MTD for content creators and influencers
You earn across YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, Instagram and brand deals. HMRC treats it as one self-employment. QuarterFile keeps the digital records MTD now requires and files your quarterly update (the short summary HMRC now wants four times a year) from your bank statement. You just confirm the categories, from brand payments to platform fees.
HMRC recognition is in progress: filing opens for the 7 February 2027 quarter, and you can check your MTD date and join the reminder list today.
An illustration of the QuarterFile dashboard showing the current quarter, Q2, running from 6 July 2026 to 5 October 2026, with a filing deadline of 7 November 2026. It shows confirmed income and expense totals, a checklist confirming the quarter is ready, and a single button to review and file. The figures shown are examples.
Gifts and freebies
Your freebies are income too
HMRC treats the value of any gifts or services you receive for promoting something as income. A £300 product sent for a review is £300 on your books, even though no money moved, and it counts towards the gross income that decides whether MTD applies to you.
How gifts and freebies are taxedOne creator, many income sources
MTD looks at your gross income (the total before expenses) across everything you earn:
- Ad revenue: YouTube AdSense, Twitch, Facebook
- Sponsorships and brand deals
- Affiliate and commission links
- Memberships and tips: Patreon, Twitch subs, Ko-fi
- Gifts and free products sent for promotion
Income that arrives in fifteen pieces
An AdSense payment, three sub payouts, a brand invoice and a Ko-fi tip is a normal month, and every one of them is a line HMRC eventually wants summarised. QuarterFile covers that quarterly part for £12.50 a quarter, first quarter free, and your records export any time. Free does the same filings by hand.
See pricingCreator questions
What creators ask first
Do gifted products count towards the MTD threshold?
Yes. HMRC treats goods or services you’re given in return for promoting something as income, so a product sent for a review is income on the day you receive it even though no money moved, and it counts towards the gross income that decides which MTD wave you’re in. Record it at the value the brand puts on it, or what it would have cost you to buy. Genuinely unconditional gifts, with nothing expected back, are different, and if yours sit near that line it’s a question for your accountant. MTD for Income Tax applies when your gross self-employment and property income is more than £50,000 (from April 2026), more than £30,000 (from April 2027) or more than £20,000 (from April 2028).
Are YouTube, Twitch and Patreon three separate businesses?
Not if it’s all the same creator work. HMRC treats it as one self-employment, so ad revenue, subscriptions, tips, brand deals and affiliate commission are added together into a single quarterly update, and your camera, software and home-office costs are recorded once against that one business. Something genuinely different, a separate shop or a rental property, is its own business with its own figures.
Do I report the gross amount or what the platform actually pays me?
The gross amount. A £1,000 brand deal that reaches you as £850 after an agency cut is £1,000 of income and £150 of expenses, not £850 of income. Netting it off understates your gross figure, which is the number the MTD thresholds use, and it quietly loses you the expense as well.
Your channels, your quarter
Sponsorships, subs and freebies, in one set of figures.
Four times a year the platforms, the brand deals and the free products become one summary for HMRC. That’s the part QuarterFile does.
Want the dates, not the software?
One email, 7 days before each quarterly deadline. No account, no software sign-up, nothing else ever.
We store your email address to send one reminder before each quarterly deadline, until you unsubscribe. Nothing else. How we handle your data.