near £30,000, assume you’ll be joining in April 2027 and plan accordingly. The GOV.UK checker will confirm it.
- Separate your tutoring money. If lesson fees land in the same account as your personal spending, open a separate account just for tutoring. It makes digital record-keeping far simpler, because the software can read one clean stream of business transactions.
- Choose MTD-compatible software. HMRC publishes a list of recognised products, and it includes some free and low-cost options. Spreadsheets are still allowed if you pair them with “bridging” software that sends the figures to HMRC. Your tutoring app probably isn’t enough on its own: tools that schedule lessons and send invoices are useful, but most don’t file with HMRC, so check whether yours can export or connect to an accounting package.
- Start recording as you go, now. Don’t wait until you’re legally required to. Running the new routine for a few months before April 2027 is the best way to find out what’s awkward while it doesn’t matter.
- Know your typical expenses. Teaching resources and books, exam board specimen papers, travel to students’ homes, DBS checks, insurance, a share of phone and broadband, online lesson platforms and subscriptions to tutoring apps are all things tutors commonly claim. Recording them as you go, rather than hunting for receipts in January, is where MTD can actually save you money.
- Talk to an accountant if you’re unsure. Particularly if you have other income, rent out property, or work partly through an agency and partly for yourself.
The end of the shoebox
I’ll confess to a little nostalgia here. For years, my January ritual involved a mug of tea, a shoebox of receipts and a growing sense that I really should have done this in October. I know I’m not alone.
MTD will end that ritual for a lot of tutors, and I suspect most of us won’t miss it. There’s something quite teacherly about the new approach, too. It’s the tax equivalent of spaced practice: little and often rather than one painful cram before the exam. We spend our working lives telling students that a bit of steady effort beats a last-minute panic. It turns out HMRC agrees.
There’s a bigger shift underneath, as well. Many tutors drift into tutoring a few hours at a time and never quite stop to think of it as a business. Making Tax Digital nudges us to. Knowing your real income each quarter, what you spend, and what’s left over is useful well beyond keeping HMRC happy. It’s how you decide whether to raise your rates, take on another student, or finally say no to that 8pm slot on a Friday.
A note of caution
This post is general information for UK tutors, not tax advice, and it’s based on the rules as they stood in October 2026. Thresholds and dates have shifted before and could shift again, so check GOV.UK before making any decisions. If your situation is at all complicated, an accountant is worth every penny.
Tutors outside the UK can ignore all of this. Making Tax Digital is a UK-only scheme.
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