Year-End Checklist for Landlords

The UK tax year for landlords runs from 6 April to 5 April, not the calendar year, which means "year end" for your rental accounts falls in early spring while the actual filing deadline is not until the following January. That gap is useful if you use it, and a source of last-minute stress if you leave everything until the deadline is close.

This guide sets out a practical checklist to work through as the tax year ends, split into what to do before 5 April, what to do in the weeks after, and the items landlords most often forget.

When the tax year actually ends

The tax year for individual landlords runs from 6 April one year to 5 April the next. So the 2025-26 tax year covers rental income and expenses from 6 April 2025 to 5 April 2026, and the deadline to file an online Self Assessment return and pay any tax owed for that year is 31 January 2027. That gives roughly ten months between the year closing and the return being due, which is exactly the window most landlords fail to use well, treating the whole period as slack rather than working through it steadily.

If you are on Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, this checklist still applies for your final year-end declaration, though you will also be submitting quarterly updates throughout the year rather than compiling everything in one go at the end. Our Making Tax Digital guide covers how that changes the rhythm.

Before 5 April

A handful of decisions and actions genuinely need to happen before the tax year closes, because they affect which year's figures they land in:

• Time any planned capital spending deliberately. If you are weighing up a large repair or improvement that could fall either side of 5 April, think about which tax year you want the cost to sit in, based on your expected income in each year.
• Review ownership shares if anything has changed. If a property is jointly owned and you are considering adjusting the split, for example between spouses to make better use of both personal allowances, this needs to be actioned before the year ends, not applied retrospectively.
• Use any reliefs or allowances that do not carry forward. Some allowances are lost if unused in the year, so it is worth checking with your accountant whether anything applies to your situation before 5 April rather than after.
• Check your qualifying income against Making Tax Digital thresholds. If you are close to a threshold, knowing now rather than after the year closes gives you time to prepare rather than being surprised by a mandate letter later.

After 5 April, before you file

Once the year has closed, the practical task shifts from decisions to reconciliation:

1. Pull together income for every property, ideally already organised property by property rather than as one combined figure, since a property-by-property view is what actually helps you and your accountant spot mistakes.
2. Gather mortgage interest statements from every lender, since these feed into the Section 24 finance cost calculation. Our Section 24 guide explains how that reduction is applied.
3. Chase any missing invoices or certificates for repairs, safety certificates or professional fees, while contractors and agents still have the records to hand, rather than months later when the trail has gone cold.
4. Separate capital spending from revenue spending. A new kitchen that goes beyond a like-for-like replacement is treated differently for tax purposes to routine maintenance, and getting this split wrong is one of the most common errors HMRC catches. Our landlord allowable expenses guide covers where that line sits.
5. Note any changes during the year, such as a new letting agent, a property bought or sold, or a change in how a property is let, and flag these clearly for your accountant rather than leaving them to be discovered mid-return.
6. Send your accountant a complete pack, not a partial one. Chasing you for missing pieces is one of the biggest drivers of accountancy fees rising year on year, so a complete first submission is usually the cheapest one.

A worked example. A landlord with three properties spends the first two weeks of April pulling bank statements, mortgage interest certificates and repair invoices into a property-by-property spreadsheet, flags that one property had a new boiler installed in March (a capital item, not a repair) and that a tenant moved out and the property stood empty for six weeks in the fourth property, sorted at the same time. Handed to the accountant in late April, the return is largely a review exercise. A landlord who waits until December to start the same process is usually reconstructing bank activity from memory, chasing a letting agent who has since changed software, and paying for accountant hours spent untangling records rather than giving advice.

Common items landlords forget

• Payments on account. If your tax bill is high enough, HMRC expects an advance payment toward the following year's tax alongside your balancing payment, and forgetting to budget for this catches out landlords whose income has grown since the previous year.
• Interest and dividends from a linked limited company. If part of your portfolio sits in a company and you draw dividends personally, these need reporting on your personal return separately from the company's own corporation tax filing.
• Small amounts of income from other sources. A small amount of furnished holiday let income, a rent-a-room arrangement, or minor consultancy earnings alongside rental income can affect your qualifying income for Making Tax Digital purposes even if the profit itself is modest.
• A property that changed hands partway through the year. Income and expenses need splitting between buyer and seller for the period each owned it, which is easy to overlook if a purchase or sale happened mid-year and records were not tagged clearly at the time.
• Evidence for a property you no longer own. If you sold a property during the year, keep the purchase, sale and improvement records, since these feed into a Capital Gains Tax calculation as well as your income tax return. Our record keeping guide covers how long to retain this evidence.

How PropMaps helps

PropMaps Studio is the modelling layer for this. Enter the property, the mortgage and the tax wrapper, then watch cashflow, cover and tax play out over years — instead of rebuilding a spreadsheet every quarter. Start with a free calculator or open the Studio.

Disclaimer

This guide is general information for UK landlords, not legal, tax or mortgage advice. Check GOV.UK, HMRC or a qualified adviser for your situation.