Setting Up Digital Records for MTD: An Uber Driver’s First Month

Your first month on Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is mostly setup work. You confirm HMRC holds the right details, connect software, decide how Uber income enters it and keep a trail showing where each figure came from. Done well, each later quarterly update becomes a review of records you already trust.

Drivers whose qualifying income on the 2024 to 2025 return was over £50,000 should have been using MTD from 6 April 2026. Over £30,000 on the 2025 to 2026 return means a start on 6 April 2027, and over £20,000 on the 2026 to 2027 return means 6 April 2028, according to HMRC’s eligibility guidance. Qualifying income is gross self-employment and property income before expenses, so your driving turnover counts before fuel, insurance and other costs are deducted, and rent from a let property is added in. Employment pay, dividends and pensions are left out. The start-date rules and exemptions for Making Tax Digital for Uber and private hire drivers decide whether you join.

HMRC Sign-Up and Automatic Enrolment Letters

HMRC’s sign-up guidance says that from September 2026 it will sign up anyone who needs to use MTD for 2026 to 2027 and has not signed up themselves. It uses only the information it already holds, which may not reflect changes since your last return. A confirmation letter can arrive by post or in your HMRC online account. If you have one, check the details HMRC used: every self-employment source, any UK or overseas property income, sources that have stopped and whether an exemption applies.

To sign up yourself, use your Self Assessment user ID and password, have your business name, address and trade ready, and expect a possible identity check through a phone app. An accountant can sign you up through their agent route instead, without your Government Gateway password.

HMRC expects separate digital records and quarterly updates for each self-employment business, so settle with your accountant whether Uber, Bolt and delivery work form one business before you create categories.

Software Authorisation and Update Periods

HMRC does not provide software, so pick a product from HMRC’s software finder that covers every income source you have. Whether a bridging tool or an all-in-one bookkeeping app suits you depends mainly on whether you want to keep a spreadsheet; the setup steps are the same.

You must authorise your software before creating digital records, so it connects to your HMRC account, and reconnect every 18 months. Check the accounting period at the same time. Software defaults to update periods that follow the tax year from 6 April. If your accounts run to 31 March, select calendar update periods before your first update, because you cannot change update periods after sending one.

Opening Records From the Start of the Tax Year

Records start from the beginning of the tax year, not the day you signed up. HMRC’s digital records guidance says anyone who signs up partway through must catch up by creating digital records from the start of the tax year. A driver setting up in October 2026 therefore has six months of fares, fees and running costs to enter before the first update can go.

Each digital record needs the date the income was received or the expense incurred, the amount and a category. MTD uses the same income and expense categories as Self Assessment. If turnover from your driving business is under £90,000, you can use simpler categorisation and mark each transaction only as income or expense. HMRC advises full categories if you are unsure whether turnover will reach £90,000, since crossing it means recategorising the year.

For 2026 to 2027, the quarterly update deadlines are 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. HMRC will not apply penalty points for late quarterly updates in this first year, but a missed update still has to be sent before you can file the return. The quarter-end checks only work once the catch-up records are in place, so aim to finish them well before 7 November.

Uber Statements, Bank Feeds and Digital Links

A bank feed shows what reached your account, not what you earned. Payouts can arrive net of platform fees and earlier-week adjustments, and cash fares never reach the bank. HMRC warns that some transactions will not appear in full in a bank feed and must be created separately, and that accuracy is your responsibility.

Uber’s UK earnings statements are issued weekly on Mondays and can be downloaded as PDFs, with sections for total earnings, refunds and expenses, payouts and cash collected. Which lines make up your turnover depends on your terms, and whether Uber acts as principal or agent changes how fares and fees map to income and expense. Agree that mapping with your accountant once, write it down and apply it every week, then match each payout to its bank line so nothing is recorded twice.

If records sit in a spreadsheet and updates go through bridging software, the connection between them must be digital. HMRC accepts linked cells, emailed or uploaded files, CSV import and export, automated transfers and APIs. Typing a statement figure into your records creates a record; moving it on to another product by retyping or copy and paste is not allowed.

Expenses, Mileage and Mixed-Use Costs

Decide early whether you will claim the flat mileage rate or actual vehicle costs, because it changes what you record. HMRC says that if you are sure you will use simplified expenses, you do not need digital records of the actual costs they replace; if you are not sure, record them all. Keep the mileage log either way. A switch between mileage and actual costs can be restricted by what you claimed for the car in earlier years.

For a cost with private use, such as a phone contract, HMRC lets you record only the business portion, the total plus the disallowable portion, or the total with a category adjustment before the return. Pick one approach and keep to it. Digital records do not replace receipts, so the weekly receipt and statement routine still applies, with each receipt now sitting against a dated digital record.

First-Month Setup Checklist

• Week 1: check your HMRC online account for a sign-up message or letter. Confirm every income source, any ceased source and the start year HMRC has recorded.
• Week 1: choose software that covers all your income sources, authorise it with HMRC and confirm the update periods before entering anything.
• Week 2: if an accountant is involved, agree in writing who records, who reviews and who submits, and make sure they are authorised for MTD.
• Week 2: download every Uber weekly statement from 6 April, plus statements from any other platform, and save them in one folder for the tax year.
• Week 3: write down how statement lines map to income and expense categories, then import or enter the statements week by week and connect the bank feed.
• Week 3: enter fuel, insurance, repairs, licensing and phone costs from 6 April with receipts attached, or record your decision to use the mileage rate.
• Week 4: match payouts to statements, remove duplicate bank lines and log every open item in the audit trail before the next update deadline.

Sample Import Audit Trail

An audit trail shows how each figure reached the software. The example below is fictional and illustrates the method only; it does not describe a real driver. Copy the columns and add one row per import or batch of manual entries.

Keep each source file unchanged and store it with the trail. Correct a record in the product where it was created and add a dated row explaining why; HMRC says in-year corrections are picked up by your next quarterly update. Leave earlier rows in place so the history stays visible, and use the missing-records recovery log for any period you cannot rebuild from statements.

Professional Help With the Setup

If HMRC signed you up with the wrong details, or you face six months of catch-up records with the second update due, our HMRC compliance support can check the sign-up, set out who does what and review the opening records. Ask for a fixed quote that lists software, record-keeping, quarterly update and year-end work separately.

Official sources checked 22 October 2026. The checklist and audit trail are illustrations for UK sole-trader drivers. Partnerships, limited companies and VAT returns follow separate rules.