Clear Books vs FileThat for Making Tax Digital
By the selector's own rules, Clear Books and FileThat both work for landlords and sole traders, including people with both kinds of income, so the choice comes down to the six points where they differ. FileThat offers handling for holiday lets, which Clear Books does not. FileThat does not offer a free plan, support for jointly owned property, bank feeds or phone apps, which Clear Books does. Their cheapest plans are listed as free (Sole Trader Free / Property Free) for Clear Books and £4.99 for each quarterly update, about £1.66 a month for four updates a year, VAT not stated (Pay per submission (qualifying income £30,000 to £50,000)) for FileThat.
Clear Books suits landlords and sole traders looking for free MTD filing, mixed-income users willing to keep separate business records and people who want quarterly updates and the year-end return in the same product. FileThat suits sole traders and landlords who would rather pay for each quarterly update than take out a subscription, people with a trade and rental income, or property abroad, who want every income source filed from one place and VAT-registered sole traders who want their VAT returns and income tax updates to come from the same records.
The facts on this page come from each provider’s own pages and from HMRC’s software list, and how we compare products explains how we check them.
If you are thinking of moving from one to the other, the guide to changing your MTD software explains what GOV.UK says about when you can move and what happens to your records.
Where they differ
These are the points where our checks of the two products came out differently. A “No” means we did not find that feature on the provider’s own pages when we last checked them. Where we had nothing to go on for one of the two, we leave the point out here rather than guess.
| Point | Clear Books | FileThat |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan | Free (Sole Trader Free / Property Free) | £4.99 for each quarterly update, about £1.66 a month for four updates a year, VAT not stated (Pay per submission (qualifying income £30,000 to £50,000)) |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Jointly owned property | Yes | No |
| Holiday lets and former FHL | No | Yes |
| Bank feeds | Yes | No |
| Phone apps | Yes (iOS and Android) | No |
On the other points we compare (more than one property, self-employment income, receipt capture, accountant access and MTD for VAT returns), they give the same answer, or at least one provider does not say. The full list is under each product’s own page.
What HMRC’s software list says about both
HMRC’s list marks each feature as available now or intended for later. This is what HMRC’s list says, not something we have tested ourselves. Where HMRC lists a product under more than one name, we show the strongest answer and the listing it comes from.
| Feature | Clear Books | FileThat |
|---|---|---|
| Your tax return and other income | ||
| Sending your tax return | Available | Available |
| Foreign property | Available | Available |
| Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) | Available | Available |
| Employment (PAYE) | Available | Available |
| UK dividends | Available | Available |
| UK interest | Available | Available |
| Capital gains | Available | Availablesince 2 October 2026 |
| How it works | ||
| Bridging software that connects to your records | Not stated | Available |
| Calendar update periods (1 April to 31 March) | Available | Available |
| A free version | Not stated | Available |
| Welsh language | Not stated | Not stated |
| Accessibility | ||
| Blindness or impaired vision | Available | Available |
| Deafness or impaired hearing | Available | Available |
| Motor or physical difficulties | Available | Available |
| Cognitive impairments | Available | Available |
This is HMRC’s list as it stood on 30 October 2026, at HMRC’s commit 201b34e. A date beside a feature is when HMRC’s list changed it from intended to available. HMRC’s software finder shows the current answers. How we read HMRC’s list
Does HMRC’s software list show Clear Books and FileThat as available for sending your tax return?
For sending your tax return, HMRC’s software list as it stood on 30 October 2026 marks it “Available” for Clear Books and marks it “Available” for FileThat.
Does HMRC’s software list show a free version of Clear Books or FileThat?
For a free version, HMRC’s software list as it stood on 30 October 2026 says nothing either way for Clear Books and marks it “Available” for FileThat.
How many features does HMRC’s software list mark as available for Clear Books and FileThat?
HMRC’s software list as it stood on 30 October 2026 covers 15 features, and it marks 12 “Available” for Clear Books and 14 “Available” for FileThat. For Clear Books, it marks 0 “Intended” and gives no answer on 3. For FileThat, it marks 0 “Intended” and gives no answer on 1.
The cheapest plan for your situation
A product’s cheapest plan is not always one you can use, because some plans are only for landlords or only for sole traders. These are the lowest prices the selector would show each reader, as each provider states them. Where a price grows with the number of properties, it is shown as a starting price. The figure over 12 months is the same plan at its regular price, worked out the way the software cost calculator does it.
Clear Books
- For landlords
- Free
- For sole traders
- Free
- For people with rental and self-employment income
- Free
- Cheapest plan over 12 months
- Free
We checked Clear Books’s prices on 25 October 2026.
FileThat
- For landlords
- £4.99 for each quarterly update, about £1.66 a month for four updates a year, VAT not stated
- For sole traders
- £4.99 for each quarterly update, about £1.66 a month for four updates a year, VAT not stated
- For people with rental and self-employment income
- £4.99 for each quarterly update, about £1.66 a month for four updates a year, VAT not stated
- Cheapest plan over 12 months
- £19.96, VAT not stated
We checked FileThat’s prices on 25 October 2026.
Notes from our checks
Clear Books
The current pricing and free-MTD pages both include quarterly updates and year-end filing. Mixed income uses a Sole Trader business and a Property business under the account; each has its own free or paid plan. The £5 plus VAT price is per paid business and is the regular price; Clear Books advertises 50% off the first three months for new subscriptions bought within 30 days of registration. Specialist ownership and former-FHL requirements still need a check against the exact account setup.
FileThat
FileThat has no subscription. Keeping digital records is free, and you buy a credit for each new quarterly update or VAT return with figures in it, at £3.99, £4.99 or £5.99 depending on your qualifying income across all your businesses. The first 500 individuals to connect to HMRC keep £3.99 for good, and until FileThat has figures to work out your band you pay the lowest price, so the price you end up paying may be higher than the cheapest one shown. We show each band as a monthly equivalent of four quarterly updates for one business. We leave out the £3.99 band from our prices because people who must use MTD have qualifying income over £50,000 now and over £30,000 from April 2027, so the bands that apply to them start at £4.99. Each trade, your UK property and any foreign property are separate businesses with their own quarterly updates, so a landlord who is also self-employed pays twice, although FileThat caps an individual's spending at £50 in a tax year, with £55 the most charged. The annual submission, final declaration and amendments are free. The 4 free credits on sign-up cover the first year of quarterly updates for one business, and FileThat's pricing page says this is why HMRC's software finder lists it with a free version. After that first year there is no lasting free plan for filing, so we do not count it as a free tier. FileThat says all your UK lets are kept apart under nicknames and filed as one property business, and that it does not split figures between joint owners, so each owner files their own share. It says a UK holiday let is filed as part of the ordinary property business now that the furnished holiday lettings rules have ended. Bank transactions come from a CSV statement you upload, as FileThat deliberately does not use Open Banking, so we do not count that as a bank feed. An accountant can sign up as an agent and file for you, and FileThat also files from a spreadsheet template if you prefer. It is a website that works in a phone's browser, and we did not find mobile apps. None of the pages we read says whether VAT is added to FileThat's own prices. We checked this on 25 October 2026.
Neither product is ranked above the other here: the page sets out what each provider says so you can weigh it against your own situation. How we compare products
More on these two products
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