How to Declare Rental Income to HMRC for the First Time (2026/27)

This guide is general information, not advice.

This guide is for anyone who has started receiving rent in their own name and has never told HMRC about it. It is the procedure, not the tax rules. How rental profit is taxed, Section 24 and allowable expenses in detail are in the landlord rental income tax guide.

By the end you will know whether to tell HMRC, which route to take, where the rent goes on the return, and what to do about earlier years.

Before you start

Have these ready:

• your National Insurance number and your Government Gateway sign-in (or be ready to create one when you first sign in);
• your full name, postal address, date of birth and a daytime phone number - the registration service asks for these;
• the date the first rent came in, so you know which tax year it falls in;
• totals of rent received and of what you spent on the let;
• if the property is jointly owned, each owner’s share, because each owner declares their own share.

Step-by-step

1. Check whether you need to tell HMRC at all. GOV.UK’s Renting out your property: paying tax says the first £1,000 of your property rental income is tax-free (the property allowance). If your gross property income is £1,000 or less, HMRC’s allowances guidance says you do not need to tell it, unless you cannot use the allowance - for example rent from a company you or someone connected to you controls, or from your employer. If you own jointly, each owner gets the allowance against their own share of the gross rent.

2. Work out which band you are in. The same page says to contact HMRC if your income from property rental is more than £1,000 a year, up to £2,500, and that you must report it on a Self Assessment tax return if it is more than £2,500 after allowable expenses or £10,000 before allowable expenses. The allowances guidance words the upper band slightly differently (“property income over £2,500 - register for Self Assessment”), so if you sit near £2,500 run HMRC’s own tool, Check if you need to tell HMRC about your rental income, with your figures rather than relying on either summary. If you already file a return, the rent goes on it whatever the amount.

3. If you are in the middle band, contact HMRC using the contact route the paying tax page links to.

4. If you need a return, register for Self Assessment. Go to Check how to register for Self Assessment. The first question asks why you need to send a return: choose “For another reason (for example, you have income from a pension or a property)”, not the self-employed option. The second asks whether you sent a return last year. You sign in, and you’ll be asked to explain why you’re registering. If you cannot use the online service, fill in form SA1 and post it to the address on the form. The step-by-step for every route is in how to register for Self Assessment.

5. Activate your account and wait for your UTR. GOV.UK says the activation code usually arrives by post within 7 working days (21 if you’re abroad), and your Unique Taxpayer Reference by post within 15 working days (21 if abroad), sooner in your personal tax account or the HMRC app.

6. Choose property allowance or actual expenses. For each tax year you either deduct the £1,000 property allowance from your gross rent or deduct your actual allowable expenses. The working-out-your-rental-income guidance is explicit: if you claim the property allowance you cannot claim a deduction for your expenses. The allowances guidance adds that you cannot use it if you claim the tax reducer for residential mortgage interest. See the worked example below.

7. If you let a room in your own home, look at Rent a Room first. The Rent a Room Scheme lets you earn up to £7,500 a year tax-free from furnished accommodation in your home, halved to £3,750 if you share the income. GOV.UK says the exemption is automatic below the threshold and you do not need to do anything. Above it you must complete a tax return, and can then opt in on the return or record income and expenses on the property pages instead. The allowances guidance says you cannot use the property allowance on income from letting a room in your own home under the scheme. The comparison is in our Rent a Room relief guide.

8. Fill in the UK property pages, SA105. HMRC says to use the SA105 supplementary pages with your SA100 return if you received rental income from UK land or property. Rent from property abroad does not go on SA105. The guidance says that if you meet the cash basis criteria but prefer standard accounting, you must tick the box on your return to opt out of the cash basis.

9. Keep your records. The guidance lists rent books, receipts, invoices, bank statements and mileage logs, and says you must keep them for at least 5 years after the 31 January tax return deadline for each tax year. If you use the property allowance you must still keep a record of your income.

10. Check whether Making Tax Digital applies. Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, with quarterly updates, applies once your qualifying income from self-employment and property passes HMRC’s threshold. The thresholds and sign-up steps are in how to sign up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.

If you should have declared rent in earlier years

HMRC’s route is the Let Property Campaign, for individual landlords letting residential property in the UK or abroad. It does not cover non-residential lets such as a shop or garage, or disclosures for a company or trust. The paying tax page says a penalty will be lower than if HMRC find out about the income themselves.

1. Notify. Tell HMRC you intend to make a disclosure, through the Tell HMRC about underpaid tax from previous years service. At this stage you give no figures. HMRC writes to you with a disclosure reference number and a payment reference number. Each person notifies separately: joint owners make separate disclosures of their shares.
2. Disclose within 90 days. HMRC’s guide says you must disclose within 90 days of the date you receive your notification acknowledgement, and that HMRC must receive the disclosure and payment by the date stated on that acknowledgement.
3. Pay when you disclose. If you cannot pay by the deadline, you must make payment arrangements with HMRC by that date, or you lose the campaign’s terms.

Two points from the same guide shape what goes in. Income from the current tax year stays out of the disclosure and goes on a tax return, and income from the year before goes on that year’s return (or an amendment to it) rather than in the disclosure. How many earlier years you include depends on why things went wrong: a maximum of 4 years if you took reasonable care, 6 if you were careless, and up to 20 if you failed to notify HMRC at all or acted deliberately.

Deadlines and what happens next

• Registering: by 5 October following the tax year you first had the rental income, per the paying tax page. For rent first received in 2025/26 that is 5 October 2026; for rent first received in 2026/27 it is 5 October 2027.
• 2025/26 return: GOV.UK’s deadlines page gives 31 October 2026 for paper and 31 January 2027 online, with the tax due by 31 January 2027. If you register after 5 October 2026, HMRC sends a letter or email; you then file by 31 January 2027 or 3 months from the date on the letter, whichever is later, but the tax is still due by 31 January 2027.
• Let Property Campaign: the disclosure-and-payment date on your notification acknowledgement, 90 days from receipt.

Paying the bill is covered in how to pay your Self Assessment tax bill.

Common mistakes

• Registering as self-employed. GOV.UK’s registration service gives income from a property as its example of the “another reason” route; use that, or SA1 on paper.
• Claiming the allowance and expenses together. It is one or the other for each year.
• Declaring the whole rent on a jointly owned property. Each owner declares their own share and gets their own allowance against it.
• Putting overseas rent on SA105. It is excluded from those pages.

Worked example

Using the £1,000 property allowance for 2026/27, one or the other:

	Landlord A	Landlord B
Gross rent for the year	£2,400	£4,000
Actual allowable expenses	£300	£1,800
Taxable profit using property allowance	£1,400	£3,000
Taxable profit using actual expenses	£2,100	£2,200
Lower figure	Allowance, £1,400	Expenses, £2,200

Landlord A’s expenses are below £1,000, so the allowance wins. Landlord B spent more than £1,000, so actual costs give the lower profit. The tax itself depends on your other income; the reporting route depends on step 2.

Related reading

• Landlord rental income tax 2026/27 - how the profit is taxed, allowable expenses and Section 24.
• Rent a Room relief - the £7,500 scheme against the property allowance and actual expenses.
• How to register for Self Assessment - every registration route, step by step.