To pay quarterly self-employment taxes, estimate your year’s federal tax on IRS Form 1040-ES, divide the total into four installments, and send each one by its deadline through IRS Direct Pay, EFTPS, or a mailed payment voucher. The IRS requires these payments from anyone who expects to owe $1,000 or more after withholding and refundable credits, which covers most freelancers, independent contractors, and small business owners once their side income becomes real income.1Internal Revenue Service. Estimated Taxes
Do You Actually Have to Pay Quarterly
The trigger is the $1,000 threshold. If you expect to owe at least that much in federal tax for the year after subtracting any withholding and refundable credits, you’re on the hook for estimated payments.2Internal Revenue Service. Form 1040-ES, Estimated Tax for Individuals (2026) The rule reaches sole proprietors filing Schedule C, partners taking pass-through income, and S corporation shareholders whose business income lands on their personal returns.1Internal Revenue Service. Estimated Taxes
One narrow exception: if your prior-year tax liability was zero, you had a full 12-month tax year, and you were a U.S. citizen or resident the whole year, you can skip estimated payments for the current year.3Internal Revenue Service. Penalty Questions In practice this helps only in a first year of self-employment or a year with unusually low earnings.
How Much to Send Each Quarter
Self-employment tax runs 15.3% on your net earnings: 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare.4Internal Revenue Service. Self-Employment Tax (Social Security and Medicare Taxes) The Social Security portion only applies to the first $184,500 of net self-employment income in 2026; above that, only the 2.9% Medicare rate continues to apply.5Social Security Administration. Contribution and Benefit Base Your regular income tax stacks on top of that.
One deduction changes the math meaningfully. You can deduct half of your self-employment tax when figuring adjusted gross income, which IRC Section 164(f) treats as a business deduction.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 164 – Taxes Build that deduction into your Form 1040-ES worksheet; skipping it means overpaying and tying up cash you could keep working in the business.
Form 1040-ES contains the Estimated Tax Worksheet that walks the calculation: project total income, subtract expected deductions, apply the rates, factor in credits like the Child Tax Credit, then divide by four.7Internal Revenue Service. About Form 1040-ES, Estimated Tax for Individuals Your prior-year return is the cleanest starting point if your income has been stable. If income shifts partway through the year, recalculate and adjust the remaining installments.
The Safe Harbor Shortcut
You don’t have to guess your current-year tax perfectly. You avoid an underpayment penalty by covering the smaller of:
- 90% of your current-year tax liability, or
- 100% of your prior-year tax liability, which rises to 110% if your prior-year adjusted gross income exceeded $150,000 (or $75,000 if married filing separately).8Internal Revenue Service. Estimated Tax
The prior-year number is the practical one to lean on because it’s already known. Take last year’s total tax, split it across four quarters, and you’re protected regardless of how much more you earn this year, provided the prior return covered a full 12 months. That matters because the underpayment penalty isn’t trivial: the rate for the first quarter of 2026 is 7%, compounded daily.9Internal Revenue Service. Quarterly Interest Rates
The 2026 Deadlines
The four “quarters” aren’t calendar quarters. For income earned in 2026, payments are due:
- April 15, 2026, for income earned January 1 through March 31
- June 15, 2026, for income earned April 1 through May 31
- September 15, 2026, for income earned June 1 through August 31
- January 15, 2027, for income earned September 1 through December 31
The second period is only two months and the third stretches to three. Any deadline that falls on a weekend or federal holiday shifts to the next business day.10Internal Revenue Service. When Are Quarterly Estimated Tax Payments Due?
Farmers and fishermen operate on a different schedule. If at least two-thirds of your gross income comes from farming or fishing, you make one payment due January 15 of the following year instead of four, or you can skip estimated payments entirely if you file your return and pay in full by March 1.11Internal Revenue Service. Farmers and Fishermen
How to Send the Payment
Electronic options are faster, free (in most cases), and give you a paper trail without a stamp.
IRS Direct Pay pulls directly from a checking or savings account. No fee, no registration, and you get a confirmation number on the spot.12Internal Revenue Service. Direct Pay with Bank Account Select the correct tax year and choose “Estimated Tax (1040-ES)” as the payment reason.
The Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) requires enrollment but lets you schedule payments up to 365 days ahead. That’s useful if you want to set all four 2026 installments on the same afternoon and forget about them.13Internal Revenue Service. EFTPS: The Electronic Federal Tax Payment System
Credit and debit card payments go through IRS-approved processors and carry fees of roughly 1.75% to 2.95% of the payment amount, depending on processor and card type.14Internal Revenue Service. Pay Your Taxes by Debit or Credit Card or Digital Wallet Unless your card rewards clearly beat those fees, Direct Pay or EFTPS wins.
To pay by mail, use the estimated tax vouchers packaged with Form 1040-ES. There’s a separate voucher for each deadline, and the correct mailing address depends on your state; the 1040-ES instructions list them.2Internal Revenue Service. Form 1040-ES, Estimated Tax for Individuals (2026) Make the check payable to “United States Treasury,” write “2026 Form 1040-ES” and your Social Security number on the memo line, and don’t staple the check to the voucher. Certified mail gives you a dated receipt if a deadline dispute ever comes up.
Whichever method you use, hang on to the confirmation number or certified mail receipt. You can also check payments through your IRS Online Account, which shows up to five years of payment history along with pending and scheduled transactions.15Internal Revenue Service. Online Account for Individuals Those records make reconciling your annual return much easier.
When Your Income Is Lumpy
Four equal payments work when income arrives steadily. They don’t work as well for a landscaper who earns almost nothing in winter, or a consultant who closes one big contract in October. Equal installments can force you to pay tax on money you haven’t earned yet.
The IRS’s annualized income installment method solves this. Each quarterly payment is based on the income you actually earned in that period, calculated on Schedule AI attached to Form 2210.16Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 2210 The catch is bookkeeping: you have to track income and deductions by period rather than just annually, and once you use the method for any quarter you must use it for all four and attach Form 2210 with Schedule AI to your annual return. For cash-basis filers, which most sole proprietors are, “in the period” means received or paid during that period. If your income is genuinely uneven, the extra work can cut or eliminate what would otherwise be a penalty on the lighter quarters.
State Estimated Taxes Are Separate
Federal payments don’t cover state tax. Most states with an income tax run their own quarterly estimated system, with their own thresholds, deadlines, and forms. Some mirror the federal $1,000 trigger, others start as low as $100, and a few use a different payment calendar entirely. Check your state department of revenue’s site before your first federal deadline, because state penalties run independently of the federal ones.