The 2025 to 2026 tax year ended on 5 April 2026, which means your tax return for it has been ready to file since the following morning. The deadline is 31 January 2027, so most people will file it in the last fortnight of January, a good many of them on the last day, and a few thousand of them after midnight.

There is a better way to do this, and it costs nothing. Here is the case for getting it done in the autumn instead.

Filing early does not mean paying early

This is the misconception that keeps people waiting, so it is worth dealing with first. Sending your return to HMRC in September does not bring your payment date forward. The tax for 2025 to 2026 is due on 31 January 2027 whether you file in April, September or on the deadline itself.

What changes is how long you have known the number. File now and you have five months to find the money. File on 30 January and you have a day.

The 30 December option that disappears quietly

There is a genuine benefit that is only available to people who file early, and almost nobody knows about it.

If you owe less than £3,000 and you already pay tax through PAYE, HMRC can collect what you owe through your tax code instead of asking for it in one lump. The money comes out in equal instalments across the following tax year, spread over twelve months of payslips rather than leaving your bank account in one go in January.

The condition is that your return has to be filed online by 30 December 2026. Miss that date and the option is gone, and the whole balance falls due on 31 January.

This is worth knowing if you are employed and have a side business, if you have rental income alongside a job, or if you are a company director taking a salary through your own payroll. A director on a £12,570 salary is a PAYE taxpayer, so this route is often open, provided there is enough income for HMRC to collect against.

The payments on account decision needs numbers, not guesses

If you make payments on account, your January instalment is based on last year’s bill. If this year has gone worse than last, you can ask HMRC to reduce it.

The catch is that reducing your payments on a hunch is a bad idea. Get it wrong and HMRC charges interest on the shortfall, backdated to the original due dates. You need this year’s figures in front of you to make the call with any confidence, and in January there is no time to work them out properly before the money is due.

Filing early turns that into a calm decision made on real numbers. It also works the other way. If the year has gone better than last, you find out in the autumn that January will be bigger than you expected, which is a much kinder time to discover it.

Your 2025 to 2026 return decides a Making Tax Digital question

There is a second reason this particular return matters more than usual.

HMRC uses the 2025 to 2026 return to work out whether Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies to you from April 2027, when the threshold drops to £30,000 of gross income from self-employment and property. Gross income, not profit, which catches people out.

File in good time and you know by the autumn whether quarterly reporting starts for you next April, with months to get software and records in order. Leave the return until the last week of January 2027 and you could have roughly ten weeks between finding out and starting.

What waiting actually costs

If you file late, the £100 penalty lands the day after the deadline. It applies even if you have no tax to pay, and even if you are due a refund.

If you pay late, HMRC charges interest daily at 7.75 per cent a year, and adds a penalty of 5 per cent of the unpaid tax after 30 days, with further 5 per cent charges at six months and twelve months. Interest at 7.75 per cent is considerably more than your savings account is paying you, so there is no clever cash flow argument for holding on to the money.

There is also the part that does not show up on a penalty notice. HMRC’s phone lines in the last week of January are the worst they are all year. If something on your return needs a question answered, or you have lost your login, January is the least helpful moment to find out.

What we actually need from you

For most sole traders and landlords, an early return is not a big job. It usually comes down to:

  • Your bookkeeping records for the year to 5 April 2026, ideally already in software.
  • Bank interest and dividend figures.
  • Any rental income and the costs against it.
  • P60 or P45 details if you were also employed, and P11D details if you had benefits.
  • Pension contributions and Gift Aid donations, which people forget and which reduce the bill.
  • Details of anything you sold that might bring in Capital Gains Tax.

If your records are current, this is a short conversation rather than a hunt through a carrier bag of receipts.

And if you have only just realised you need to file for the first time, the date to worry about before any of this is 5 October 2026, when you have to tell HMRC you have income to declare. Our guide to registering for Self Assessment covers who is caught.

We do this in the autumn on purpose

Our clients’ returns are prepared through the year rather than in a January scramble, which is why they know what they owe months before they have to pay it, why their payments on account are set on real figures, and why the 30 December option is on the table when it is worth having.

Our Sole Trader service is £62.50 per month, fixed, and includes the return, the filing and the advice that goes with it, with no extra charge for picking up the phone.

If you would rather this year’s return was already done by the time everyone else starts thinking about theirs, Get your instant quote and see your fixed monthly fee in under a minute.