Making Tax Digital for Income Tax and your invoices
Who has to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax and from when, the three duties, and what it does and does not change for the invoices you send.
The short answer
GOV.UK says you need to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax if you are a sole trader or a landlord registered for Self Assessment, with income from self-employment or property above a threshold. The threshold falls in three steps: more than £50,000 of qualifying income in the 2024 to 2025 tax year, from 6 April 2026; more than £30,000 in 2025 to 2026, from 6 April 2027; and more than £20,000 in 2026 to 2027, from 6 April 2028.
It does not change what an invoice must show, or the form of the invoice you send a customer. It changes how you keep your records and report to HMRC. This guide explains where invoices fit; it is not tax advice, and GOV.UK decides who is in scope.
The three duties
The GOV.UK guidance names three things you do once you are in scope: create digital records, send quarterly updates, and submit your tax return. The page lists each as its own section, with the how and the when. Read those sections before you rely on a date from anywhere else.
Where an invoice fits
Your invoices are the source of your income records. Whatever software you use for the digital records, the entries start from invoices that are numbered once, dated, and carry the customer, the work and the amount. Corrections belong in a credit note rather than in an invoice you overwrite, so the record shows what was sent.
There are no new fields to add to an invoice because of Making Tax Digital. If you are caught by the first threshold, the useful habit is the one you should have anyway: one invoice per job or period, a clear service date, and the payment recorded when it arrives.
- A unique, sequential invoice number that is never reused.
- The invoice date and the date or period of the work.
- The customer’s name and the amount, with any VAT shown separately where you charge it.
- The date each payment arrived, kept with the invoice it settles.
What QuoteBill does and does not do
QuoteBill is a free document generator: it makes the invoice, the quote and the receipt and saves them as PDF, Word or Excel. It is not Making Tax Digital software, it keeps no digital record for HMRC and it sends nothing to HMRC. Keep your invoices from it, and use software of your choice for the records and the updates the GOV.UK pages describe.
Check before relying on it
The thresholds and dates above are GOV.UK’s on the day they were read. Read the current page before you rely on them.
- Are you a sole trader or landlord registered for Self Assessment?
- Is your qualifying income, as GOV.UK describes it, over the threshold for the tax year it applies to?
- Have you read the pages on digital records, quarterly updates and the tax return, not only this summary?
Sources
253 Free Invoice, Quote & Receipt Templates
UK VAT invoice template
UK VAT invoice template: VAT on its own line at your rate, with your VAT number. Fill it in online; Excel and Word come with a free account.
Free invoice generator
Download the invoice as Excel or Word with working formulas (free for QuoteBill members), or edit it online with your logo and tax settings and save a PDF.
Consultant invoice template
Create a consulting invoice for hourly or project work, research and report delivery. Add payment terms, review the total, then save a PDF or download Word.