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Measured on six things

Free MTD checker for UK sole traders and landlords.

Security

HTTPS enforced with SPF/DMARC, and inputs stay client-side. But no HSTS, CSP, frame protection, or security page — 4/12 on the header checklist.

Screenshots

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Making Tax Digital Checker

About this app

The Making Tax Digital (MTD) Checker is a free online tool by UK Creative Ventures that helps UK sole traders and landlords determine if and when they need to comply with HMRC's Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. It serves as a critical first step in navigating the complex MTD regulations, providing personalised results based on income sources and thresholds of £50k, £30k, and £20k. The tool guides users through a simple questionnaire, calculates qualifying income (including pro-rata adjustments for mid-year starts), and offers a downloadable calendar with upcoming deadlines for the next two tax years. It also includes a readiness checklist and a plain-text summary to share with accountants, all while ensuring data privacy as nothing leaves the browser. This independent tool is checked against HMRC guidance and is not affiliated with HMRC. It is an invaluable resource for anyone confused about MTD eligibility and looking for a clear, actionable roadmap to digital tax compliance.

Key features

1Free, no-sign-up MTD eligibility checker for UK sole traders and landlords with £50k/£30k/£20k thresholds.
2Personalised quarterly deadline calendar downloadable as .ics for Google, Outlook, and Apple Calendar.
3Readiness checklist plus a copyable plain-text summary to share with an accountant.

Target customer profile

Drawn from the product itself, not from a survey.

Demographic

Self-employed sole traders and freelancers with income over £50,000

Pain points

Uncertainty about MTD start date and qualifying income; fear of penalties for non-compliance.

Primary needs

Clarity on MTD eligibility, personalised deadlines, and readiness steps.

Demographic

Landlords with rental income above £20,000, including joint property owners

Pain points

Confusion over what counts as qualifying income (e.g., joint property share) and how to calculate it.

Primary needs

Accurate income assessment, deadline reminders, and guidance on digital record-keeping.

Demographic

Accountants and tax advisors serving small business clients

Pain points

Clients unaware of MTD obligations; need for efficient, reliable eligibility checks.

Primary needs

A free, quick tool to assess multiple clients, generate summaries, and share deadlines.

Scout Review

Written by AI from measured evidence, scored out of 100.

Making Tax Digital Checker is a free, no-sign-up eligibility tool for UK sole traders and landlords navigating HMRC's MTD for Income Tax. It walks you through income types, income figures, and exemption questions, then returns a personalised result with quarterly deadlines, a downloadable .ics calendar, a readiness checklist, and a plain-text summary for your accountant. The inline guidance is genuinely good — qualifying income rules, joint property shares, and pro-rata scaling for mid-year starts are all explained clearly. It's checked against HMRC guidance and explicitly independent. The measured picture is mixed: accessibility scores 90/100 with four real failures, mobile performance is 66/100, and security headers are thin at 4/12 despite HTTPS and client-side-only data handling. Design is clean but generic, sitting inside an agency template. As a free utility it does its job well; as a hardened, accessible product it has clear room to improve.

Measure by measure

Usability

No sign-up, instant results, and genuinely useful outputs: .ics deadline calendar, readiness checklist, and a copyable summary for your accountant. Inline help explains qualifying income well.

Design

Clean numbered wizard with a live result panel and clear inline help. Functional and modern, but it lives inside a generic agency template with no product screenshots or demo.

Speed

Lighthouse mobile 66/100 (LCP 3.0s, TBT 667ms), desktop 82/100. Fine for a form-based tool, but the 667ms main-thread block shows it's carrying agency-site weight.

Security

HTTPS enforced with SPF/DMARC, and inputs stay client-side. But no HSTS, CSP, frame protection, or security page — 4/12 on the header checklist.

Accessibility

Lighthouse a11y 90/100, but four real failures: prohibited ARIA, broken heading order, color-only links, and no main landmark. No WCAG statement published.

Growth

A real, dated regulatory need with a specific wedge: personalised deadlines and an accountant-ready summary that HMRC's own tool doesn't offer. Early-stage, but the idea has room.

Improvement areas

Security headers are thin (4/12): no HSTS, CSP, frame protection, or X-Content-Type-Options despite handling tax inputs.
Four Lighthouse accessibility failures: prohibited ARIA, heading order, color-only links, and no main landmark.
No product screenshot, demo, or dedicated landing page — the tool sits inside a general agency site.

Design & Usability

The checker is a three-step wizard — income types, income figures, then exemption questions — with a live result panel that updates as you go. It's clean, clearly labeled, and the inline help is unusually good: it spells out that MTD looks at income before expenses, that joint property counts only your share, and that mid-year starts get scaled to a full year the way HMRC does it. The weakness is context: the tool sits inside a general agency site (marketing, recruitment, SEO services), so the branding is generic and there's no screenshot or demo of the product itself. Usability is where it earns its keep. No sign-up, nothing leaves the browser, and the outputs are actually useful — a downloadable .ics calendar with a 7-day reminder, a readiness checklist, and a plain-text summary you can forward to an accountant. For a free tool aimed at confused sole traders and landlords, that's a genuinely thoughtful package.

Speed & Security

On speed, Lighthouse gives it 66/100 on mobile (LCP 3.0s, TBT 667ms, CLS 0) and 82/100 on desktop. For a form-based tool that's acceptable but not impressive — the 667ms of main-thread blocking suggests it's carrying the weight of a full agency website rather than shipping as a lean standalone page. No user complaints about lag surfaced in the collected evidence. Security is the softer spot. HTTPS is enforced and SPF/DMARC are configured, and the tool's client-side-only design means sensitive income figures never hit a server — a real privacy win. But the header probe found no HSTS, no CSP, no frame protection, no X-Content-Type-Options, no Referrer-Policy, and no Permissions-Policy, scoring 4/12 on the checklist. There's no security page, no audit, and no bug bounty. For a free tool handling tax inputs, the client-side approach is the right call; the missing hardening is the gap.

Accessibility & Growth

Accessibility lands at 90/100 on the Lighthouse audit, which sounds strong until you read the failures: prohibited ARIA attributes, headings that don't descend sequentially, links distinguishable only by color, and no main landmark. Those are real barriers for screen reader and keyboard users, and there's no published WCAG statement to show the team is tracking them. The tool is also English-only and web-only. Growth is a judgement about the idea, not the traction. MTD for Income Tax is a real, dated regulatory obligation with phased thresholds at £50k, £30k, and £20k, and the target customer — sole traders, landlords, and the accountants who serve them — is specific and motivated. The wedge is concrete: HMRC's own eligibility tool tells you *if* you qualify, but this one tells you *when*, generates a calendar file, and produces a summary you can hand to an accountant. That's a defensible niche, though a narrow one: it's a free lead-gen tool for an agency, not a product with network effects.

Conclusion

If you're a sole trader or landlord trying to work out whether MTD applies to you and when your first quarterly update is due, this tool answers both questions in a couple of minutes without asking for an email address. The calendar file and accountant summary are the standout touches — they turn a yes/no answer into something actionable. The caveats are real but not disqualifying: it's a free lead-gen tool for an agency, so treat it as a starting point rather than a definitive ruling, and the site's own accessibility and security hardening lag behind the quality of the tax logic. For anything unusual — non-residence, short accounting periods, income that's stopped — the tool itself tells you to check GOV.UK or speak to an accountant, which is the honest answer. Use it to get oriented, then verify the specifics.

Suggestions for improvement

Add HSTS, CSP, frame protection, and X-Content-Type-Options headers — the 4/12 checklist score is an easy win for a tool handling tax inputs.
Fix the four Lighthouse a11y failures: prohibited ARIA, heading order, color-only links, and the missing main landmark.
Publish a short accessibility statement and a security/privacy page explaining the client-side-only data handling.
Add a screenshot or short demo of the tool on the landing page so visitors see the output before starting the wizard.

How we score

Alternatives comparison

Named competitors, point by point. Nobody paid to appear here or to be left out.

	Making Tax Digital Checker	HMRC's MTD for Income Tax Eligibility Tool	FreeAgent MTD Hub	QuickBooks MTD Centre
Cost and sign-up requirement	Free, no sign-up required	Free, official HMRC tool, no sign-up	Free resources but requires sign-up; promotes paid software	Guidance free; full functionality needs a QuickBooks subscription
Personalised deadline calendar (.ics export)	Yes — downloadable .ics with 7-day reminders	No — eligibility answer only	Deadlines shown in software for subscribers	Deadlines tracked in-app for subscribers
Readiness checklist and accountant-shareable summary	Yes — checklist plus copyable plain-text summary	No — no checklist or summary export	Guidance articles; no standalone checklist export	Guidance articles; no standalone checklist export
Data privacy model	All input stays in the browser; nothing sent to a server	Official government service; standard GOV.UK data handling	Account data stored in FreeAgent's cloud platform	Account data stored in Intuit's cloud platform