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Method · Dates

A calendar for federal payroll in the 2026 year

Deposit days depend on your IRS schedule. The dates below are the return dates that most employers share. State returns often follow the quarter and then set their own day. Published . Updated .

Printed charts beside a laptop and a notebook, an illustration for tracking payroll dates.

Deposit is not filing

Monthly depositors generally send employment taxes for a month by the 15th of the next month. Semi-weekly depositors send Wednesday-to-Friday wages by the following Wednesday, and Saturday-to-Tuesday wages by the following Friday. A liability of $100,000 on one day is due the next business day. Form 941 is a separate act, due a month after the quarter, with ten extra days to file if every deposit was on time. Those ten days never move a deposit.

January 2026 closes the prior year

By 31 January 2026, furnish 2025 Forms W-2 to employees, file them with the Social Security Administration, file Form 941 for the fourth quarter of 2025, and file Form 940 for 2025. If all Form 941 deposits for that quarter were on time, the return itself can wait until 10 February. W-2s do not get that courtesy. State W-2 filing, where a state wants a copy, may fall on the same day or on a state day. Check the state.

During the year, wage bases start over

On 1 January, Social Security withholding starts again until wages you pay reach $184,500. FUTA starts again on a fresh $7,000. State unemployment wage bases start again: $7,000 in Florida and California, $9,000 in Texas, $17,600 in New York, for 2026. Rate notices for unemployment often arrive in the prior December or early in the year. Load the new rate before the first payroll. A January paycheck at December’s rate is a quiet error that shows up on the first quarter report.

30 April, 31 July, 31 October, 31 January

Those are the usual Form 941 due dates for the four quarters of 2026, the last of them falling on 31 January 2027. Add ten days only when the quarter’s deposits were complete and on time. Florida reemployment reports, New York’s NYS-45, California’s DE 9 and DE 9C, and the Texas Workforce Commission quarterly report sit on the same quarters with their own instructions. Put the state day next to the federal day. Do not assume they match.

30 September 2026 is a wage date, not a tax date

Florida’s minimum wage becomes $15.00 on that Wednesday. It is not an IRS due date. Payrolls that cross it need two rates. The note is in the Florida guide. Other states change minimum wages on 1 January. California’s 2026 floor of $16.90 and New York’s $16.00 or $17.00 geography both started on 1 January 2026.

January 2027 closes 2026

Plan on 31 January 2027 for 2026 Forms W-2, Form W-3 with the Social Security Administration, Form 940 for 2026, and Form 941 for the fourth quarter of 2026. Reconcile the four quarterly 941s to the W-2 totals before you file either one. Social Security wages on the W-2s cannot exceed $184,500 per employee for the year. Medicare wages can be higher. If they are not, you stopped Medicare too early.

A year-start list

  1. Read the unemployment rate notice and enter it before the first January payroll.
  2. Reset wage-base counters for Social Security, FUTA, and each state unemployment tax.
  3. Swap in the new year’s Publication 15-T and any state withholding tables. New York’s state and Yonkers tables changed for payrolls paid on or after 1 January 2026. New York City’s tables did not.
  4. Ask employees who want a different withholding result to file a new W-4 or state certificate. You do not have to solicit a new form from everyone if the old one is still valid.
  5. Confirm deposit schedule. A lookback that crossed $50,000 of employment tax moves many employers from monthly to semi-weekly. Publication 15 defines the lookback.
  6. Put the four Form 941 dates, the state quarterly dates, and 31 January on one list that more than one person can see.

Weekends and federal holidays move a due date to the next business day when the instructions say so. This page does not reprint the holiday calendar. If the 31st is a Saturday, confirm the IRS and state rules for that form before you pick Friday or Monday from memory.

The arithmetic those deposits are made of is in withholding basics. State quarters are described in the Florida, New York, California, and Texas guides.