Verify Your MTD Property Business

Now for the important part: Provestor checks with HMRC to confirm everything is set up correctly for Making Tax Digital. This verification ensures you're properly registered before you start recording transactions.

Provestor checks three things:

Your MTD status for the current and upcoming tax years
Whether HMRC has a UK property business registered for you
Whether you have other business types that need different software

Once Provestor confirms your UK property business is registered with HMRC, you're ready to continue with the rest of setup.

HMRC does not automatically sign you up for Making Tax Digital, and you need to do this before continuing. This is the most common misconception about Making Tax Digital, so don't worry if you haven't done this yet.

Even if HMRC has written to you saying you need to use Making Tax Digital, you must sign yourself up. Receiving a letter does not mean you are registered — but signing up is straightforward.

What you'll need

Before signing up, you'll need:

Your National Insurance number
Your Government Gateway user ID and password
Your business start date or the date you started receiving property income (if within the last 2 tax years)
The tax year you want to start using Making Tax Digital (normally 2026/27)

If you're a sole trader as well as a landlord, you'll also need your business name, address, and the nature of your business.

If you have multiple income sources (for example, rental income and self-employment income), you need to sign up each one separately.

You sign up through HMRC's online service: sign up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax on GOV.UK

Confirming your Making Tax Digital status

Once you've signed up for Making Tax Digital and connected Provestor to HMRC, the app will check your MTD status and display it on screen.

The screen will show "Registered for Making Tax Digital". This means HMRC has confirmed you are registered for Making Tax Digital for the current or upcoming tax year.

Finding your UK property business

After checking your status, Provestor looks for a UK property business in HMRC's records.

HMRC calls this a "property income source", but throughout Provestor and this help guide, we call it a property business. They mean the same thing.

A UK property business represents all your income from letting UK property. Even if you own multiple properties, HMRC treats all your UK rental activity as a single property business for tax purposes. See HMRC's guidance on UK property businesses for the full definition.

What happens if we find your property business

If Provestor finds a UK property business in HMRC's records, it will automatically set it up in the app. This is the business you'll use for MTD quarterly updates and your final declaration.

You can continue to the next step in onboarding.

What happens if we can't find a property business

Don't worry — this is common. If Provestor can't find a UK property business, you'll need to add one yourself using your HMRC Digital Tax Account. It only takes a moment.

You can add a property by signing in to your HMRC Digital Tax Account and adding it here.

Once you've added it, return to Provestor and choose Check again, or reload the page. Provestor will fetch the updated information from HMRC.

If you're unsure how to add a property business in your Digital Tax Account, see HMRC's guidance on signing up for Making Tax Digital or contact HMRC for assistance.

Other business types

Provestor also checks if HMRC has registered other business types for you, such as:

Foreign property — rental income from properties outside the UK
Self-employment — income from sole trader activity

If Provestor finds other business types, you'll see a notification on screen.

While Provestor currently focuses on UK property businesses, you can still use it for your property income alongside other MTD-compatible software for any other businesses. At year-end, quarterly updates submitted through other software will flow into Provestor automatically, allowing you to complete your full Self Assessment return in one place.

For more details on managing multiple business types, see Using Provestor with other business types.

Rare issues

Multiple UK property businesses found

In rare cases, HMRC's records may show more than one UK property business for the same person. If Provestor detects multiple UK property businesses, you'll see an error message. Contact Provestor support and we'll investigate.

Unknown property business

Occasionally, HMRC will confirm that a property business exists but won't provide any details about it. This is a known issue on HMRC's side. If you see an "Unknown property business" message, contact Provestor support and we'll help resolve it.