What counts as qualifying income for Making Tax Digital if I have rental property and a job?

Your PAYE salary doesn't count towards the Making Tax Digital threshold — only your gross income from property and/or self-employment counts, before any expenses are deducted. So if you earn £40,000 from a job and £15,000 in gross rent, you're over the £50,000 threshold on qualifying income alone even though your job pays most of your income, because employment income is excluded entirely from the calculation.

This catches out landlords who assume MTD is only for people whose main income is property — it isn't; it's based purely on the property and self-employment side of your finances. If you jointly own a property with someone else, only your share of the gross rent counts towards your own threshold, not the whole amount. If you're not sure how your specific mix of income adds up against the threshold, it's worth working through the actual numbers rather than guessing.