Monthly payroll tax deposits are due by the 15th of the month following the month in which you paid wages. Wages paid in January are due February 15, February wages are due March 15, and so on. If the 15th lands on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day.1Internal Revenue Service. Employment Tax Due Dates Miss the date and the IRS charges a failure-to-deposit penalty that starts at 2 percent and climbs to 15 percent of the amount that arrived late.2Internal Revenue Service. Failure to Deposit Penalty
The Monthly Deadline in Practice
Under the monthly schedule, every federal payroll tax you owe for a given month, including federal income tax withheld from paychecks, both shares of Social Security and Medicare, and any Additional Medicare Tax withheld, must reach the IRS by the 15th of the following month.1Internal Revenue Service. Employment Tax Due Dates It does not matter how many paydays fell within the month; one deposit covers them all.
The IRS recognizes federal holidays plus District of Columbia Emancipation Day (April 16) when applying the next-business-day rule.3Internal Revenue Service. Publication 509 (2026), Tax Calendars For 2026, several monthly deadlines shift:
- January wages: February 15 is a Sunday and February 16 is Washington’s Birthday, so the deposit is due Tuesday, February 17.
- February wages: March 15 is a Sunday, so the deposit is due Monday, March 16.
- July wages: August 15 is a Saturday, so the deposit is due Monday, August 17.
- October wages: November 15 is a Sunday, so the deposit is due Monday, November 16.
Mark these on a payroll calendar. A deposit that lands one day past the adjusted date is late.
Are You Actually a Monthly Depositor?
The 15th-of-the-following-month rule only applies if the IRS has placed you on the monthly deposit schedule. That assignment comes from a lookback period, which for Form 941 filers runs from July 1 two years back through June 30 of last year. If your total reported employment tax during that four-quarter window was $50,000 or less, you are a monthly depositor for the current year. Anything above $50,000 puts you on the semiweekly schedule instead.4Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 757, Forms 941 and 944 – Deposit Requirements
New employers have no lookback liability, so the IRS starts them on the monthly schedule automatically for their first calendar year.4Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 757, Forms 941 and 944 – Deposit Requirements If your schedule changes for the coming year, the IRS mails a notice, typically in the fall.5Internal Revenue Service. Understanding Your CP235 Notice
Two exceptions can pull you out of the monthly deposit rhythm entirely. If your total employment tax liability is under $2,500 for both the current quarter and the quarter before it, you can skip deposits and pay the balance with your Form 941, as long as you never hit the $100,000 next-day trigger.4Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 757, Forms 941 and 944 – Deposit Requirements Very small employers whose annual withholding, Social Security, and Medicare liability totals $1,000 or less may qualify to file Form 944 once a year instead of Form 941, but only after receiving IRS approval to do so.6Internal Revenue Service. About Form 944, Employer’s Annual Federal Tax Return
The $100,000 Next-Day Rule
One large payroll can override the monthly schedule. If your employment tax liability reaches $100,000 or more on any single day inside a deposit period, that amount is due by the next business day, not the following 15th.1Internal Revenue Service. Employment Tax Due Dates
Triggering the rule also flips your deposit schedule. You become a semiweekly depositor for the rest of the current calendar year and all of the next.7Internal Revenue Service. Notice 931, Deposit Requirements for Employment Taxes A monthly depositor who crosses the $100,000 line in May 2026 would deposit that amount the next business day and follow the semiweekly rules for the balance of 2026 and every month of 2027.
How to Deposit and When the Clock Actually Stops
Deposits must be made electronically. The IRS accepts them through the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS), a business tax account on IRS.gov, or the IRS Direct Pay portal for businesses. Electronic deposit is generally required once your quarterly Form 941 liability reaches $2,500 in both the current and prior quarter.8Internal Revenue Service. What Are FTDs and Why Are They Important?
The cutoff inside EFTPS is stricter than the calendar date suggests. Your payment must be scheduled by 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time the day before the due date to be treated as on time.9EFTPS. Payment Instruction Booklet For a Monday deadline, that means finishing the transaction by 8:00 p.m. ET Sunday. Log in with your EIN, PIN, and password, pick Form 941 as the tax form, enter the amount, and choose a settlement date. When the transaction finishes, the system issues an EFT Acknowledgment Number. Keep that number. It is your proof of timely deposit if the IRS ever asks.
What a Late Deposit Costs
The failure-to-deposit penalty is a flat percentage of the amount that missed its deadline, and it climbs with delay:2Internal Revenue Service. Failure to Deposit Penalty
- 1 to 5 days late: 2 percent
- 6 to 15 days late: 5 percent
- More than 15 days late: 10 percent
- More than 10 days after the IRS’s first delinquency notice, or the day the IRS demands immediate payment: 15 percent
The tiers do not stack. A deposit that is 20 days late draws a single 10 percent penalty, not the sum of the lower tiers.2Internal Revenue Service. Failure to Deposit Penalty Interest accrues on top of the penalty and compounds daily. The IRS underpayment interest rate for the first quarter of 2026 is 7 percent.10Internal Revenue Service. Quarterly Interest Rates
Penalty relief is possible when you can show reasonable cause, such as a natural disaster or serious illness that made timely deposit impossible. Interest is only removed if the underlying penalty is removed first.2Internal Revenue Service. Failure to Deposit Penalty
When the Penalty Follows You Personally
The withheld income tax and employee share of Social Security and Medicare that sit in your bank account between payday and deposit day are, by statute, held in trust for the federal government.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 7501 – Liability for Taxes Withheld or Collected When those funds are not paid over, the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty can shift 100 percent of the unpaid trust fund amount onto individuals connected to the business.12Internal Revenue Service. Employment Taxes and the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty (TFRP)
The IRS looks for a “responsible person,” meaning someone who had authority over how the business spent its money and knew the payroll taxes were going unpaid. That reach extends to corporate officers, directors, shareholders, partners, nonprofit board members, and employees with check-signing authority or control over which bills got paid.12Internal Revenue Service. Employment Taxes and the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty (TFRP)
No proof of bad intent is required. Choosing to pay a vendor or a lender while knowing the payroll tax deposit is going unmade is enough for the IRS to call the failure willful, and the penalty survives the closing or bankruptcy of the business.12Internal Revenue Service. Employment Taxes and the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty (TFRP) That is the practical reason the 15th of the month matters: a missed deposit is not just a company problem.