Filing your Final Declaration

Once a tax year ends and every quarterly update for it has been sent, the Final Declaration replaces the old annual Self Assessment return. It's due by 31 January, the same date as the balancing payment. Open it from Tax → MTD or from your tax timeline (the "File your \_\_\_\_/\_\_ tax return" entry links straight there once you're connected to HMRC).

The page works through the same steps in order:

1. Quarterly updates, every update for the year must be sent first; this step just confirms it. If HMRC has a business down as Annual or latent for the year, it has no quarterly obligations at all — instead this step offers Send the year's figures, a single update covering the whole tax year, once the year has ended.
2. Accounting method, HMRC's own year-end requirement: get the accounting type it holds for each business and confirm it matches your accounting basis (Tax → Overview → Tax settings). If they disagree, either update HMRC to match, or switch your accounting basis instead — changing the basis applies to the whole business and means resending your latest update.
3. Period of account, self-employment businesses only, from the 2025/26 tax year: tells HMRC your period of account for the business is the whole tax year.
4. Annual adjustments, for each connected business, add anything that only applies once a year: capital allowances, balancing charges, goods taken for your own use, or a Class 4 National Insurance exemption for a self-employment; the cost of replacing domestic items, other capital allowances or a private-use adjustment for UK property. If you use traditional accounting (not the cash basis), the Annual Investment Allowance is pre-filled from the equipment you've bought this year — you can enter a different amount, or switch back to the pre-filled total at any time. A live preview shows exactly what will be sent, including any trading or property allowance the tax engine has already applied for you: HMRC doesn't allow the trading allowance and capital allowances together, so BusyBee Hub sends whichever is worth more and never both. Save your figures, then send them to HMRC; a business with nothing to add can skip this step.
5. Losses, any loss brought forward from an earlier year (set in tax settings, alongside your National Insurance number) and this year's loss, if any, sent as a loss claim.
6. CIS deductions, only if you're a CIS subcontractor and the tax year has ended: compare what each contractor reported to HMRC with your own records, then send, update or remove your figures per contractor; see Check your CIS deductions with HMRC.
7. Income from HMRC (PAYE), pull in the employments and occupational pensions HMRC already has on record; see PAYE income from HMRC.
8. Interest and dividends, sent from the records already on your Other income page; "Other" income has no HMRC API in this release, so it's declared directly on HMRC's own online service.
9. HMRC's calculation, once the steps above are complete, request HMRC's calculation. It's shown in full (every income source, allowance, tax band, National Insurance and payment already made) next to BusyBee Hub's own estimate, with the disclaimer HMRC requires before you see any calculation.
10. Declaration, HMRC's own wording, exactly as it appears on their own service:

> Before you can submit the information displayed here in response to your notice to file from HM Revenue & Customs, you must read and agree to the following statement:
>
> "I declare that the information and tax return I have submitted are (taken together) correct and complete to the best of my knowledge. I understand that I may have to pay financial penalties and face prosecution if I give false information."

Only the business owner can tick the box and submit this step — it's the taxpayer's own personal statement to HMRC, so admins and accountants can't make it on someone else's behalf. Everything before it can still be prepared and sent by an admin or accountant, so the owner only needs to sign in for this last step. Once HMRC accepts it, your tax timeline shows the year as filed and the amount HMRC calculated becomes the figure used for payments on account, replacing BusyBee Hub's own estimate for that year.

Need to change something afterwards? See Amending a Final Declaration — starting an amendment is open to an admin or accountant, but confirming it goes through the same owner-only declaration step.