What is a Personal Tax Account?

A Personal Tax Account is a HMRC system that puts an individual’s tax details in one place so they can register, file, pay and update your tax information online whenever you want.

Just under 20 million people are already using their Personal Tax Account to complete a variety of tasks, from simply updating an address to filing their self-assessment return.

With your Personal Tax Account, you can:

• See an income tax estimate for the year and past years’ income tax totals. 
• Check your National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and state pension record. 
• Find your NI number. 
• Find your UTR number.  
• File your self-assessment tax return and view previous years’ returns. 
• Claim a tax refund. 
• Check Marriage Allowance claims. 
• Track the progress of forms you have submitted or claims made. 
• Check your address and correct it if the information is not correct. 
• See what your tax code is and how your tax is calculated.
• Replace paper by receiving texts and emails from HMRC rather than letters.
• Manage Child Benefit payments.
• Check employment benefits.  

In addition to the Personal Tax Account for individuals, there is also a Business Tax Account service, which gives small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) similar access to their HMRC account, as well as being able to process taxes including:

• PAYE for employers.
• Corporation Tax.
• Self-Assessment.

HMRC app 

As well as the Personal and Business Tax Accounts, HMRC’s app now has nearly 6 million users, with functionality similar to the online accounts. 

Making Tax Digital 

Separately, the Making Tax Digital (MTD) project means that all VAT-registered businesses and since April 2026, the first phase of self-employed and landlord taxpayers, record their bookkeeping records and file updates and end of year returns through compatible software and not the HMRC online portal. 

For more on HMRC’s wider digitisation project see our guide here. 

Last updated 2 Jul 2026 | First published 23 Mar 2017

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This article is intended to inform rather than advise and is based on legislation and practice at the time. Taxpayer’s circumstances do vary and if you feel that the information provided is beneficial it is important that you contact us before implementation. If you take, or do not take action as a result of reading this article, before receiving our written endorsement, we will accept no responsibility for any financial loss incurred.

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