Form 943 Due Date: January 31 Filing and Deposit Rules

The Form 943 due date for tax year 2025 is January 31, 2026. If you deposited every dollar of federal employment tax on time during the year, an automatic ten-day extension pushes your filing deadline to February 10, 2026.¹ The return covers the full prior calendar year of wages paid to farmworkers, including the income tax, Social Security tax, and Medicare tax you withheld, plus the employer share of Social Security and Medicare.²

Who the January 31 Deadline Applies To

You owe a Form 943 if you paid wages to one or more farmworkers that triggered federal withholding. That happens when either of two tests is met during the calendar year: $150 or more in cash wages paid to any single farmworker, or $2,500 or more in total agricultural labor expenditures (cash and noncash combined, across all farmworkers). Meeting either test makes all cash wages you paid farmworkers that year subject to Social Security, Medicare, and federal income tax withholding.³ The thresholds are set in statute and not inflation-adjusted.⁴

Qualifying for the February 10 Extension

The ten-day extension is automatic. You don’t request it, and you don’t notify the IRS. When your return comes in, the IRS checks your deposit history for the year, and if every required deposit was made on time, the filing is treated as timely through February 10.¹ One late deposit anywhere in the year costs you the extension.

When January 31 Falls on a Weekend

Any federal tax deadline that lands on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday moves to the next business day.⁵ That rule applies to the January 31 filing deadline, the February 10 extended deadline, every deposit deadline below, and the W-2 dates. For 2026, January 31 is a Saturday, so the deadline shifts to Monday, February 2.

Deposit Deadlines Through the Year

Filing once a year does not mean you can hold the money until January. Employment tax deposits are owed throughout the year as payroll liability accumulates. Which schedule you follow depends on how much tax you reported during a lookback period, which for Form 943 filers is the second calendar year before the current one. For deposits in 2026, that is your 2024 Form 943.⁶ This is a different lookback than Form 941 uses.

Monthly Depositors

If your lookback-year Form 943 showed $50,000 or less in taxes, you deposit monthly. Taxes from each calendar month are due by the 15th of the following month.¹ New employers with no lookback history start here, since their lookback taxes are treated as zero.

Semi-Weekly Depositors

If lookback-year taxes topped $50,000, you deposit on the semi-weekly schedule. Timing follows your payday:¹

Wages paid Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday: deposit due the following Wednesday.
Wages paid Saturday, Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday: deposit due the following Friday.

Semi-weekly depositors also file Form 943-A with the annual return, showing daily tax liability. The IRS uses it to confirm each deposit was on time. Skip Form 943-A and you can be hit with an averaged failure-to-deposit penalty even when every payment was actually made on schedule.⁷

The $100,000 Next-Day Rule

If your accumulated tax liability reaches $100,000 or more on any single day, the full amount is due by the next business day, no matter which schedule you were on.¹ Triggering it also moves you onto the semi-weekly schedule for the rest of that year and all of the next, which means you’ll need to file Form 943-A.⁷

Small-Liability Exception

If your total Form 943 taxes for the year will be $2,500 or less, you can skip deposits altogether and pay the full amount with the return by January 31.¹

Farm and Nonfarm Workers

If you employ both farmworkers and nonfarm workers, Form 943 taxes and Form 941 taxes stay separate for deposit purposes. Each has its own schedule and its own deposits.³

W-2 and 1099-NEC Deadlines That Share the Date

January 31 is also the deadline to deliver Form W-2 to each farmworker and to file Copy A of all W-2s with the Social Security Administration together with transmittal Form W-3.⁸ There is no automatic extension for W-2s. If you also paid independent contractors $600 or more, Form 1099-NEC is due to recipients and the IRS by January 31 as well.

If you file 10 or more information returns in total (W-2s, 1099s, and other forms counted together), you must file them electronically.⁹

What Missing a Deadline Costs

Late filing and late deposits are separate penalties with separate math.

For a late Form 943 with tax owed, the failure-to-file penalty is 5% of the unpaid tax for each month or part of a month the return is late, capped at 25%.¹⁰

Late deposit penalties are tiered, and only the highest applicable rate applies to any given deposit:¹¹

1 to 5 calendar days late: 2% of the unpaid deposit.
6 to 15 calendar days late: 5%.
More than 15 days late: 10%.
Still unpaid 10 days after the IRS sends a first delinquency notice: 15%.

The statute authorizing these penalties also lets the IRS waive them for reasonable cause.¹²

Unpaid trust fund taxes carry a separate exposure. The amounts withheld from employee paychecks (income tax and the employee share of Social Security and Medicare) are held in trust for the government. If they are not paid over, the IRS can assess the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty equal to 100% of the unpaid trust fund amount against any responsible person who willfully failed to collect and pay the tax.¹³ Responsible persons can include owners, officers, or bookkeepers with authority over the money, and the penalty follows the individual, not the business.¹⁴

Deadlines for Fixing a Return You Already Filed

Mistakes on a filed Form 943 are corrected with Form 943-X, and the window depends on which direction the error ran. If you overreported, you have three years from the date Form 943 was filed or two years from the date the tax was paid, whichever is later. If you underreported, you have three years from the filing date.¹⁵ For purposes of running those clocks, a Form 943 filed before April 15 is treated as filed on April 15 of the year it was due.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 760, Form 943 – Reporting and Deposit Requirements for Agricultural Employers
2
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 943, Employer’s Annual Federal Tax Return for Agricultural Employees
3
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 15 (2026), (Circular E), Employer’s Tax Guide
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 3121 – Definitions
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 7503 – Time for Performance of Acts Where Last Day Falls on Saturday, Sunday, or Legal Holiday
6
eCFR. 26 CFR 31.6302-1 – Deposit Rules for Taxes Under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act
7
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 943-A (12/2025)
8
Social Security Administration. Deadline Dates to File W-2s
9
Internal Revenue Service. E-File Information Returns
10
Internal Revenue Service. Failure to File Penalty
11
Internal Revenue Service. Failure to Deposit Penalty
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 6656 – Failure to Make Deposit of Taxes
13
Internal Revenue Service. Employment Taxes and the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty (TFRP)
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 6672 – Failure To Collect and Pay Over Tax, or Attempt To Evade or Defeat Tax
15
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 943-X (Rev. February 2026)