Individuals Expenses (MTD) API

Available in SandboxYes
Sandbox base URLhttps://test-api.service.hmrc.gov.uk
Available in ProductionNo

Overview

This API allows developers to retrieve, amend and delete expenses related to:

  • income for trade union and patent royalties
  • existing employment

Using this API developers can also ignore HMRC provided employment expenses for a user.

Versioning

When an API changes in a way that is backwards-incompatible, we increase the version number of the API. See our reference guide for more on versioning.

Errors

We use standard HTTP status codes to show whether an API request succeeded or not. They are usually in the range:

  • 200 to 299 if it succeeded, including code 202 if it was accepted by an API that needs to wait for further action
  • 400 to 499 if it failed because of a client error by your application
  • 500 to 599 if it failed because of an error on our server

Errors specific to each API are shown in the Endpoints section, under Response. See our reference guide for more on errors.

Single errors will be returned in the following format:

{
    "code": "FORMAT_FIELD_NAME",
    "message": "The provided FieldName is invalid"
}

Where possible, multiple errors will be returned with INVALID_REQUEST in the following format:

{
    "code": "INVALID_REQUEST",
    "message": "Invalid request",
    "errors": [
        {
            "code": "RULE_FIELD_NAME",
            "message": "The provided FieldName is not allowed"
        },
        {
            "code": "FORMAT_FIELD_NAME",
            "message": "The provided FieldName is invalid"
        }
    ]
}

Where it is possible for the same error to be returned multiple times, message will describe the expected format and paths will show the fields which are invalid.

Where arrays are submitted a number indicates the object in the array sequence, for example, /arrayName/1/fieldName.

An example with single error:

{
    "code": "FORMAT_STRING_NAME",
    "message": "The provided field is not valid",
    "paths": [ "/arrayName/0/fieldName" ]
}

An example with multiple errors:

{
    "code": "INVALID_REQUEST",
    "message": "Invalid request",
    "errors": [
        {
           "code": "FORMAT_VALUE",
           "message": "The field should be between 0 and 99999999999.99",
           "paths": [ "/objectName/fieldName1", "/arrayName/0/fieldName2" ]
        },
        {
           "code": "FORMAT_STRING_NAME",
           "message": "The provided field is not valid",
           "paths": [ "/arrayName/0/fieldName3", "/arrayName/1/fieldName3" ]
        }
    ]
}

Changelog

You can find the changelog in the mtd-api GitHub wiki.

Support

Testing

You can use the sandbox environment to test this API. You can use the Create Test User API or it's frontend service to create test users.

It may not be possible to test all scenarios in the sandbox. You can test some scenarios by passing the Gov-Test-Scenario header. Documentation for each endpoint includes a Test data section, which explains the scenarios that you can simulate using the Gov-Test-Scenario header.

If you have a specific testing need that is not supported in the sandbox, contact our support team.

Some APIs may be marked [test only]. This means that they are not available for use in production and may change.

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Endpoints

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