IRS Payroll Tax Deposit Schedules: Lookback Period and Deadlines

The IRS payroll tax deposit schedule is either monthly or semi-weekly, and which one applies to you depends on how much employment tax you reported during a four-quarter lookback period. Report $50,000 or less, and you deposit monthly, with each month’s withholding due by the 15th of the following month. Report more than $50,000, and you deposit semi-weekly, with taxes due within a few business days of each payday. New employers start out monthly. A separate rule overrides both schedules whenever a single day’s liability hits $100,000.

How the Lookback Period Sets Your Schedule

The IRS looks backward to decide how often you deposit. For any given calendar year, the lookback period is the four consecutive quarters from July 1 two years earlier through June 30 of the prior year. For 2026, that window runs July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025. The IRS adds up the federal income tax you withheld plus both the employee and employer shares of Social Security and Medicare that you reported on Form 941 during those quarters.¹

At $50,000 or below, you’re a monthly depositor. Above $50,000, you’re semi-weekly.² Employers with no filing history default to monthly because their lookback liability is zero. Your classification can change year to year as your payroll grows or shrinks.

Lookback Period for Form 945 Filers

If you withhold income tax on non-payroll payments such as pensions, gambling winnings, or backup withholding, you report on Form 945, and the lookback is simpler: the entire second calendar year before the current one.³ For 2026, that’s calendar year 2024. The same $50,000 threshold decides monthly versus semi-weekly.

Monthly Deposit Deadlines

Monthly depositors owe each month’s payroll taxes by the 15th of the following month. January wages are due February 15, February wages by March 15, and so on. If the 15th falls on a weekend or federal holiday, the deadline rolls to the next business day automatically.¹

Watch the trigger date carefully. The schedule follows when wages are actually paid, not when the pay period ends. A pay period closing January 31 with checks dated February 3 belongs to February’s deposit, due March 15, not to January’s.

Semi-Weekly Deposit Deadlines

Semi-weekly depositors work off payday, not the calendar month. The rule splits the week in two:

Paydays that fall on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday must be deposited by the following Wednesday.
Paydays that fall on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday must be deposited by the following Friday.

You always get at least three business days after payday to make the deposit, and if a federal holiday falls inside that window you pick up one extra business day.⁴ The name is a bit misleading. If you only run payroll once a week, you’ll only make one deposit that week.

Safe Harbor for Small Shortfalls

Nobody hits the exact penny every time. A deposit is treated as timely if any shortfall is no more than the greater of $100 or 2% of the required amount. You still owe the difference. Semi-weekly depositors must make up the shortfall by the earlier of the first Wednesday or Friday on or after the 15th of the following month, or the return due date for that quarter.² Miss that make-up date and the safe harbor is gone.

The $100,000 Next-Day Rule

If your accumulated tax liability reaches $100,000 or more on any single day within a deposit period, the normal schedule stops applying. You must deposit that amount by the close of the next business day, whether you’re normally monthly or semi-weekly.⁵

Triggering this rule carries a lasting consequence for monthly depositors: you’re reclassified as semi-weekly for the rest of the current calendar year and all of the following year.⁴ Seasonal operations and other businesses with concentrated payrolls should track daily accumulations so they don’t blow past this line without noticing.

Form 944 for the Smallest Employers

If your total annual employment tax liability is $1,000 or less, you may be eligible to file Form 944 once a year instead of quarterly Form 941 returns, which typically lets you deposit taxes annually along with the return.⁶ This is common for businesses with only one or two part-time workers.

You can’t choose Form 944 on your own. To use it for 2026, call the IRS at 800-829-4933 between January 1 and April 1, 2026, or mail a written request postmarked by March 16, 2026.⁷ The IRS will send written confirmation. If you don’t receive it, keep filing quarterly.

How to Actually Make the Deposit

All federal payroll tax deposits must be made electronically.⁸ The primary channel is the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS), a free service that pulls funds from your designated bank account on the date you specify.

The cutoff matters: payments must be scheduled in EFTPS by 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time the day before the due date to count as timely.⁹ A deposit due Wednesday must be scheduled by 8:00 p.m. Tuesday. The system generates an acknowledgment number after you submit; save it. That’s your proof of timely payment.

New businesses are automatically pre-enrolled in EFTPS when they receive an EIN, but you still need to activate the account and add bank information before you can pay, and that takes a few days. Do it before your first deposit is due.

Same-Day Wire as a Backup

Miss the EFTPS cutoff and a same-day wire transfer through your bank can still save you. Download the IRS’s Same-Day Taxpayer Worksheet, fill it out, and take it to your financial institution.¹⁰ Each tax form and tax period needs its own worksheet. Your bank sets its own cutoff and may charge a fee. Treat this as an emergency valve, not a routine method.

Penalties for Late or Missed Deposits

The IRS applies a tiered failure-to-deposit penalty that grows with time:¹¹

1 to 5 calendar days late: 2% of the unpaid deposit.
6 to 15 calendar days late: 5% of the unpaid deposit.
More than 15 calendar days late: 10% of the unpaid deposit.
10 or more days after a first delinquency notice, or upon receiving a demand for immediate payment: 15% of the unpaid deposit.

The tiers don’t stack. A deposit 20 days late is penalized at 10%, not 2% plus 5% plus 10%. The same structure under 26 U.S.C. § 6656 applies whether the deposit was late, short, or made through the wrong method.¹²

The IRS can waive the penalty for reasonable cause, meaning ordinary business care with no willful neglect, and a first-time abatement is available for employers compliant during the prior three years. Blaming a payroll provider is not a reliable defense; the employer is on the hook regardless of who processes the deposits.

Personal Liability: The Trust Fund Recovery Penalty

Withheld income tax and the employee share of Social Security and Medicare are “trust fund” taxes because the employer holds them for the government. If a business fails to hand them over, the IRS can assess the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty (TFRP) against individuals, not just the business entity.¹³

The penalty equals 100% of the unpaid trust fund taxes.¹⁴ Called a penalty, but in practice it lets the government collect the full unpaid amount from responsible individuals personally, including their bank accounts, assets, and wages.

Two conditions must be met. First, the person must be a “responsible person” with authority over which bills the business pays. That can include officers, directors, shareholders, partners, or any employee who controlled the company’s financial decisions. An employee who only cut checks on a supervisor’s instruction generally won’t qualify. Second, the failure must be “willful,” meaning the person knew or should have known the taxes were due and either ignored the obligation or paid other creditors first. The IRS treats paying vendors while leaving payroll taxes unpaid as evidence of willfulness.¹³ No bad motive is required.

Multiple people in the same business can be held liable for the same trust fund taxes, and the IRS can pursue them all at once. The corporate entity can go bankrupt; the TFRP follows the individuals.

Quarterly Form 941 Filing Dates

Making deposits and filing the return are separate obligations. Form 941 is due quarterly:

First quarter (January through March): April 30.
Second quarter (April through June): July 31.
Third quarter (July through September): October 31.
Fourth quarter (October through December): January 31 of the following year.

If a due date lands on a weekend or federal holiday, it rolls to the next business day. Employers who deposited every tax on time throughout the quarter get an extra 10 calendar days to file the return.⁵ Being current on deposits doesn’t excuse a late return, and filing on time doesn’t excuse a missed deposit.

If You Use a Payroll Service

Outsourcing payroll to a provider or professional employer organization is fine, but it doesn’t transfer your legal responsibility. The IRS still holds the employer liable if deposits go wrong.¹³ If a provider takes your money and never forwards it, you owe the taxes again plus penalties.

Check your EFTPS account periodically to confirm deposits are hitting the treasury, and pull an IRS account transcript to verify payments are being applied. Those checks take minutes and can head off a serious problem before it grows.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 757, Forms 941 and 944 – Deposit Requirements
2
eCFR. 26 CFR 31.6302-1 – Deposit Rules for Taxes Under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) and Withheld Income Taxes
3
eCFR. 26 CFR 31.6302-4 – Deposit Rules for Withheld Income Taxes Attributable to Nonpayroll Payments
4
Internal Revenue Service. Notice 931 – Deposit Requirements for Employment Taxes
5
Internal Revenue Service. Employment Tax Due Dates
6
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 944
7
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 944
8
Internal Revenue Service. Depositing and Reporting Employment Taxes
9
Electronic Federal Tax Payment System. About the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System
10
Internal Revenue Service. Same-Day Wire Federal Tax Payments
11
Internal Revenue Service. Failure to Deposit Penalty
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 US 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 US Code 6672 – Failure to Collect and Pay Over Tax, or Attempt to Evade or Defeat Tax