Making Tax Digital for hairdressers: dates, thresholds and what to do now

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is no longer a date on the horizon: it went live on 6 April 2026, and the first self-employed hairdressers are already keeping digital records and sending quarterly updates to HMRC. If you are a self-employed stylist, a chair renter or a salon owner trading as a sole trader, the only questions that matter are which wave you fall into, and what you need to change before it reaches you.

The answer trips up a lot of hairdressers, because the thresholds are based on your turnover, not your profit, and they are tested against a previous tax year. A chair renter who thinks of herself as earning "around £20,000" after rent and products may already be past the £30,000 line that brings her into Making Tax Digital in April 2027.

This guide explains the rules as they apply to hairdressing: the exact dates and thresholds, how to work out your qualifying income, what the quarterly routine actually looks like, and the practical steps to take now. It is published on the blog of ViteUneCoupe, a commission-free online booking system for hair salons, and we will be upfront at the end about where booking software helps with this and where it does not. One caveat first: this article is general information checked against GOV.UK in October 2026, not tax advice. For your own situation, talk to an accountant.

What Making Tax Digital for Income Tax actually changes

Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax replaces the once-a-year Self Assessment routine with an ongoing digital one. Once you are in scope, per GOV.UK's guidance on using Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (checked in October 2026), you must:

• keep digital records of your self-employment income and expenses, in software or a spreadsheet connected to software, rather than a paper book or a drawer of receipts;
• use MTD-compatible software to store those records and talk to HMRC;
• send quarterly updates of your income and expenses to HMRC through that software;
• submit your tax return through the software at the end of the year, confirming and finalising the figures.

Two things do not change. You still pay Income Tax and National Insurance on your profit, calculated the same way as before. And the quarterly updates are information, not bills: they do not create four tax payments a year.

The dates and thresholds, and the prior-year trap

This is the part to get exactly right, because each start date is triggered by your income in an earlier tax year. HMRC looks at the Self Assessment return you filed for the test year, so by the time a wave starts, the income that put you in it is already history. According to GOV.UK's eligibility checker for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (checked in October 2026):

So the figure that decides whether you join in April 2027 is the turnover on the 2025-26 return you file by January 2027. And the year you are trading through right now is the test year for the £20,000 wave in 2028. HMRC reviews your return each year and writes to tell you when you are in scope, but waiting for the letter leaves you very little time to change your record-keeping habits.

Two groups are outside all of this for now: limited companies (MTD for Income Tax only applies to sole traders and landlords; if you trade through your own company, the rules are different, and our guide on sole trader versus limited company for a hairdresser covers that choice) and partnerships, which GOV.UK says will be brought in later, on a timeline not yet announced.

Turnover, not profit: why hairdressers underestimate their qualifying income

Qualifying income is defined on GOV.UK's guidance on working out your qualifying income (checked in October 2026) as your total income from self-employment and property before expenses, in other words your gross turnover, and it is combined across all your sole trades and any property income. Employment wages, dividends and pensions do not count.

For a hairdresser, that definition bites hard, because the gap between what goes through your hands and what you keep is wide:

• A self-employed stylist renting a chair who takes about £580 a week from clients grosses roughly £30,000 a year. Her qualifying income is that £30,000, even if chair rent, colour stock and insurance mean she only keeps £18,000. On those figures she is in the April 2027 wave.
• Product retail counts too. A stylist taking £45,000 in services plus £6,000 selling retail product has crossed £50,000 and, if those were her 2024-25 figures, should already be using MTD.
• Income streams combine. Salon work three days a week plus mobile clients, plus rent from a flat you let out: all of it adds into one qualifying income figure.
• A sole-trader salon owner who also collects chair rent from self-employed stylists needs to count that rent as income alongside takings from her own clients. How it is classified can vary, so this is one to confirm with your accountant.

The honest summary: if you are reading "£50,000" and mentally comparing it with what you pay yourself, you are measuring the wrong number. Dig out your last tax return and look at the turnover box.

Note that MTD qualifying income and the VAT registration threshold are separate tests that happen to live in the same region of turnover. If your takings are at this level, it is worth reading our guide to VAT for hair salons alongside this one.

The quarterly routine in practice

Once you are in, the year is punctuated by four updates. The standard periods and deadlines, per GOV.UK's guidance on sending quarterly updates (checked in October 2026), are:

Notice the updates are cumulative: each one covers from the start of the tax year to the end of the period, so a mistake in quarter one is simply corrected in quarter two, with no need to resubmit. You can also elect calendar update periods (1 April to 30 June and so on) if that fits your accounting better; the deadlines stay the same.

A quarterly update is a summary of income and expense totals pulled from your digital records, sent by your software in a few clicks. It is not a mini tax return, and no tax is due with it. After the fourth update, you finalise the year and submit your return through the software, and the normal payment dates apply.

What to actually do now, step by step

1. Work out which wave you are in. Check the turnover on your 2024-25 and 2025-26 Self Assessment returns (or your running total for the current year) against the table above, remembering to combine every self-employment and any property income.

2. Choose MTD-compatible software. HMRC publishes a list of recognised products on GOV.UK's software finder for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (checked in October 2026), with a tool that filters by your situation. Two reassuring points from that page: free products exist for simple tax affairs (with limits), and bridging software is allowed, meaning you can keep your records in a spreadsheet and use a small connecting tool to send the updates. You do not have to buy a full accounting suite, and HMRC recognises products without endorsing any of them, so pick what fits your working style.

3. Start keeping digital records now, even before your start date. The habit is the hard part, not the software. Record takings and expenses weekly rather than reconstructing a shoebox in January. If a card reader, your bank feed and your booking calendar already capture most of your income, you are closer than you think.

4. Put the deadlines in your calendar. 7 August, 7 November, 7 February, 7 May. Four small sessions a year beat one January nightmare.

5. Check whether an exemption applies. If you genuinely cannot use digital tools, because of age, disability, location or another reason, you can apply to HMRC as digitally excluded under GOV.UK's exemption guidance (checked in October 2026). If exempt, you carry on with normal Self Assessment; you do not escape reporting altogether.

6. Talk to your accountant if you have one, especially about start dates, how chair rent is classified, and whether your bookkeeping setup counts as compliant digital records.

Where your booking system fits in, honestly

Let us be plain: ViteUneCoupe is not accounting or MTD software, and it never files anything with HMRC. Your quarterly updates will go through a recognised product from the GOV.UK list above.

What a booking system does give you is the raw material: a clean, dated record of every appointment, which client, which services, which stylist. When you sit down to do your weekly bookkeeping, reconciling the till against a complete digital appointment history is far quicker than reconstructing a week of walk-ins from memory, and it gives your accountant a reliable picture of what the business actually delivered. With ViteUneCoupe, the free plan includes unlimited online bookings with 0 % commission, your service catalogue with prices, staff schedules, a client database and the calendar itself; the Standard plan, from 29 € excl. VAT per month with no commitment (billed in euros, which UK cards handle fine), adds automatic email confirmations, reminders and calendar sync. Fewer no-shows and a tidier diary will not file your taxes, but they do make the numbers you file both bigger and easier to trace.

Frequently asked questions

Does Making Tax Digital apply to me if I rent a chair in a salon?

Yes, if your qualifying income crosses a threshold. Chair renters are sole traders, and the test is your gross takings from clients (plus any other self-employment or property income), not what is left after chair rent and products. Around £580 a week in takings already puts you near the £30,000 threshold for April 2027.

Is the MTD threshold based on profit or turnover?

Turnover. GOV.UK defines qualifying income as your total income from self-employment and property before expenses are deducted, combined across all sources. A hairdresser with £52,000 in takings and £30,000 of profit is over the £50,000 threshold.

Will I have to pay tax four times a year under MTD?

No. Quarterly updates are summaries of income and expenses, not tax bills. Your Income Tax is still calculated on the full year and paid on the usual Self Assessment dates.

What happens if I ignore Making Tax Digital?

HMRC checks the qualifying income on each tax return and notifies you when you are in scope, and a points-based penalty system applies to late quarterly updates and late submissions once you are mandated. Exemptions exist, notably for people who are digitally excluded, but they must be applied for, not assumed.

Does MTD for Income Tax apply to limited companies or partnerships?

Not currently. MTD for Income Tax covers sole traders and landlords. GOV.UK says partnerships will be brought in later, with no date announced yet, and companies are outside this regime. If you run your salon through a limited company, different filing rules apply.

Can ViteUneCoupe submit my quarterly updates to HMRC?

No. ViteUneCoupe is a booking system, not accounting software, and it files nothing with HMRC. It keeps a complete digital record of your appointments and services, which makes your bookkeeping in a recognised MTD product faster and your income easier to reconcile.