Majority of HMRC’s digital services from agent services accounts (ASAs) to Making Tax Digital, some PAYE and VAT affected by major IT maintenance planned for most of weekend

All services affected will be offline for several days, with most unavailable from 5pm on Friday 10 July through until Monday morning, although there the downtime will be shorter for some services most used by accountants and tax advisers.

Agent services accounts (ASAs) will not be available from 8am on Saturday 11 July to 9.30am Monday 13 July.

In the latest update on Thursday morning, HMRC confirmed the ASA closure from Saturday morning, at least allowing a full Friday working day unlike some services which will close at 5pm on Friday. The ASA services for agents not based in the UK will also be unavailable.

Multiple digital services will be offline for the whole weekend as HMRC carries out a major IT upgrade with a weekend of planned downtime due to ‘scheduled maintenance’.

An HMRC spokesperson told Business & Accountancy Daily: ‘This is routine, planned maintenance and we’ve notified customers in advance. Regular updates like this are essential to help keep our systems secure, resilient and reliable, and to maintain our digital services.’

All week HMRC notifications have been coming through with various downtime notices, and a somewhat confusing array of different closure and re-opening times.

On the service availability page on each of the downtime notices, HMRC stated: We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.’

Different services are affected for varied amounts of time, although the majority will go offline from 5pm on Friday 10 July to 9am on Monday 13 July.

The extent of the shutdown is extensive indicating a significant maintenance upgrade is being rolled out by HMRC’s IT team.

There will be a weekend long closure for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (MTD), which will not be working at all from close of play Friday to Monday morning. This comes at a critical time for MTD registrations with the final deadline to signup for landlords and self employed looming, so it would be worth making sure any MTD applications and submissions are made by 16.30 on Friday. All MTD services will be closed from 5pm on 10 July to 9am on 13 July.

On PAYE, there will be limited downtime from 8am on Saturday 11 July to 6.30pm on Sunday 12 July. This means it will not be possible to view liabilities or payments, but P11D notices can be filed online, and there will be access to tax codes and student loan notices throughout.

Closures will also affect VAT over the same period with no access to VAT registration, claim VAT enrolment, view and change, and penalties and appeals.

Other services affected by the downtime include capital gains tax (CGT) property disposals, P800 online payments, trust reporting, child benefit checks and the anti money laundering service, among others.

Howard Gross, director of the Society of Professional Accountants (SPA) said: ‘HMRC runs a vast 24/7 operation, and they have one of the largest and most complex IT estates in the UK. Like many large organisations, they are dealing with the challenge of having older technology on their IT estate.  

‘Modernising their IT estate is essential so they can continue to offer the services taxpayers expect. It also means that they can provide even better digital services in the future, in line with their ambitious plans for a digital tax system.’

White, S. (2026, July 9). IT downtime closes multiple HMRC online services this weekend. Business & Accountancy Daily. https://www.accountancydaily.co/it-downtime-closes-multiple-hmrc-online-services-weekend