Making Tax Digital Mileage: The Complete Guide for 2026/27

Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax Self Assessment officially launches in April 2026, and mileage records sit right at the centre of the change. If you are self-employed or a landlord with income above £50,000, your days of keeping a paper mileage logbook and filing a single annual return are over. HMRC now expects digital records kept throughout the year and quarterly updates submitted through MTD-compatible software.

This guide covers everything you need to know about Making Tax Digital mileage requirements: what changes, who is affected first, what your digital mileage log must include, and how to get compliant before the deadline arrives.

What Is MTD for Income Tax Self Assessment?

MTD for Income Tax Self Assessment (MTD ITSA) replaces the traditional annual Self Assessment tax return for qualifying taxpayers. Instead of tallying everything once a year and filing by 31 January, you must:

1. Keep digital records of all income and expenses from the start of each tax year
2. Submit quarterly updates to HMRC summarising your income and expenses for each three-month period
3. Submit a final declaration after the tax year ends, confirming your full-year figures

The quarterly updates are due by the 5th of the second month after each quarter ends. For the 2026/27 tax year, that means deadlines of 5 August, 5 November, 5 February, and 31 January (combined with the final declaration).

HMRC’s stated aim is to reduce errors in Self Assessment returns and give taxpayers a clearer, more up-to-date picture of their tax position throughout the year.

The Phased Rollout Schedule

MTD ITSA does not apply to everyone at once. The government has set a phased timetable based on gross income thresholds:

Phase	Income threshold	Mandatory from
Phase 1	Self-employment or property income over £50,000	April 2026
Phase 2	Self-employment or property income over £30,000	April 2027
Phase 3	Self-employment or property income over £20,000	April 2028

The first year (2026/27) is also a soft-landing period. HMRC has confirmed that penalties for late quarterly updates will not be charged during the first year, giving taxpayers time to adjust to the new system. However, you are still required to keep digital records and submit updates — the soft landing applies to penalty enforcement, not to the obligation itself.

If your income falls below the current threshold, you can still sign up voluntarily. This is worth considering if your income is close to the boundary or you want to trial the process before it becomes mandatory.

How Making Tax Digital Affects Your Mileage Records

Under MTD, all business records must be kept in a digital format that allows electronic transfer. Mileage records are no exception. If you claim business mileage — whether through simplified expenses at 45p per mile or actual vehicle costs — the underlying journey records must be digital.

This has three practical consequences:

• Paper logbooks alone no longer qualify. A handwritten mileage diary cannot be electronically transferred to HMRC. You need a digital format: a spreadsheet, a mileage app, or records within your accounting software.
• Each journey must be recorded individually. HMRC requires journey-level granularity. Entering a single monthly mileage total is not sufficient. Each business trip needs its own entry with date, route, purpose, and distance.
• Records must be created contemporaneously. Digital records should be made at or near the time of the journey, not reconstructed from memory months later.

If you currently use a paper logbook, the simplest transition is switching to a mileage tracking app like Tripbook that automatically logs journeys via GPS and stores everything digitally.

The information HMRC expects in your mileage records has not changed under MTD — but the format has. Your digital mileage log must capture:

• Date of each business journey
• Start and end location (or a description of the route)
• Business purpose of the trip
• Miles driven for each journey

These fields are the same as those required under the existing HMRC business mileage record-keeping rules. The difference is that under MTD, the records must exist in a digital system from the point of recording. Transcribing paper notes into a spreadsheet at the end of the quarter does not meet the contemporaneous digital records standard.

Your quarterly update to HMRC will report the total vehicle expense for the period (for example, total business miles multiplied by the HMRC approved rate). You do not submit individual trip records each quarter, but HMRC can request them during an enquiry, and they must be available in digital form.

What Counts as MTD-Compatible Software?

To submit quarterly updates and your final declaration, you need MTD-compatible software that can communicate with HMRC’s systems via their API. For mileage specifically, there are several approaches:

Option 1: Mileage app feeding into accounting software. You track journeys in a dedicated mileage app and export the data into MTD-compatible accounting software that handles the quarterly submissions. Tripbook, for example, exports mileage records in CSV and PDF formats that slot directly into your accounting workflow.

Option 2: Accounting software with built-in mileage tracking. Some accounting packages include basic mileage logging features. These tend to be manual entry rather than GPS-based, which means more effort and greater risk of missed trips.

Option 3: Spreadsheet plus bridging software. You keep records in a spreadsheet and use HMRC-recognised bridging software to submit quarterly updates. This meets the minimum requirement but offers no automation.

For a detailed comparison of MTD-compatible mileage tools, see our guide to MTD-compatible mileage tracking apps.

Quarterly Updates: How Mileage Fits In

Each quarterly update summarises your income and allowable expenses for the period. Your mileage deduction — whether you use simplified expenses or actual costs — appears as a vehicle expense line within the update.

Here is how the quarterly cycle works for the 2026/27 tax year:

• Q1 (6 April – 5 July 2026): Submit mileage expense total by 5 August 2026
• Q2 (6 July – 5 October 2026): Submit by 5 November 2026
• Q3 (6 October – 5 January 2027): Submit by 5 February 2027
• Q4 (6 January – 5 April 2027): Submit by 31 January 2028 (with final declaration)

During the soft-landing period, HMRC will not charge penalties for late quarterly updates. But building the habit early means you avoid a backlog of unrecorded trips when the grace period ends.

If you use the HMRC approved mileage rate of 45p per mile, your quarterly mileage expense is simply your total business miles for the quarter multiplied by the applicable rate (45p for the first 10,000 miles in the tax year, 25p thereafter).

How to Record Mileage for Taxes: What a Compliant Record Must Contain

Whether you file the traditional way or under MTD, HMRC judges a mileage claim on the quality of the underlying record. A compliant mileage log is a trip-by-trip record — not a single annual estimate — and each entry needs four pieces of information:

• Date of the journey
• Start and end point (or a clear description of the route)
• Business reason for the trip (for example, “site visit — client name” or “viewing at rental property”)
• Business miles covered

Two principles decide whether HMRC accepts the log. First, the record must be contemporaneous — made at or close to the time of the journey, not reconstructed from memory at year end. Second, under MTD it must be digital from the point of recording. A GPS mileage app satisfies both automatically, because each trip is captured and timestamped as it happens.

A quick way to check your own log: if HMRC opened an enquiry tomorrow, could you show which specific journeys make up your claimed total, with dates and purposes? If the answer is a monthly round number with no detail behind it, the record is not compliant.

Simplified Expenses vs Actual Vehicle Costs

There are two ways to turn business mileage into a tax deduction, and MTD does not change the choice — only how you record it.

• Simplified expenses (flat-rate mileage). You claim a fixed amount per business mile using HMRC’s approved mileage rates, currently 45p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles in the tax year and 25p per mile after that (cars and vans). You do not claim fuel, servicing, insurance or depreciation separately — the flat rate is designed to cover all running costs. This is the simplest method and works well for most drivers. Our guide to simplified expenses for mileage walks through the detail.
• Actual costs. You total your real vehicle running costs for the year (fuel, insurance, repairs, servicing, and capital allowances) and claim the business-use proportion. This can produce a larger deduction for expensive or high-mileage vehicles, but it demands far more record-keeping.

You generally choose one method per vehicle and stick with it for as long as you own that vehicle. If you claim the flat-rate mileage allowance, you cannot also claim actual running costs or capital allowances for the same car. Either way, the journey log described above is what supports the figure — the flat-rate method still requires you to record every business mile.

MTD for Landlords: Recording Mileage Allowance

Landlords are inside MTD for Income Tax on the same thresholds as the self-employed — property income over £50,000 from April 2026, then £30,000 and £20,000 in the following years — and the same digital record-keeping rules apply to travel connected with the property business.

If you drive to inspect a property, meet tenants, collect rent, or visit for repairs, those are business journeys. Landlords can generally claim the flat-rate mileage allowance (45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles, 25p thereafter) instead of working out the actual running costs of the vehicle, provided you have not claimed capital allowances for that vehicle. Recording the mileage allowance is the same discipline as for any other business: a digital, trip-level log with the date, route, purpose, and miles for each journey.

Under MTD, that log feeds into the property-business section of your quarterly update as a vehicle expense. Purely private trips and ordinary commuting do not count — only journeys made wholly and exclusively for the property business qualify.

How Long Should You Keep Mileage Records?

Your mileage log is part of the records that support your tax return, so it falls under HMRC’s standard retention rules. For anyone in Self Assessment — including self-employed traders and landlords — HMRC expects you to keep your business records for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline of the relevant tax year. For example, records supporting the 2026/27 return (deadline 31 January 2028) should be kept until at least 31 January 2033.

If HMRC opens an enquiry, keep everything relating to that year until the enquiry is fully resolved, even if the normal window has passed. Keeping mileage records digitally makes this painless: a mileage app retains every historical journey indefinitely at no extra effort, so you are never scrambling to reconstruct a log from years ago.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I record mileage for taxes under MTD? Keep a digital, trip-by-trip log. Each business journey needs its date, start and end point, business purpose, and miles driven, recorded at or near the time of travel. A GPS mileage app captures all four fields automatically and stores them in the digital format MTD requires.

Is a spreadsheet or app good enough for a Making Tax Digital expense tracker? Yes. MTD requires records to be digital and transferable, so a spreadsheet, a mileage app, or records inside accounting software all qualify — a paper logbook alone does not. An app reduces errors because journeys are logged automatically rather than typed in later.

How long should I keep mileage records? If you are in Self Assessment (self-employed or a landlord), keep your records for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline for that tax year. Keep them longer if HMRC has opened an enquiry into that year.

Can a landlord claim the mileage allowance? Yes. Landlords can generally claim the flat-rate mileage allowance for journeys made for the property business — such as inspections, repairs, or meeting tenants — provided no capital allowances have been claimed for the vehicle. The journeys must be recorded digitally under MTD.

Can I still use simplified expenses under MTD? Yes. MTD changes how you record and report figures, not which deduction method you can use. You can continue to claim the flat-rate mileage allowance (simplified expenses) instead of actual vehicle costs — you just need the journeys behind it in a digital log.

How to Get MTD-Ready for Mileage

Getting compliant is straightforward if you start now rather than waiting for the deadline:

1. Switch to digital mileage tracking. If you are still using paper, move to an app or spreadsheet. Tripbook records every journey automatically via GPS, capturing the date, route, distance, and purpose — exactly what HMRC requires.

2. Choose your accounting software. You need MTD-compatible software for quarterly submissions. Check that your chosen package can receive mileage data from your tracking tool.

3. Set up your export workflow. Make sure you can move mileage totals from your tracking tool into your accounting software smoothly. Test this before April 2026 so there are no surprises.

4. Brief your accountant. If you use an accountant, discuss the MTD transition. Many accountants are onboarding clients to MTD-compatible platforms well ahead of the deadline.

5. Consider voluntary sign-up. You can join MTD ITSA voluntarily through HMRC’s online service. This lets you practise the quarterly submission process with no penalty risk during the soft-landing year.

MTD for Income Tax is no longer a distant policy announcement — it takes effect in April 2026. For anyone who drives for business, the core requirement is clear: your mileage records must be digital, journey-level, and available for quarterly reporting. Every trip you record digitally today is one fewer trip you need to worry about when MTD becomes mandatory.

Download Tripbook from the App Store and start building MTD-compliant mileage records automatically.