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1. How do I know if I’ve registered for Making Tax Digital?
2. How to register for MTD for VAT

How do I know if I've signed up for Making Tax Digital for VAT?

September 9, 2022

If you’re looking to register your business for Value Added Tax (VAT) voluntarily or have just surpassed the VAT registration threshold, you’ll need to register your business for Making Tax Digital (MTD).

Making Tax Digital for VAT has been in place for all VAT-registered business owners — including self-employed sole traders, limited companies and partnerships — since April 2022, but previously was only applicable to business owners with a taxable turnover above the £85,000 VAT threshold, first coming into effect in April 2019.Since failing to sign your VAT-registered business up for MTD can be quite costly, you’d understandably want to make sure that your application has been acknowledged by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), especially if your next VAT Return is coming up.But how do you know if you’re already registered? Read on to find out.

How do I know if I’ve registered for Making Tax Digital?

If you’ve recently registered your business for MTD for VAT, you’d have followed the MTD online registration process using your Government Gateway account on HMRC’s website. (If not, scroll down for our step-by-step guide to registering your business for MTD for VAT.)If you’d successfully registered your business for MTD for VAT, at the end of your online registration process you’d have seen the following screen:

However, if it’s been a while since you registered, HMRC should have sent you a confirmation email within 72 hours of completing your registration.

If you can’t find this email buried in your inbox, you can always contact HMRC to find out if your business is registered for MTD for VAT.

How to register for MTD for VAT

If it turns out your small business isn’t registered for MTD for VAT and are required to sign up, you can sign up by following our step-by-step registration guide below.

Have MTD-compatible software in place

Before you can register your business for MTD for VAT, you’ll need to have MTD-compatible software in place.

There are 2 eligible types of MTD-compliant software that can be used to file your tax returns to HMRC: bridging software and accounting software. You can find the full list of MTD-compliant software packages on HMRC’s website, but to save you from scrolling we can confirm that Ember is MTD for VAT approved.

Declare how you keep your records

As well as submitting your VAT Returns electronically, under Making Tax Digital you’ll need to store digital records, too.If you’re using bridging software, you’ll need to declare that you plan on using spreadsheets to do your record-keeping, such as Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. Otherwise, you can confirm that you’re using accounting software.

With Ember, you can securely store your VAT records in our app using our snap-and-capture technology, before filing your VAT Returns directly to HMRC.

Sign in using Government Gateway

Once you’ve completed the steps above, you’ll be taken to the Government Gateway portal, where you’ll be asked to sign into HMRC’s online services using your Government Gateway account.Here, you’ll need your Government Gateway ID and password to sign in, but if you don’t yet have an account you can set one up before starting the registration process.

Provide information about you and your business

After signing in, you’ll be asked to provide the following information about you and your business:

Your business structure Business email address and contact details VAT registration number Details of your latest VAT Return

Depending on your business structure, you’ll also need to provide the following information:

Legal Structure	Additional Information
Sole trader	National Insurance number
Limited company	Company registration number Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR)
Partnership	UTR The postcode where you're registered for Self Assessment
Limited Liability Partnership (LLP)	UTR The postcode where you're registered for Self Assessment Company registration number

Confirmation screen

Just before you submit your registration, you’ll get one final chance to review your information to make sure it’s correct.

After hitting submit, you should be shown the following screen, confirming your application — success! Just wait until you receive your confirmation email from HMRC before submitting a VAT Return to make sure you don’t accidentally pay VAT twice.

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