We Analysed All 122 MTD Tools on HMRC's Directory: 71% Cannot Finish Your Tax Return

There are now 122 ways to file Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, and almost none of them can finish your tax return.

That is not a rhetorical flourish. HMRC publishes a directory of software that works with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, and for each product it grades 16 specific tax-return items as "Ready now", "In development" or "Not included". Things like employment income, dividends, pension income, capital gains, the Construction Industry Scheme, Marriage Allowance. On 5 August 2026 we scraped the whole directory, walked every product's feature table, and graded every listed product against every axis HMRC publishes.

Then we researched vendor pricing for the competitively relevant products, because the directory tells you what software can do and says nothing about what it costs.

This is what the combined dataset shows. You can filter the whole thing yourself on our MTD software directory, which renders from the same snapshot as the numbers below.

What is actually on HMRC's MTD software directory?

122products listed on HMRC’s MTD for Income Tax directoryHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026

HMRC lists what each vendor declares. Feature flags, mobile-app support in particular, are vendor claims rather than verified facts, and listings change. Check with the vendor before you buy. Data: HMRC find-MTD-software service (tax.service.gov.uk), scraped 5 August 2026.

Every one of them is consumer software, and every one supports the standard 6 April to 5 April update periods, because HMRC will not list you otherwise. After that the field spreads out fast.

99of 122 (81%)keep digital records natively, rather than only bridging from a spreadsheetHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026 65of 122 (53%)can bridge from a spreadsheetHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026

Of those, 23 do bridging only, with no digital record-keeping of their own.

The directory is also more specialised than it first looks. 73 products run in a web browser only, 16 are desktop applications, and 52 list a mobile app at all. 13 products serve landlords but not sole traders, and 15 serve sole traders but not landlords, which means a landlord with a side trade can pick a product that quietly cannot handle half of their income.

Foreign property is the sharpest dividing line on the whole directory.

60of 122 (49%)can handle foreign property incomeHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026

Sole trader income is ready in 109 products and UK property in 107, so the drop for foreign property is not a rounding difference. It is the point where most of the market stops. Only 56 products cover all three income sources, so if you have a trade, a UK rental and one flat abroad, more than half the directory is already out.

Why can 71% of MTD software not finish your tax return?

Here is the finding that reframes everything else.

87of 122 (71%)cannot complete a single tax-return itemHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026

Those products can take your income and expenses and send HMRC a quarterly update. When you reach the end of the year and have to pull in your employment income, your bank interest, your dividends, your student loan plan, your pension contributions and everything else that makes up an actual tax return, they have nothing for you. The directory grades every one of those items "Not included".

The top of the market is thin.

27of 122 (22%)have 9 or more of the 16 return items readyHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026 3of 122 (2%)have all 16 return items readyHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026

Those three are MTD Companion for macOS, MTD Companion for iPhone and iPad, and MTD 4 Income Tax.

The distribution is barely a distribution. It is a cliff. 87 products sit at zero, eight sit between two and four items, five sit at nine or ten, nineteen sit at 13 to 15, and 3 sit at the top. There is almost no gentle slope between "quarterly updates only" and "can do your whole return".

The most complete products on HMRC's directory, ranked by tax-return items ready and graded on 5 August 2026. This is the top of the field.

Product	Free	Sole trader	UK property	Foreign property	Mobile app	Return items
MTD 4 Income Tax	Not included	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Android; Apple iOS	16/16
MTD Companion for iPhone & iPad	Not included	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Apple iOS	16/16
MTD Companion for macOS	Not included	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Not listed	16/16
AbraTax MTD for Income Tax	Not included	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Not listed	15/16
Abridge (MTD for Excel/Sheets)	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Android; Apple iOS	15/16
Clear Books	Not included	Ready now	Ready now	Not included	Android; Apple iOS	15/16
Clear Books Free	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Not included	Android; Apple iOS	15/16
Forbes MTD	Not included	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Android	15/16
FreeAgent	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Not included	Android; Apple iOS	15/16
Kletta	Not included	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Android; Apple iOS	15/16
My Tax Digital (Free)	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Not listed	15/16
QuickBooks (Intuit)	Not included	Ready now	Ready now	Not included	Android; Apple iOS	15/16

Which tax-return items are hardest to find?

We counted how many products have each individual item ready, and the answer is remarkably consistent: 15 of the 16 items are ready in only 20 to 32 products each. UK dividends is the best covered at 32. Capital gains is the worst of that group at 20.

The exception is partnership income, which is ready in just 5 products across the entire directory.

If you are in a partnership, the entire directory narrows to a handful of options before you have even thought about price or whether you like the app. Same story, less severely, for capital gains and for the Construction Industry Scheme, which matters because CIS subcontractors are one of the biggest groups being pulled into Making Tax Digital.

The practical consequence is the one HMRC's own guidance quietly acknowledges: you may need more than one product. A quarterly-update tool for the year, and something else to actually finish and file the return. That is two subscriptions, two sets of records and two places for something to go wrong. It is worth checking before you commit, not in the week before your final declaration is due.

Does "in development" mean it will be ready?

This is where the directory needs reading carefully.

94of 122 (77%)carry at least one 'in development' promise on a tax-return itemHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026

Many of them list all 16 items as in development. HMRC's own framing is that "in development" means the vendor has committed to having it ready for the 2026-27 return, which is a genuine commitment and not marketing. But it is a commitment, not a shipped feature, and that many products making it at once is a lot of software that has to land in one season.

If a product's answer to "can it do my pension income" is "in development", treat that as a question to ask the vendor with a date attached, not a yes. The version of the directory you are reading today is a snapshot, which is why we date every figure on this page and re-scrape monthly.

What does MTD software actually cost?

The directory says nothing about price, so we researched it separately, vendor pricing pages first. Every figure in this section was checked in August 2026 and prices move, so treat them as a starting point and verify before you buy.

The same statutory outcome, quarterly updates plus a final declaration, is sold at wildly different prices.

Read the two ends of that table together. Absolute Excel Income Tax Filer covers five taxpayers for £40 plus VAT a tax year, roughly £8 each. Kletta's entry tier lists at £228 a year, and a sole trader who also lets a property needs the £29 a month Duo tier at £348 a year, because Solo is sole-trade only. Compare entry tier to entry tier and that is about a 30x spread for the same legal filing. The landlord-with-a-trade case stretches it past 40x. And all of that is before you count the products that charge nothing at all.

Two caveats that matter if you are price-shopping. Kletta's site was running 50% to 70% discounts when we checked in August 2026, taking Solo to £9.50 and Duo to £9.90 a month, so its list price behaves more like an anchor than a price. And Xero, Sage, QuickBooks and FreeAgent all advertise heavy introductory discounts that expire. Budget for the rate in month seven, not month one.

Which "free" MTD tools are actually free?

Free has become a real category rather than a marketing word.

31of 122 (25%)list a free versionHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026

At least four give away the complete legal obligation, quarterly updates and the year-end final declaration, at £0: Clear Books Free, My Tax Digital, TaxHeaven Angel and GetGround, plus Self Assessment Direct's unconditionally free bridging and cashbooks. Each has a shape you should know about. Clear Books Free is forever-free with no card and no transaction limits, and markets itself explicitly on having no upgrade wall, but does not do foreign property. TaxHeaven's free Angel tier covers one business or income type with three AI uses a month. GetGround is UK property only, and gives MTD away as a loss leader for its SPV formation business. The banks have piled in too, with Monzo, Starling, Lloyds and Tide bundling free MTD tools into business accounts, and ANNA offering free quarterly and year-end filing while monetising the account instead. All checked August 2026.

That is the honest half. The other half of the free category needs reading with a colder eye, because "free" is doing different work in different places.

Coconut Free

£129.99/yr(checked August 2026)

• Free version: yes
• Android; Apple iOS: yes
• Sole trader income: yes
• UK property income: yes
• Foreign property income: no
• Keeps digital records: yes

0/16 tax-return items ready, 16 more in development.

HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site

The free tier is a Zempler Bank acquisition deal: two years free, new funded account only. Coconut's own 14-day trial cannot file. Standalone MTD filing is £129.99 a year or £21.99 a month, checked August 2026.

Crunch

£10 + VAT/mo(checked August 2026)

• Free version: no
• No mobile app listed: no
• Sole trader income: yes
• UK property income: no
• Foreign property income: no
• Keeps digital records: yes

0/16 tax-return items ready, 16 more in development.

HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site

Crunch Free is permanent and genuinely free, but it does not submit to HMRC. Filing starts on the Pro tier at £10 plus VAT a month, checked August 2026. HMRC's directory records no free version for Crunch, which is the more accurate description.

Landlord Studio

£5 per submission, or £144/yr(checked August 2026)

• Free version: no
• No mobile app listed: no
• Sole trader income: no
• UK property income: yes
• Foreign property income: no
• Keeps digital records: yes

0/16 tax-return items ready.

HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site

The free Go plan covers three units, but MTD is metered at £5 per submission. Four quarterly updates plus a final declaration is about £25 a year for a light user. It is the only per-submission MTD pricing we found anywhere in the market, checked August 2026.

Lendlord

£99/yr(checked August 2026)

• Free version: no
• Android; Apple iOS: yes
• Sole trader income: no
• UK property income: yes
• Foreign property income: no
• Keeps digital records: yes

0/16 tax-return items ready, 16 more in development.

HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site

The free plan is genuinely generous: unlimited properties, bookkeeping, a deal analyser. Filing to HMRC is the one thing behind the Premium tier at £12 a month or £99 a year, checked August 2026.

PaTMa Property Manager

£15/mo inc VAT (Pro)(checked August 2026)

• Free version: yes
• Android: yes
• Sole trader income: no
• UK property income: yes
• Foreign property income: no
• Keeps digital records: yes

0/16 tax-return items ready, 12 more in development.

HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site

Free covers one unit. PaTMa's own pages disagree about whether MTD filing is included on the free tier or is Pro-only, so confirm in writing before you rely on it. Pro is £15 a month including VAT, checked August 2026.

The pattern worth naming is "free at everything except filing". Lendlord and PaTMa both give away the bookkeeping and charge for the one action HMRC obliges you to take. Landlord Studio meters that action. Coconut's free tier is a bank's customer-acquisition budget. None of that is dishonest, and all of it is invisible from a directory row that says "Free version: Ready now".

If you want the free tier to be the whole answer rather than the first month, the useful question is not "is there a free plan" but "does the free plan submit to HMRC, how many times, and for how long".

Is any MTD tool free, mobile and complete?

This is the test we care most about, because it is the shape of what a sole trader or landlord actually wants: costs nothing, lives on your phone, keeps your records for you, and covers whatever mix of income you have.

We ran the whole directory through it as a funnel.

Start with everything HMRC lists. Filter to a free version, and you keep 31 of 122 (25%). Filter again to products with apps on both iOS and Android that also keep digital records natively, and the field collapses to 13 of 122 (11%). Filter one last time to products that cover sole trader, UK property and foreign property income, and this is all that survives:

3of 122 (2%)are free, on both app stores, keep digital records and cover all three income sourcesHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026

3 of 122 products on HMRC’s MTD for Income Tax directory, as graded on 5 August 2026.

Product	Free	Sole trader	UK property	Foreign property	Mobile app	Return items
DIY Tax	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Android; Apple iOS	3/16
Self Assessment Direct	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Android; Apple iOS	9/16
RentalBux Free	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Ready now	Android; Apple iOS	15/16

One near-miss deserves naming, because it shows how tight the filter is. Abridge (MTD for Excel/Sheets) is free, on both app stores, and covers all three income sources with 15 of the 16 return items ready. It drops out at the digital-records stage because it is bridging-only: it files from your spreadsheet rather than keeping the records itself. For a spreadsheet person that is a feature, not a flaw, and it is one of the strongest free options on the directory. It just is not the thing someone who wants an app to do their bookkeeping is looking for.

Now look at the three that survived, because "survived the filter" is not the same as "good answer".

DIY Tax

£0 capped, or £75 + VAT/yr(checked August 2026)

• Free version: yes
• Android; Apple iOS: yes
• Sole trader income: yes
• UK property income: yes
• Foreign property income: yes
• Keeps digital records: yes

3/16 tax-return items ready, 13 more in development.

HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site

Only 3 of the 16 return items are ready. The free edition is capped at one business or property, 30 invoices and expenses, 1MB of storage, and MTD for VAT or Income Tax but not both. Paid is £7 plus VAT a month or £75 plus VAT a year, checked August 2026.

Self Assessment Direct

£0(checked August 2026)

• Free version: yes
• Android; Apple iOS: yes
• Sole trader income: yes
• UK property income: yes
• Foreign property income: yes
• Keeps digital records: yes

9/16 tax-return items ready, 6 more in development.

HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site

Genuinely free with no tiers and no expiry, and 9 of the 16 return items ready. The directory records mobile apps on both platforms, but the product's own site presents a web-only tool, so verify the app before you choose it for that reason.

RentalBux Free

£0 for 1 property, paid from £4.50/mo(checked August 2026)

• Free version: yes
• Android; Apple iOS: yes
• Sole trader income: yes
• UK property income: yes
• Foreign property income: yes
• Keeps digital records: yes

15/16 tax-return items ready.

HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site

The strongest of the three on paper with 15 of 16 return items ready, but the free plan is one property and expires in March 2028. It is landlord-first: self-employment is the £5.75 a month add-on, or £9.50 a month for both, checked August 2026.

So the honest answer to "is there a free, mobile, complete MTD tool" is: not really, not yet. One is capped so tightly it is closer to a trial, one is web-first with a directory row that overstates its mobile story, and one is a one-property landlord plan with an expiry date. Meanwhile the products that genuinely give away the full obligation, Clear Books Free, My Tax Digital, TaxHeaven Angel and Self Assessment Direct, are overwhelmingly web-only, and the products with the best mobile experience are overwhelmingly paid: Kletta at £228 to £348 a year list for its self-serve tiers, untied at £129.99 a year, Coconut at £129.99 a year, TaxZap at about £99 a year, all checked August 2026.

Free and web-only, or mobile and paid. That is the market as of August 2026.

Where does TapTax land in this data?

We build TapTax, so the fair thing is to hold ourselves to the same table.

First, the fact that goes in the "against us" column: TapTax was not on HMRC's directory on the 5 August 2026 scrape. We are MTD-compatible, built directly on HMRC's Making Tax Digital APIs, and we are going through HMRC's recognition process now. Until that finishes, we are not a row in this dataset, and you should weigh that.

Second, the fact that goes in the same column: on the 16 return items, we are mid-pack. We have roughly 6 to 8 ready. That is well above the median listed product, which is zero, and well below the 15-of-16 cohort of Kletta, untied, My Tax Digital, TaxHeaven, RentalBux, Clear Books, FreeAgent and QuickBooks. Our real gaps are pension income, the Construction Industry Scheme, capital gains, partnership income and PAYE employment income inside the return flow. We are closing them for the 2026-27 season, and until we do, the top cohort beats us on completeness. Anyone telling you otherwise about their own product is worth checking against the directory.

Third, the honest reading of our own free tier. By the taxonomy we applied to everyone else above, TapTax Free is a capped free tier, not unlimited free filing: it covers manual record-keeping, the tax estimate dashboard and one quarterly submission. All four quarterly submissions, bank connection and AI categorisation start at £4.99 a month on Starter, and property income sits on Pro at £9.99 a month. If your only criterion is a permanently free way to meet the whole obligation, Clear Books Free, My Tax Digital and TaxHeaven Angel do that today and we do not.

What the data does say in our favour is the shape. Permanent free tier, native record-keeping with AI categorisation and receipt scanning, real iOS and Android apps on both stores, all three income sources including foreign property, calendar quarters as well as standard ones, and a paid tier at £4.99 a month, or £49 a year, which sits at the cheap end of this market without being the cheapest thing in it. MTD 4 Income Tax at £20 a year and the bridging tools at roughly £8 a taxpayer are materially cheaper, and RentalBux's landlord plan at £4.50 a month on annual billing undercuts our monthly price, all checked August 2026. What the funnel above says is that the combination is rare, not that the price is unbeatable. That is why we are pushing hard on return items rather than on anything else.

We would rather publish the version of this analysis where we come out mid-pack than the version where the dataset is quietly bent to make us the answer. The dataset is right here if you want to check.

What should you check before choosing MTD software?

Five questions, in the order that actually eliminates options fastest.

Does it cover all of your income? Sole trader, UK property and foreign property are graded separately, and only 56 of 122 (46%) of the directory does all three. If you have a flat abroad, start here and you will save yourself a lot of reading.

Can it finish the return, or only the quarters? Look at the 16 tax-return items on the product's directory row. If they are all "Not included", you are choosing a quarterly-update tool and will need something else in the spring. That is a legitimate choice, but make it deliberately.

If items say "in development", what is the date? 94 of 122 (77%) carry at least one. Ask the vendor for a shipping date in writing.

What does the free tier actually let you file? Not "is it free", but "does it submit, how often, and until when". That single question separates Clear Books Free from Coconut Free, Lendlord and Landlord Studio Go.

What is the price in month seven? Introductory discounts of 50% to 90% are normal across Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, FreeAgent and Kletta. The renewal rate is the real price.

If you want the underlying rows rather than our reading of them, the full directory table is filterable by free tier, mobile app, income sources and return items, and it renders from the same August 2026 snapshot as everything above. Our comparison pages go product by product, and what Making Tax Digital actually requires covers the obligation itself if you are still working out whether it applies to you.

How we built this dataset, and what it cannot tell you

We walked HMRC's "Find software that works with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax" service on 5 August 2026, collected every listed product, and extracted each product's full feature table: the eight software features, the three income sources and the 16 tax-return items, each graded Ready now, In development or Not included. Every stat on this page is computed from that snapshot at page-render time rather than typed in by hand, and we re-scrape monthly, so these figures move when the directory moves.

Three limits worth stating plainly.

The feature flags are vendor-declared. HMRC publishes what each vendor says about its own product, and we found at least two rows that argue with the vendor's own website: TaxZap is listed without a mobile app despite shipping a dedicated MTD app, and Self Assessment Direct is listed with apps on both platforms despite presenting a web-only product. Treat any single flag as a claim to verify, not a fact.

Pricing is not in the directory at all. Every price here comes from vendor pricing pages and public sources checked in August 2026, and pricing pages contradict themselves more often than you would hope. Hammock's homepage and pricing page disagree about its mobile app; PaTMa's pages disagree about whether MTD is on the free tier.

And a directory row is not a product review. "Ready now" means the vendor says the feature exists, not that it is good, and none of this measures whether the software is pleasant to use at 11pm on a deadline. That is the part you still have to try for yourself.

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