eBay · MTD for Income Tax

Building an MTD quarterly update spreadsheet from eBay

Last reviewed 28 October 2026 against GOV.UK guidance. General information, not tax advice.

Short answer: A spreadsheet works for MTD for Income Tax as long as it holds your digital records and is digitally linked to HMRC-recognised bridging software. For eBay, start with the Transaction report from Seller Hub, record gross sales and postage as income, record eBay fees separately as expenses, and total everything cumulatively from 6 April. Each quarterly update covers the tax year so far, not just the latest three months.

What a quarterly update actually contains

A quarterly update is a set of totals for your income and expenses, by category, from the start of the tax year to the end of the update period. HMRC doesn't receive individual sales. If your turnover from the business is under £90,000, a sole trader only needs to separate income from expenses. Above that, you use the full Self Assessment categories.

So the spreadsheet needs two layers: a ledger with one row per transaction (amount, date and category, which is what HMRC calls a digital record) and a summary of cumulative totals that your bridging software reads.

Keeping the digital link unbroken

HMRC lists acceptable digital links, including linked cells in a spreadsheet and importing or exporting CSV files. It doesn't accept retyping or copy and paste once records are being used for submissions. In practice that means:

import the eBay CSV into the ledger rather than pasting numbers by hand
build summary cells with formulas that point at the ledger
let the bridging software read those summary cells, or import the file

What to export from eBay

eBay's Transaction report is a CSV of all account activity for a date range, including transaction date, order number, fees and payout date.

Go to the Payments tab in Seller Hub.
From the menu on the left, select Reports.
Under downloads, choose Transaction report.
Choose the transaction type and set the start and end date to the exact MTD period, for example 6 April 2027 to 5 July 2027.
Select Create report. eBay emails you when it's ready.

You can add or remove columns. Removing buyer name and address columns keeps personal data out of your tax records. eBay notes that report times may not match your own records because of time zones, so check transactions close to midnight at a period boundary.

Worked example: two quarters, cumulative

Example Illustrative figures for 2027 to 2028, not real seller data. Notice the second update repeats the first quarter's figures, because updates are cumulative.

	Q1 (6 Apr to 5 Jul)	Q2 (6 Jul to 5 Oct)	Update 2 sent by 7 Nov (6 Apr to 5 Oct)
Item sales	£6,200.00	£5,800.00	£12,000.00
Postage paid by buyers	£700.00	£640.00	£1,340.00
Refunds	−£250.00	−£180.00	−£430.00
Turnover	£6,650.00	£6,260.00	£12,910.00
eBay fees and promoted listings (expense)	£920.00	£860.00	£1,780.00

The order earnings eBay pays out would be lower than turnover, because fees are deducted first. Turnover uses the gross figures. The fees go in the expenses line.

Key dates for the April 2027 group

Date	What happens
31 Jan 2027	Deadline for your 2025 to 2026 return. It's the one HMRC uses for the £30,000 test
6 Apr 2027	MTD starts if qualifying income was over £30,000. Digital records from this date (standard periods)
7 Aug 2027	First quarterly update (6 Apr to 5 Jul 2027)
7 Nov 2027 · 7 Feb 2028 · 7 May 2028	Updates 2, 3 and 4 (each cumulative from 6 April)
31 Jan 2029	Submit the 2027 to 2028 tax return through your software and pay
6 Apr 2028	Threshold falls to £20,000, based on the 2026 to 2027 return

Penalty points for late quarterly updates apply from 2027 to 2028. 4 points means a £200 penalty. GOV.UK: send quarterly updates.

Want your eBay exports turned into one MTD-ready workbook?

TidyTill reads Etsy, eBay, Amazon, PayPal and Shopify exports, works out gross turnover, splits it into MTD periods and flags gaps and duplicates. Upload your exports and see your totals, quarters and Health Check free before you pay. Then £19 one-off for a workbook or £49 a year for unlimited workbooks. Paid workbook downloads open very soon; the free preview works now.

Try the free preview Get launch updates

Questions

Is my eBay payout the figure I report each quarter?

No. Payouts are net of fees. HMRC's guidance says to record the full income before expenses and record the expenses separately. Payouts are useful for checking that your figures add up.

Does each quarterly update only cover three months?

No. Each update covers the tax year so far. For standard periods, the third update covers 6 April to 5 January. If you correct an earlier quarter, the fix goes through in the next update.

Which bridging software can read my spreadsheet?

HMRC's software finder lists recognised products, and you can filter for ones that work with spreadsheets. HMRC doesn't recommend specific products. Check each product's import format before you design your summary sheet.

Sources

This page is general information based on the GOV.UK guidance linked above, as it stood on 28 October 2026. It isn't tax advice. Rules and dates can change, so check GOV.UK or ask an accountant about your own situation. TidyTill isn't HMRC-recognised software and doesn't send anything to HMRC.