Last checked: 9 September 2026 · Source: GOV.UK
Every MTD threshold, £50,000, £30,000, £20,000, is tested against your qualifying income. Get this definition wrong and the threshold numbers are meaningless. It's the single most common source of confusion we see, because it's easy to assume it means profit. It doesn't.
Qualifying income is your total gross income from self-employment and property in a tax year. Also called turnover. The amount before you deduct any expenses, based on the Self Assessment tax return you already submitted for the relevant year.
| Counts as qualifying income? | |
|---|---|
| Self-employment turnover | Yes, before expenses |
| Gross rental income | Yes, before expenses |
| Employment income (salary, PAYE) | No |
| Pension income | No |
| Dividends | No |
| Savings interest | No |
| Capital gains | No |
This trips up people who've spent years mentally tracking their profit as "their income" for tax purposes. MTD doesn't care what you took home. It cares what came in.
Self-employment and property income are added together for the threshold test, even though you'll later file separate quarterly updates for each. See our page on multiple businesses and properties for how the reporting side actually works once you're in scope.
If you're resident or domiciled outside the UK, the MTD for Income Tax rules only apply to your UK self-employment and property income, not your worldwide income. Foreign earnings outside those two categories aren't part of the qualifying income test.
Your qualifying income for a given tax year is the same figure HMRC already has from your Self Assessment return for that year. Pull up your last return and look for the turnover line, not the profit line, for each self-employment or property business you have.
Whichever threshold your qualifying income lands you in, the resulting deadlines are already in the calendar.