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HMRC Authorisation for Income Tax Self Assessment

Before you can submit any data, you must give My Tax Digital permission to interact with your Income Tax Self Assessment account on HMRC's system.

Note: Signing up for MTD with HMRC (on the HMRC website) and completing this authorisation are two separate steps. If you have signed up with HMRC but cannot access any pages in My Tax Digital, it means this authorisation step has not yet been completed.

 

My Tax Digital HMRC Authorisation for ITSA

  1. From the Self Assessment home screen, click on HMRC Authorisation.

  2. You must ensure you have signed up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax first by visiting either:

  3. Ensure you meet the HMRC MTD requirements for Income Tax Self Assessment and opt-in for your chosen tax year.

  4. It can take up to 72 hours for HMRC to confirm your MTD opt-in. Before proceeding, verify that your sign-up has been processed by logging in to your HMRC online services account and selecting Income Tax. You should see a Making Tax Digital for Income Tax section with a link to view and manage it.

    HMRC Personal Tax Account — Income Tax page showing MTD section

    Click View and manage Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. Your Self Assessment dashboard should show your UTR, upcoming submission deadlines, and a Your reporting obligations panel listing "use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax".

    HMRC Self Assessment dashboard showing MTD active

    Click View and manage your reporting obligations. The table should show "Using Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: Yes" with status Required.

    HMRC reporting obligations page showing Required status

    Click View your deadlines — your quarterly submission deadlines should be listed.

    HMRC submission deadlines page showing quarterly updates

    If any of the above do not appear, your sign-up has not yet completed — wait a little longer before attempting to authorise.

  5. Once your sign-up is confirmed, click the Continue to HMRC button.

  6. This will redirect you to the HMRC site where you will be prompted to authenticate with your Government Gateway ID and password.

  7. IMPORTANT: If you have multiple Government Gateway IDs, make sure you enter the one for your Self Assessment account otherwise you'll receive the response, The client or agent is not authorised. and you'll then need to click Start again.

  8. If your sign-up is confirmed as active but the error persists after retrying with the correct ID, the issue lies within HMRC's records. Contact HMRC's MTD for Income Tax helpline and ask them to confirm the link between your Government Gateway ID and your NINO. General Self Assessment enquiries: 0300 200 3310.

Notes for Agents

If you are authorising on behalf of a client, there are two important differences from the individual flow.

Which Government Gateway credentials to use

This depends on whether you have set up client authorisation through your HMRC Agent Services Account (ASA):

  • If you have ASA client authorisation in place — use your own agent Government Gateway credentials when authenticating with HMRC in step 6.
  • If you have not set up ASA client authorisation — you will need to use your client's own Government Gateway credentials at that step.

If you are unsure whether ASA authorisation is in place, log in to your Agent Services Account and check whether the client appears under your authorised clients.

The NINO confirmation screen

After HMRC redirects you back to My Tax Digital, you will be prompted to enter a National Insurance number. This is asking for your client's NINO, not your own. You can usually see the client's NINO displayed on the same screen — ensure you enter that value, not your own NI number.