TapTax vs Clear Books
A forever-free accounting suite vs a tax-first mobile app
Clear Books gives away quarterly updates and the final declaration with no card and no transaction limit, and in August 2026 HMRC finally graded it ready on foreign property too. Here is the honest 2026 comparison.
Estimate your self-employed tax in seconds
See what you would owe for the year, then file the real figures with TapTax in a couple of taps.
Total turnover before expenses
Under £1,000 we use the trading allowance automatically
Estimated tax bill
£6,872
15.3% effective rate for 2026/27
- Income tax
- £5,286
- Class 4 NI
- £1,586
Take-home pay
£32,128
after tax, NI and expenses
This is an estimate using GOV.UK rates for 2026/27, not your official tax calculation. TapTax is MTD-compatible, so you can connect to HMRC and file the real figures in a couple of taps.
Clear Books is the answer to a question a lot of comparison pages avoid: what happens when an established accounting company simply gives the legal obligation away? As checked in August 2026, Clear Books offers forever-free plans that cover both the quarterly updates and the year-end final declaration, with no card required and no transaction limits, and it markets directly against the industry habit of hiding the submission behind an upgrade.
That makes it one of the strongest free offers on HMRC's directory, and it means this comparison cannot be won on price. It got stronger in the week to 23 August 2026, when HMRC's directory turned both Clear Books listings ready on foreign property and closed the one capability gap earlier versions of this page had to flag. What this comparison can be won on is shape: Clear Books is a browser-based accounting suite that files, and TapTax is a mobile tax app that does nothing else.
- Clear Books is listed on HMRC's directory twice, as Clear Books and Clear Books Free, both graded with 15 of the 16 tax-return items ready and HMRC Assist supported.
- The free tier is genuinely free: quarterly updates plus the final declaration, no card, no transaction limits, as checked August 2026. Paid tiers cover VAT, multi-user, payroll and bank feeds.
- HMRC now grades both Clear Books listings as ready on foreign property, as of the 23 August 2026 scrape, which resolves a discrepancy with Clear Books' own Foreign Property Free tier that had run through early August. All three income sources are covered.
- Clear Books is an accounting suite used mainly in a browser; TapTax is tax-only and mobile-first with open banking, AI categorisation and one-tap filing.
- Clear Books is listed with HMRC today. TapTax is MTD-compatible and going through HMRC's recognition process.
How HMRC's directory grades Clear Books
HMRC publishes a feature grid for every product on its find-MTD-software service using its own three-state scale: ready now, in development, or not included. We scraped all 133 listings on 23 August 2026.
Clear Books Free
£0 forever(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, 1 more in development.
HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 23 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site
Free covers quarterly updates and the final declaration with no card and no transaction limits. Paid tiers add VAT, multi-user, payroll and bank feeds.
Clear Books
£5/mo Sole Trader, £15/mo Plus(checked August 2026)
- Free version: no
- 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, 1 more in development.
HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 23 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site
The paid tiers buy accounting features, not the MTD filing, which the free tier already includes.
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 23 August 2026.
Fifteen of 16 return items ready puts Clear Books in the top cohort of the directory, with only partnership income outstanding. It is also one of the 31 of 133 (23%) products supporting HMRC Assist submission feedback, which is a small but real advantage: HMRC checks your figures and flags likely errors before they become a correction.
The foreign property discrepancy, now resolved
This section used to be the one thing on this page you should not skim, and it is worth keeping for what it shows about reading the directory.
Through early August 2026 HMRC's directory graded both the Clear Books and Clear Books Free listings as not included on foreign property income, while Clear Books' own published pricing referred to a Foreign Property Free tier. Those two statements could not both describe the same reality, and we said at the time that directory feature flags are vendor-declared and can lag behind shipped functionality.
On our 23 August 2026 scrape both listings are graded ready now on foreign property. The lag closed in the vendor's favour, which is the useful lesson: a "not included" grade is a statement about what has been declared to HMRC, not a proof that the capability is absent. It is still the right basis for a decision, because it is the only independent record there is, but it is worth re-checking a grade that contradicts a vendor's own pricing page rather than treating it as settled.
For context on how narrow this capability is across the whole market:
68of 133 (51%)handle foreign property incomeHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 23 August 2026Under half the directory can report foreign property at all, so Clear Books moving onto the right side of that line is a material improvement rather than a footnote. TapTax supports it too, including the per-property detail endpoints, alongside UK property and sole trader income.
Pricing in detail, checked August 2026
| TapTax Free | TapTax Starter | TapTax Pro | Clear Books Free | Clear Books paid | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | £0 | £4.99 | £9.99 | £0 | £5 Sole Trader, £15 Plus |
| Approx. annual cost | £0 | £49 | £99 | £0 | £60 to £180 |
| Card required to start | No | n/a | n/a | No | n/a |
| Transaction limits on free | No | n/a | n/a | No | n/a |
| Quarterly MTD updates | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, on free | Yes |
| Final declaration | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, on free | Yes |
| Sole trader income | Yes | Yes | Yes | Ready (HMRC grade) | Ready (HMRC grade) |
| UK property | Yes | Yes | Yes | Ready (HMRC grade) | Ready (HMRC grade) |
| Foreign property | Yes | Yes | Yes | Ready (HMRC grade) | Ready (HMRC grade) |
| Return items ready | 6 to 8 of 16 | 6 to 8 of 16 | 6 to 8 of 16 | 15 of 16 | 15 of 16 |
| HMRC Assist | No | No | No | Ready (HMRC grade) | Ready (HMRC grade) |
| Invoicing | No, by design | No, by design | No, by design | Yes | Yes |
| Primary interface | Mobile app | Mobile app | Mobile app | Web browser | Web browser |
| HMRC directory status | Not listed; recognition in progress | Not listed; recognition in progress | Not listed; recognition in progress | Listed | Listed |
Clear Books pricing is from its published pricing pages as checked in August 2026. Feature grades in the Clear Books columns are HMRC's own, from the 23 August 2026 scrape.
The honest read: Clear Books is free and TapTax has a free tier too, so nobody is buying their way out of this comparison. What you pay for at Clear Books is VAT handling, multiple users, payroll and bank feeds, which are accounting needs rather than MTD needs. What you pay for at TapTax is automation: open banking, AI categorisation and receipt capture on the paid tiers.
- Free version (HMRC directory)
- A flag HMRC displays when a vendor declares a free version of its product. It does not mean the free version can file. Of the 133 listed products, 34 declare a free version, but several of those free tiers are record-keeping only, are tied to opening a bank account, or are trials that cannot submit. Clear Books Free is one of the small number where the free tier genuinely includes both the quarterly updates and the final declaration.
What "free" actually means across the directory
Clear Books deserves credit here because the category it competes in is full of tiers that use the word loosely.
34of 133 (26%)list a free versionHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 23 August 2026Of those, the free tiers fall into recognisable patterns once you read the terms. Some are bank-account acquisition deals rather than product tiers. Some are permanently free for bookkeeping but withhold the MTD submission itself, so the one thing the law requires is the one thing you pay for. Some are trials that cannot file. Some are metered per submission. And a small number, Clear Books Free among them, give away the whole legal obligation with no card and no wall.
We went through all 133 and sorted them in our analysis of the HMRC MTD directory, and you can filter the free listings yourself in the MTD software directory.
Clear Books markets against the sneaky upgrade wall, and on the evidence it has earned the right to. The question is not whether it is free. It is whether a browser accounting suite is the shape you want.
Where Clear Books genuinely wins
It is a real accounting system. Invoicing, profit and loss, CIS handling, data export and inviting your accountant in are all there, and they are things TapTax deliberately does not do. If your business needs bookkeeping rather than just tax filing, Clear Books covers both and TapTax covers one.
It is ahead on return items, at 15 of 16 against TapTax's six to eight today. It supports HMRC Assist, which TapTax does not. And it is listed with HMRC now, which TapTax is not. Those are three clean wins and they matter.
Where TapTax fits better
The workflow is the difference. Clear Books is a browser product with a mobile app of unclear depth; TapTax is a phone product first. If your expenses arrive as card transactions and paper receipts while you are working, the TapTax loop is shorter: the bank feed pulls the transaction in, AI categorisation proposes the treatment, you confirm, and the quarterly update is a review rather than a session of data entry. CSV import with presets for 16 UK banks covers accounts the feed does not reach.
Foreign property is the other one. On HMRC's current grading, Clear Books cannot report it and TapTax can, subject to the discrepancy above.
And if you do not want an accounting suite, you do not have to learn one. There is no chart of accounts to understand, no invoicing module to ignore, and no VAT settings to leave switched off.
You can size your position with either tool using the sole trader tax calculator for trading income or the rental income calculator, which applies the finance-cost restriction limiting mortgage interest relief to a 20% credit.
Who should choose which
A sole trader who wants bookkeeping and filing in one, for nothing. Clear Books Free. It is the strongest free offer of its type on the directory and it is available today.
A landlord with an overseas property. Not Clear Books on HMRC's current grading. Verify with them if you want to, but plan for TapTax, or another of the products graded ready on foreign property.
Someone who wants to do their tax on a phone in a few taps. TapTax. Clear Books' mobile listing is vendor-declared with little published detail, and the product's centre of gravity is the browser.
Someone who invoices clients and wants that in the same place. Clear Books. TapTax has no invoicing and does not plan to.
Someone who must file a live submission this week. Clear Books, or another listed product. TapTax's recognition is in progress and we will not dress that up.
The bottom line
Clear Books has done something most of its competitors have not, which is to make the legal minimum genuinely free and then say so plainly. On the directory it grades near the top: 15 of 16 return items, HMRC Assist, calendar quarters, agent software, no card and no cap. If you want an accounting suite that files and you are happy in a browser, take it.
TapTax competes on a different axis: tax only, phone first, open banking and AI categorisation doing the year-round work, and foreign property covered on HMRC's current grading where Clear Books is not. Its caveat is the same one on every page here: MTD-compatible, going through HMRC's recognition process, so confirm status before relying on it for a live filing.
Compare Clear Books, and every other listed product, against the same source in the MTD software directory. TapTax has no row there yet.
People also ask
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Frequently asked questions
Is Clear Books really free for MTD for Income Tax?
Yes, and it is one of the few free tiers in the market that genuinely deserves the word. As checked in August 2026, Clear Books offers forever-free plans covering both quarterly updates and the year-end final declaration, with no card required and no transaction limits, and it markets explicitly against what it calls a sneaky upgrade wall. HMRC's directory backs this up: the Clear Books Free listing is graded ready on a free version, digital record-keeping, agent software, HMRC Assist, calendar update periods and 15 of the 16 tax-return items. Paid tiers exist for VAT, multi-user access, payroll and bank feeds, but the MTD obligation itself is not behind them.
Does Clear Books handle foreign property income?
Yes, as of our 23 August 2026 scrape. HMRC's directory now grades both the Clear Books and Clear Books Free listings as ready on foreign property, alongside sole trader and UK property, so Clear Books covers all three business income sources. This is a change: through early August the directory graded both listings not included, while Clear Books' own pricing page already referred to a Foreign Property Free tier. The vendor's claim and HMRC's record now agree, which is the outcome that resolves the discrepancy earlier versions of this page flagged. Only 68 of the 133 listed products can report foreign property at all, so this moves Clear Books into a much smaller group.
What is the difference between Clear Books and TapTax?
Clear Books is an established UK accounting suite that has made MTD for Income Tax free, so you get a full bookkeeping system with invoicing, profit and loss, CIS handling and accountant invites, used mostly through a browser. TapTax is a tax-first mobile app: open banking import, AI categorisation, receipt capture, CSV import and one-tap quarterly filing, with no invoicing or payroll by design. If you want accounting software that also files, Clear Books. If you want the shortest path from bank transaction to submitted quarterly update on your phone, TapTax. The honest caveat is that Clear Books is listed with HMRC today, while TapTax is MTD-compatible and going through HMRC's recognition process.
Does Clear Books have a mobile app?
HMRC's directory lists both Clear Books entries with Android and Apple iOS apps. That flag is vendor-declared rather than verified by HMRC, and our pricing research in August 2026 found the app referenced by Clear Books but with little published detail about what it does. Clear Books is fundamentally a browser-based accounting suite, so treat the mobile listing as real but secondary rather than as evidence of a mobile-first workflow. If doing your tax entirely from a phone matters to you, test the app before committing.
Which is better for a sole trader with simple income?
On cost, Clear Books is hard to beat at £0 with no cap, and it is on HMRC's directory now with 15 of 16 return items ready and all three income sources covered, which is ahead of where TapTax stands today. TapTax is the better fit if you want the work done on a phone rather than in a browser, or if you want AI categorisation and open banking doing the sorting through the year rather than a bookkeeping interface waiting for you. For a sole trader with simple UK-only income who is comfortable in a browser and wants to pay nothing, Clear Books Free is a genuinely strong answer and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
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