You drive for Amazon Flex, Evri, DHL or a local courier firm. You're self-employed. And your turnover for the 2025/26 tax year, the year that finished on 5 April 2026, was more than £30,000. If that's you, you join Making Tax Digital for Income Tax on 6 April 2027.
Turnover, not profit. What came into your account from delivery work, before fuel, van costs, insurance and everything else. Most drivers doing four or five days a week are over the line and don't know it.
There are eight months to go. The one thing we'd do first is open a separate business bank account and run every delivery payment and every work cost through it. Here's why.
Your bank may not allow business use anyway
A sole trader isn't legally required to have a business account. But a lot of personal accounts say in their terms that they're for personal use only. Chase's UK terms say exactly that. Others are vaguer, and some are relaxed about it. Check yours before you rely on it, because a bank closing an account in the middle of your first MTD year is a mess you don't need.
Why it makes MTD much easier
MTD means keeping digital records of income and expenses in software HMRC recognises, then sending a summary every quarter. The software gets its numbers from a bank feed.
Connect a business account and the feed contains business transactions only. Delivery payments in, fuel, insurance, repairs and the van lease out. Every line is something we can categorise without asking you.
Connect your personal account and the feed contains your groceries, your rent, your kids' shoes and, somewhere in there, the Evri payments. Someone has to pick through it every quarter. That someone is either you on a Sunday night or us, and we charge for time. A clean feed keeps your monthly fee at the bottom of the range.
Which account
You don't need an expensive one. Compare fees, whether you can pay in cash if you ever need to, and whether it connects to accounting software (nearly all do now).
- Monzo Business has a free Lite plan for eligible UK sole traders
- Mettle, from NatWest, is free and built for sole traders and small companies
- Starling, Tide and the high street banks all have sole trader accounts too
Those are examples, not a recommendation. Check the current fees and terms before you apply. We don't earn anything from any of them.
Four things to do before April 2027
- Check your 2025/26 turnover. Add up what the platforms paid you between 6 April 2025 and 5 April 2026. Over £30,000 and you're in.
- Open the business account. Then change your payout details with Amazon, Evri, DHL or whoever pays you, and pay work costs from it.
- Connect it to MTD software. Keep photos of receipts and invoices alongside. We set this up for clients as part of the monthly plan.
- Look at it monthly, not at quarter end. Updates are due 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. Ten minutes a month beats a panic every three.
Does MTD apply if my profit is under £30,000?
It can. The test is more than £30,000 of qualifying income, which HMRC defines as turnover before expenses. A driver turning over £38,000 with £14,000 of costs has a profit of £24,000 and is still in scope. The 2025/26 tax return you file this January is what decides it.
Where we come in
We already look after owner-drivers and couriers, and MTD is now most of the conversation. On the monthly plans we set up the software, connect the business bank feed, categorise the transactions and prepare each quarterly update for you to approve. From £50 a month plus VAT. There's a full explanation on the Making Tax Digital page, including a checker that tells you which year you're in.
Sources: HMRC, Find out if and when you need to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax and Work out your qualifying income. Bank terms as published by each provider. Correct as at September 2026.