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. It is also graded not included on foreign property. 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 HMRC-confirmed 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. What it 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. There is also one specific gap in Clear Books' HMRC grading that anyone with an overseas rental needs to know about.
- 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 grades both Clear Books listings as not included on foreign property, while Clear Books' own pricing refers to a Foreign Property Free tier. The two sources disagree, so verify before relying on it.
- 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 122 listings on 5 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: no
- Keeps digital records: yes
15/16 tax-return items ready, 1 more in development.
HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 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: no
- Keeps digital records: yes
15/16 tax-return items ready, 1 more in development.
HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 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 5 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 28 of 122 (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, stated plainly
This is the one thing on this page you should not skim.
HMRC's directory grades both the Clear Books and Clear Books Free listings as not included on foreign property income, while grading both ready on sole trader and UK property. Clear Books' own published pricing, checked in August 2026, refers to a Foreign Property Free tier.
Those two statements cannot both describe the same current reality, and we are not in a position to say which is right. Directory feature flags are declared by vendors and can lag behind shipped functionality, which is exactly the kind of caveat HMRC's own data carries. What we can say is that if an overseas rental is your reason for choosing software, this is a question to put to Clear Books directly before you commit a year of records, because the moment you discover the answer otherwise is the year-end declaration.
For context on how narrow this capability is across the whole market:
60of 122 (49%)handle foreign property incomeHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 August 2026Under half the directory can report foreign property at all. TapTax supports it, 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 | £59.88 | £119.88 | £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 | Not included (HMRC grade) | Not included (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 5 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 122 listed products, 31 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.
31of 122 (25%)list a free versionHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 5 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 122 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 both, and everything else, against the same source in the MTD software directory.
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