Form 945 Due Date: Deposit Schedules, Late Penalties, and Corrections

Form 945 is due January 31 of the year after you withheld the tax. When January 31 falls on a weekend or legal holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day, so the Form 945 due date for the 2025 tax year is February 2, 2026. If you deposited every required tax payment on time and in full during the year, you get an automatic extension to February 10. No form or request is needed; the later date applies by virtue of your deposit record.¹

One thing worth confirming before you rely on that date: Form 945 is only for federal income tax withheld from nonpayroll payments, the kind reported on Form 1099 or Form W-2G. Payroll withholding goes on Form 941 (or Form 943 for agricultural employers), which has its own quarterly schedule.¹ If you had no nonpayroll withholding for the year, you don’t file at all.

The Deposit Deadlines You Also Have to Meet

The annual filing date is only half of what the IRS is tracking. Throughout the year, as you withhold, you have to deposit those funds electronically through EFTPS, business Direct Pay, or your IRS business tax account.² Miss a deposit deadline and you owe a separate penalty even if the annual return itself is on time.

Your schedule depends on the lookback period, which is the second calendar year before the current one. For 2026 deposits, the IRS looks at line 3 of your 2024 Form 945.¹ If you didn’t file a 945 that year, your lookback liability is zero, and you default to monthly.

Monthly Depositors

If your lookback-period tax was $50,000 or less, you’re a monthly depositor. Each month’s withholding is due by the 15th of the following month. March withholding is due April 15, and so on.³

Semi-Weekly Depositors

If your lookback liability exceeded $50,000, you’re semi-weekly. Liabilities accrued Wednesday through Friday are due the following Wednesday; liabilities accrued Saturday through Tuesday are due the following Friday.³ Semi-weekly depositors also have to attach Form 945-A with the annual return, breaking liability down by day.⁴

The $100,000 Next-Day Rule

If accumulated liability reaches $100,000 or more on any single day, the normal schedule is off. The full amount is due by the close of the next business day.³ Hitting that threshold also flips a monthly depositor to semi-weekly for the rest of the current year and all of the next, and Form 945-A becomes part of your filing going forward.⁴

The $2,500 De Minimis Exception

If your total Form 945 liability for the year is less than $2,500, you don’t have to deposit at all during the year. You can pay the whole amount when you file.¹

What It Costs to Be Late

Form 945 has two independent penalty tracks. You can owe both at once.

Filing the Return Late

File after the due date (February 2, 2026, for the 2025 tax year, or February 10 if you earned the extension) and the penalty is 5% of the unpaid tax for each month or partial month the return is late, capped at 25%.⁵ If the return is more than 60 days late, a minimum penalty applies: the lesser of $525 or 100% of the tax owed.⁶ Reasonable cause, rather than willful neglect, can excuse the penalty.

Depositing Late

Late deposits carry a tiered penalty based on how far past due the payment is:⁷

1–5 calendar days late: 2% of the unpaid deposit.
6–15 calendar days late: 5%.
More than 15 calendar days late: 10%.
More than 10 days after the IRS’s first demand notice: 15%.

The tiers don’t stack. A deposit 12 days late owes 5%, not 2% plus 5%. The same penalty applies when the amount is right and on time but the method is wrong, such as mailing a check when electronic payment was required. Reasonable-cause relief exists here too, though the IRS generally expects a showing that the failure was beyond your control rather than an oversight.⁸

Fixing a Return After You File

Errors on a filed Form 945 are corrected on Form 945-X, filed separately for each year and never attached to a current-year 945.⁹

If you underreported, file Form 945-X by January 31 of the year after you discovered the error and pay the additional tax when you file. Meeting that date generally avoids interest and further penalties on the correction.⁹

If you overreported, you have three years from the date the original return was filed, or two years from the date the tax was paid, whichever is later. Any Form 945 filed before April 15 of the following year is treated as filed on April 15 for this clock. You can either adjust the overpayment as a credit on your next 945 or file a claim for refund or abatement.⁹

Watch the tail end of that three-year window. If fewer than 90 days remain before the limitations period expires, the adjustment route is off the table and you must use the claim process. Correcting underreported and overreported amounts inside that final 90-day window requires two separate Form 945-X filings, one for each direction.⁹

1
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 945 (2025)
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Internal Revenue Service. Depositing and Reporting Employment Taxes
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 945 (2025)
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 945-A (12/2024)
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Internal Revenue Service. Failure to File Penalty
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Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 653, IRS Notices and Bills, Penalties and Interest Charges
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Internal Revenue Service. Failure to Deposit Penalty
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Internal Revenue Service. 20.1.4 Failure to Deposit Penalty
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 945-X