Self-employed and a landlord? How MTD combines your income
If you're both self-employed and a landlord, MTD adds your gross self-employment turnover and gross rental income together, before expenses, and tests the combined total against the threshold. It never tests either income on its own.
A worked example
Say your self-employment turnover is £48,000 and your rental income is £4,000, both gross, in the year assessed for Wave 1. Neither figure alone reaches £50,000. Added together, that's £52,000, over the threshold, so this person is in Wave 1 on the combined total even though neither income alone would have mandated them.
This catches people out in both directions. Someone can feel safely under on each income looked at separately and still be mandated, and someone with one large income and no other source is simply tested on that one figure since there's nothing to add.
Common questions
Does it matter which income is bigger?
No. It's the sum of everything that matters, not which single source is largest.
What if I have more than one self-employment or more than one property?
All of them are added into the same combined total: every self-employment and every property source you have, before expenses.
Could I be under the self-employment threshold and still be mandated?
Yes, if adding your rental income to your self-employment income pushes the combined total over the threshold for your assessed year, as in the example above.
Is there a separate, lower threshold for people with two income types?
No. There is one threshold per assessed year, applied to your combined qualifying income, whether that comes from one source or several.