Multi-platform · MTD for Income Tax

Selling on Etsy and eBay: one business or two for MTD?

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

Short answer: MTD quarterly updates are per business, not per platform. HMRC needs separate digital records and separate updates for each sole trader business you run. Its example is an electrician who is also a driving instructor. If Etsy and eBay are two ways of selling the same kind of goods, that's commonly treated as one business with two sales channels, so you'd have one set of records and one update. Whether you have one trade or more depends on your facts. If you're not sure, ask HMRC or an accountant.

Signs it's one business, or more than one

This is general information, not a ruling. Things that point to one business include the same products, the same stock, one brand and shared costs. Things that point to separate businesses include unrelated activities, separate customers and costs, and separate decisions about each. What you put on your earlier Self Assessment returns (one or more self-employment pages) is also worth checking, because HMRC uses those returns.

Combining platforms into one set of records

Use one ledger with a platform column, so you can reconcile each platform back to its own payouts.
Use the same date rule on every platform (for example, the platform's ledger or posted date).
Remove duplicates: the same file downloaded twice, overlapping date ranges, and payments that appear in both a shop export and a payment provider's export.
Treat money moving between your own accounts as transfers, not income.
Put shared costs (stock, packaging, postage bought elsewhere) in once, not split across platform sheets.

What to download, platform by platform

For a combined quarterly update, download each platform's transaction-level file for the same period:

Etsy: monthly statement CSVs (Shop Manager, Finances, Monthly statements).
eBay: Transaction report (Seller Hub, Payments, Reports).
Amazon: Flat File V2 settlement reports.
Shopify: Payments transactions export (Finance, Payouts, View transactions, Export).
PayPal: activity download (CSV).

Keep the original downloads unchanged. HMRC expects you to keep supporting records, and having the originals makes checking much easier.

Worked example: one business, combined

Example Illustrative figures for update 1 (6 April to 5 July 2027), not real data.

Platform	Turnover	Expenses
Etsy	£5,120.00	£840.00
eBay	£3,480.00	£505.00
PayPal direct sales (after removing 6 duplicates)	£410.00	£14.20
Off-platform costs (stock, packaging)		£1,260.00
One quarterly update for the business	£9,010.00	£2,619.20

If the business's turnover stays under £90,000, a sole trader can send these as just income and expenses, without detailed categories.

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 marketplace 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

Do I need separate MTD software for each platform?

No. You need software, or a spreadsheet plus bridging software, that can hold the records for each business and send its updates. How many platforms you sell on doesn't change that.

If I have two businesses, is the £90,000 simpler categorisation test per business?

HMRC says the £90,000 turnover test applies to each source of self-employment income. If you have more than one source, you can only use simpler categorisation for both if each one is below the threshold.

Sources

Create digital records (digital links, simpler categorisation, net income) (GOV.UK)
Send quarterly updates (update periods and deadlines) (GOV.UK)
Business records if you're self-employed (GOV.UK)
Using Making Tax Digital for Income Tax for the first time (GOV.UK)
How to calculate your Etsy Payments deposit amount (monthly statement CSV) (Etsy Help)
Reconciling your eBay sales transactions (Transaction report) (eBay UK Help)
Settlement report types (Flat File V2) (Amazon Selling Partner API docs)
Viewing and exporting your Shopify Payments payout details (Shopify Help Centre)
Activity Download report (PayPal Developer)

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.