Government
HMRC
HMRC is the UK's tax authority, collecting income tax, VAT, and National Insurance while also administering benefits like child tax credits and student loans.
What is HMRC?
Is HMRC down? HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is the UK government's tax authority, established in 2005 through the merger of the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise, headquartered in London. HMRC's digital services—including the Personal Tax Account, Self Assessment online filing, the PAYE system, VAT registration and returns, the HMRC app, and the Making Tax Digital platform—are used by millions of individuals and businesses to manage their UK tax obligations. When HMRC experiences an outage or server issues, taxpayers may miss filing deadlines or be unable to pay tax bills on time.
HMRC's digital infrastructure must handle peak loads around major UK tax deadlines: the 31 January Self Assessment deadline for online returns sees millions of taxpayers simultaneously filing in the final hours, and the quarterly Making Tax Digital VAT submission dates create predictable load spikes. The platform also manages real-time payroll data through RTI (Real Time Information) submissions from thousands of employers, making availability critical not just for individuals but for businesses meeting their ongoing payroll reporting obligations.
When HMRC is down or not working, users commonly report that logging into the Government Gateway to access Self Assessment returns a "Service unavailable" message after authentication, the HMRC app fails to display income tax estimates or PAYE coding notices and shows a connection error, Self Assessment tax return submissions fail at the final "Send your return" step without a confirmation reference number, VAT returns submitted through Making Tax Digital compatible software receive connection refused errors from the HMRC API, and the webchat support service on GOV.UK shows as unavailable making it impossible to speak to an HMRC adviser.
Track HMRC server status and outage reports in real time on Outage.gg. If HMRC is not working, check the live HMRC status page to see if others are affected and get notified the moment HMRC is back online.
Common HMRC Problems
Issues users most frequently report when HMRC is having problems.
Login failures
Players are unable to sign in, receiving authentication errors or being stuck on loading screens.
Matchmaking problems
Unable to find or join matches, long queue times, or errors when trying to connect to game servers.
Disconnections mid-session
Getting unexpectedly kicked from active sessions, losing in-game progress or items.
In-game store & purchases
Cannot load the in-game store, complete purchases, or received items are not appearing in inventory.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about HMRC outages and server status.
You can check the live HMRC server status at outage.gg/services/hmrc. The page shows real-time community-submitted outage reports, an hourly trend chart, and the current health status.
HMRC can stop working for a number of reasons including scheduled maintenance windows, unexpected server failures, network infrastructure problems, or DDoS attacks. Check the live status page on Outage.gg for the latest community reports to see if others are experiencing the same issue.
Go to outage.gg/services/hmrc and click the "Report an Issue" button. Your report is counted immediately and helps confirm whether a problem is widespread. Reports from multiple users trigger a status change visible to everyone watching the page.
Click the "Notify Me" bell button on the HMRC status page at outage.gg/services/hmrc. Create a free account and we will send you an email the moment HMRC comes back online — no app download required.
Many services maintain official status pages with planned maintenance notices. Outage.gg aggregates real-time community-reported outages which often surface faster than official channels.
Related Services
Other services you might be tracking alongside HMRC.
