Is HMRC down? Live status of HMRC and Companies House online services

This page is for sole traders, landlords, company directors, bookkeepers and accountants who are staring at an error on an HMRC or Companies House screen, often the night before a deadline. In under a minute you will know whether the service is down for everyone or just for you. You will also see what HMRC has officially announced, and what to do so that an outage does not turn into a penalty.

TillRadar is independent: we are not HMRC, Companies House or GOV.UK, and nobody pays us to say a service works. The rules on deadlines and appeals below were checked on 20 October 2026 on GOV.UK and in HMRC’s own manuals. This is general information, not tax advice; for a penalty that matters, speak to an accountant.

What does each service on this page do?

“HMRC online” is not one system. It is dozens of separate services behind one sign-in page, so one part can fail while the rest works. We check the parts small businesses use most, plus Companies House, because its deadlines fall in the same weeks.

Two of these need a word of explanation. A tax account is HMRC’s online account: the business tax account (BTA) for VAT, PAYE and Corporation Tax, and the personal tax account (PTA) for individuals. An API (application programming interface) is the channel accounting software uses to send figures to HMRC without a browser. Since Making Tax Digital, VAT returns and Income Tax quarterly updates go through it, so an API problem can stop your software even when the website works.

If you are new to Making Tax Digital, our MTD for Income Tax guide explains who has to use it from April 2026 and April 2027, and MTD software compared covers the programs that send the updates.

Is HMRC down, or is it just me?

Most “HMRC is down” moments are not outages. Work down this list. It takes two minutes and tells you whom to contact.

1. Look at the live result above. Red or amber on the service you need means it is failing for us too, from a server outside your home or office. Green means the service answers normally from the outside. The problem is then more likely to be on your side or inside your account.
2. Check the official notices under the result. HMRC sometimes takes a service offline on purpose, mostly at weekends. If a planned window is on now, wait until it ends. Planned downtime is announced on GOV.UK in advance.
3. Work out which sign-in you use. HMRC now offers two: Government Gateway (a 12-character user ID and password) and GOV.UK One Login (an email address). Choosing the wrong one makes your details look “wrong” even when the service works. If One Login is the problem, its own status page shows it, and we show it too.
4. Try another browser or a private window. Old cookies and browser extensions break HMRC’s sign-in more often than outages do. If you see “Sorry, there is a problem with the service” on a page that works for us, try once more in a clean window before assuming the worst.
5. Software error, website fine? If your MTD software reports an error but the MTD API gateway is green, ask your software provider. They see HMRC’s error codes, and many publish their own status page. If the gateway is red, the provider can’t fix it either.
6. Keep evidence either way. Take a screenshot of the error with the date and time visible. It costs nothing and it is the first thing HMRC asks for if you appeal a penalty.

HMRC is down before a deadline: what should I do?

An outage on deadline day is stressful, but it is one of the few late-filing reasons HMRC itself names as acceptable. What protects you is evidence, and filing as soon as the service returns. The steps are the same for the 31 January Self Assessment deadline, a quarterly MTD update due on 7 November and a VAT return.

1. Try, and record that you tried. Write down the date and time and the exact error message, or take a screenshot. HMRC’s Compliance Handbook (CH160300) says the person “should provide the error message or details of the error message and the date it could not be filed online”.
2. Check whether HMRC has announced it. Save or print the relevant notice from the official list under our live result, or HMRC’s “Find out which HMRC services are experiencing issues” page. An official notice is stronger evidence than our measurement, which is not an HMRC record.
3. File as soon as it works again. A reasonable excuse only lasts while the problem lasts. HMRC’s Self Assessment Manual (SAM10090) says that, as a guide, filing within 14 days after the excuse ends is not “unreasonable delay”. Don’t use the 14 days as a target: file the same day if you can.
4. Pay on time if you can, even if you can’t file. A bank transfer to HMRC’s account with your payment reference does not depend on HMRC’s online account, so you can usually pay on time even when the website is down. Paying on time keeps penalties and interest off the tax.
5. If a penalty arrives, appeal it. You usually have 30 days from the date of the penalty notice. For Self Assessment you can appeal online or by post. Give the date you tried to file, the error message and the date you filed. For a Company Tax Return, HMRC has a specific form for returns that were late because of a computer problem.

The £100 is a fixed penalty: it applies even if you owe no tax. That is why a deadline-night outage feels worse than it is. If HMRC accepts your reasonable excuse, the £100 is cancelled. Our guide to the Self Assessment deadline and penalties covers the later stages. For quarterly updates, see MTD quarterly update deadlines and MTD penalties.

Does an HMRC outage count as a reasonable excuse? Yes, if it actually stopped you. GOV.UK lists “issues with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) online services” among the examples. CH160300 says reasonable excuse “may be accepted where” HMRC Online Service does not accept the return or the person was unable to use HMRC’s online services. HMRC also says it does not want to penalise people who made a genuine attempt to file online. There is no automatic waiver: you still have to appeal, and each case is decided on its facts. That is why the screenshot and the date matter.

Is HMRC down for VAT?

“VAT down” can mean two different things. If you can’t open your VAT account in the browser, that’s the VAT online account. If your accounting software can’t send the return, that’s the MTD API gateway, because VAT returns now go through MTD-compatible software. You can only use the VAT online account to file if you have an exemption from Making Tax Digital or have cancelled your VAT registration. Our live result shows the two separately.

• Deadline: usually one calendar month and 7 days after the end of the VAT period, for the return and the payment. A weekend or bank holiday does not move it.
• Late return: one penalty point per late return. A £200 penalty comes only when you reach your threshold: 4 points for quarterly filers, 5 for monthly, 2 for annual. A single late return because of an outage does not cost money by itself.
• Late payment: interest runs from the first day. The first late payment penalty comes only when the payment is 16 or more days overdue.

HMRC’s VAT online notice page also keeps standing how-to notes, such as the CSV layout for EC Sales Lists. We show those as “standing notes”, not as live issues. On 20 October 2026 it listed one real issue: some users could not view their payment history. It also announced planned downtime from 8am to 11:20am on Sunday 25 October 2026.

Is Self Assessment or MTD for Income Tax down?

You reach Self Assessment online through HMRC sign-in and then your personal or business tax account; agents use the agent services account. If you file through commercial software instead of HMRC’s own forms, the API gateway is what matters. Making Tax Digital for Income Tax works the same way: your software sends the quarterly updates through the API, and the MTD account on HMRC’s website shows what arrived.

For the 2026/27 group, HMRC has said there will be no penalty points for late quarterly updates this tax year. A late tax return still earns points. So an MTD outage on 7 November is an inconvenience rather than a cost, but file once it works, because the figures still feed your year-end return. The full timetable is in our quarterly deadlines guide, and the £30,000 threshold guide explains who joins in April 2027.

Self Assessment is busiest in the last week of January. In 2026, HMRC’s planned Self Assessment windows were in April, May and September, none in January (see the table further down). On the last evening, slow pages are more likely than a planned shutdown. On a slow evening, our tiles may turn amber (“slow”, over 3 seconds) without anything being broken.

Is Companies House down?

Companies House runs three services that matter to directors. WebFiling is where many small companies file confirmation statements and accounts. WebFiling now asks you to sign in with GOV.UK One Login, so a One Login problem can block WebFiling too. Find and update company information is the public register, and the place to check your filing deadlines. The public API feeds accounting software and company checkers. Our live result shows all three, plus One Login.

Companies House is stricter than HMRC about late filing. The late filing penalty is automatic. An appeal succeeds only in exceptional circumstances, and Companies House says the registrar “has very limited discretion”. Its guidance does not list its own outages as an excuse. It does say you can usually appeal when “Companies House made an error”. The safer route is to avoid a late filing in the first place.

1. Don’t leave it to the last day. Companies House is clear that the deadline does not move for a Sunday or a bank holiday. Accounts rejected for a fix and refiled after the deadline still get a penalty.
2. Apply for more time before the deadline if something outside your control is stopping you. You apply online, and the application has to arrive before the filing deadline. Don’t wait for the answer: file as soon as you can.
3. If WebFiling is down on deadline day, keep the evidence (time, screen, our status and any Companies House notice), try software filing if your accountant has it, and appeal any penalty with the dates. Expect a harder appeal than with HMRC.

Companies House publishes planned maintenance in the “Service availability and planned maintenance” section of its “About our services” page on GOV.UK. Our check reads it every 30 minutes. In October 2026 it listed possible disruption to Find and update company information from 8am to 11am on Saturday 3 October. Directors still verifying their identity should also read our Companies House ID verification deadline guide, because those deadlines run through November 2026.

When does HMRC plan downtime?

Every HMRC service availability page keeps a change history, which records each announcement. We went through the pages for the four services small businesses use most and added up the planned windows that fell between January and October 2026. Cancelled windows are left out. Partial outages are left out too, such as the VAT registration and appeals services on 11–12 July and 1–2 October.

Three patterns stand out. First, 14 of the 18 windows started between Friday evening and Sunday. The MTD for Income Tax windows typically ran from 5pm on a Friday to 9am on Monday, or to 1pm on Tuesday. Second, Self Assessment is the exception: its 2026 windows were short and on weekday mornings (7am to 9am on 20 and 21 May, and 7am to 5:30pm on Tuesday 1 September). Third, HMRC cancels some windows. MTD’s 16–20 January and 17–20 April windows were cancelled, and so was a VAT window in December 2025. A planned window is a warning, not a certainty.

None of the 2026 windows covered 31 January or an MTD for Income Tax quarterly deadline, and the VAT ones avoided the 7th of the month, when many VAT returns are due. Nothing in HMRC’s guidance promises that, though. Before a deadline, check the official list under the live result rather than relying on the pattern.

How do we measure, and what can’t we see?

Our server sends a small number of requests to public pages and endpoints, the same ones any signed-out visitor or software can reach. It does not sign in, send tax data or keep cookies between checks. Each request identifies itself as “TillRadar status probe” with a link to this page.

• Every 2 minutes: HMRC sign-in, business and personal tax accounts, Companies House WebFiling and the register search.
• Every 10 minutes: VAT online, the MTD for Income Tax account, the MTD API gateway, GOV.UK One Login and the Companies House API. Two of these hosts ask crawlers not to index them, so we check them less often, at a fixed address, without following links.
• Every 30 minutes: the official notices, read from GOV.UK’s public Content API, Companies House’s “About our services” page and the GOV.UK One Login status page.

How we judge a result. “Working” means the expected answer within 3 seconds. “Slow” means the expected answer, but slower. “Rate-limited” is HTTP 429, a refusal because of too many requests, not an outage. “Down” means an error, no answer within 10 seconds, a server error or the wrong page, and only when it happens twice in a row, 20 seconds apart. A single blip never turns a tile red.

Checking our own connection. Every run also checks two independent sites (GOV.UK’s home page and Google). If both fail, the problem is on our side, and the run is stored as “no measurement”, never as an HMRC outage. If the newest measurement is more than 10 minutes old, the page shows a grey “No current measurement” instead of green.

What we can’t see. We see HMRC’s front doors, not your account. If HMRC’s systems for a specific tax, a specific form or a specific group of customers fail behind the sign-in, the pages we check can still answer, and our check stays green. The VAT payment history issue HMRC listed in October 2026 is an example: only HMRC’s notice showed it. Because of this we show HMRC’s notices next to our own result, and we never present our check as HMRC’s statement. We measure from one server in a data centre in the EU. A problem with your broadband, your router or a UK network provider will not show up here.

Data and reuse. The live data is available as JSON at /wp-json/tr/v1/status/hmrc. Please don’t fetch it more than once a minute. Days without measurements count as “no data”, not as 100% uptime.

Frequently asked questions

Changelog

1. 20 October 2026: page launched. The probe started measuring on 20 October 2026, so uptime figures cover only the days since then. Deadline and appeal rules checked on GOV.UK and in HMRC manuals CH160300 and SAM10090. Planned downtime table built from the change history of five HMRC service pages.

Sources

1. HMRC: service availability and issues (collection) and Find out which HMRC services are experiencing issues (updated 14 October 2026)
2. HMRC service pages: Self Assessment, VAT online (updated 19 October 2026), Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, Employer PAYE, Corporation Tax
3. HMRC: Problems signing in to HMRC services
4. GOV.UK: Reasonable excuses and Disagree with a penalty
5. HMRC Compliance Handbook CH160300: examples of reasonable excuse (updated 26 September 2025)
6. HMRC Self Assessment Manual SAM10090: appeals, reasonable excuse (updated 9 January 2026)
7. GOV.UK: Self Assessment deadlines and penalties
8. GOV.UK: Sending a VAT Return, VAT late submission penalty points, VAT late payment penalties
9. Companies House: Late filing penalties (updated 16 January 2026), Appeal a penalty for filing accounts late, Applying for more time to file your accounts
10. Companies House: About our services, service availability and planned maintenance (updated 30 September 2026)
11. GOV.UK One Login status
12. HMRC Developer Hub: Hello World API

Rules checked on 20 October 2026 against GOV.UK guidance and HMRC manuals. The live status updates automatically. Our measurement is not an HMRC or Companies House statement; their own notices always prevail.