When Are Payroll Tax Deposits Due? Schedules, Rules, and Penalties

Federal payroll tax deposits are due on one of two schedules the IRS assigns you before each calendar year: monthly depositors send in each month’s withheld income tax and FICA by the 15th of the following month, and semi-weekly depositors send in taxes from Wednesday–Friday paydays by the next Wednesday and taxes from Saturday–Tuesday paydays by the next Friday.¹ A separate rule overrides both schedules the moment you accumulate $100,000 or more in liability on any single day: that amount is due by the close of the next business day.

Which Schedule Applies to You

Your schedule for the year is set by a lookback period, not by your current payroll. For Form 941 filers, the lookback period is the four quarters running from July 1 of the second preceding year through June 30 of the prior year. For calendar year 2026, that is July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025.¹

If your total Form 941 tax liability during that lookback period was $50,000 or less, you deposit monthly for the entire current year. If it was more than $50,000, you deposit semi-weekly.² New employers have no lookback history, so the IRS treats their prior liability as zero and starts them on the monthly schedule.¹

Monthly Deposit Deadlines

Monthly depositors combine all payroll tax liability from wages paid during a calendar month and send one deposit by the 15th of the following month. The number of paydays inside the month doesn’t matter. Wages paid on October 4, October 18, and October 31 are aggregated and due November 15.²

When the 15th falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day.¹

Semi-Weekly Deposit Deadlines

Semi-weekly depositors work off two pay-date windows each week:

Wages paid Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday are due the following Wednesday.
Wages paid Saturday, Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday are due the following Friday.¹

You always have at least three banking days between payday and deposit. A Friday payday’s deposit is due the following Wednesday; a Monday payday’s deposit is due that same Friday. The weekend and legal holiday extension applies here as well: if the deposit date is not a business day, it shifts to the next one.

Quarter boundaries create a wrinkle. If a semi-weekly period spans the end of a calendar quarter, wages paid before the quarter ends and wages paid after it belong to separate deposits, even though they fall inside what would otherwise be the same window.³

The $100,000 Next-Day Rule

Both schedules yield to a single-day threshold. If your accumulated payroll tax liability reaches $100,000 or more on any day within a deposit period, the entire amount must be deposited by the close of the next business day.¹ Large bonus runs, catch-up payrolls, and simply big regular payrolls can all trigger it.

Say you’re a monthly depositor and a Monday bonus run generates $115,000 in liability. Your normal deadline would be the 15th of the following month, but the full $115,000 is now due by close of business Tuesday. Any smaller liabilities from other days in the month follow the regular monthly schedule.

Triggering the rule has a lasting consequence. From that moment, you become a semi-weekly depositor for the rest of the current calendar year and for the entire following calendar year.³ The change is automatic. You go back to monthly only when a future lookback period puts you under $50,000.

When You Can Skip Deposits

If your total Form 941 tax liability for an entire quarter is less than $2,500, you can skip deposits for that quarter and pay the balance with the return itself. This applies regardless of the schedule the IRS assigned you.¹

Very small employers may qualify to file Form 944 annually instead of Form 941 quarterly, if their total annual liability for Social Security, Medicare, and withheld income tax is $1,000 or less. The IRS has to notify you or approve your request first.⁴ Form 944 filers whose annual liability stays under $2,500 can pay in full with the return rather than depositing during the year.

FUTA Deposits Follow a Separate Clock

Federal unemployment tax deposits are on their own schedule and are not lumped in with the deadlines above. If your cumulative FUTA liability crosses $500 in any quarter, deposit it by the last day of the month following that quarter’s end. If it stays at $500 or less, carry it forward until it does cross $500. Any remaining fourth-quarter liability of $500 or less can be paid with Form 940 by January 31.⁵

Making the Deposit on Time

Federal payroll tax deposits must be made electronically. The free system is EFTPS, the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, and enrollment can take up to five business days, so sign up well before your first deposit is due.⁶

The cutoff matters as much as the deadline. EFTPS payments must be scheduled by 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time the day before the deposit is due.⁷ Anything initiated after that is treated as received the next business day, which makes it late. A Friday deposit needs the EFTPS transaction completed by 8:00 p.m. ET Thursday.

If you miss the EFTPS window, a same-day wire through your financial institution is a fallback. You fill out the IRS Same-Day Taxpayer Worksheet (one per tax form and period) and take it to your bank. Confirm availability, fees, and the bank’s own cutoff in advance.⁸

Penalties for Missing a Deadline

The IRS applies a tiered failure-to-deposit penalty that replaces itself at each step rather than stacking:

1 to 5 calendar days late: 2% of the unpaid deposit.
6 to 15 calendar days late: 5%.
More than 15 calendar days late: 10%.
More than 10 days after the first IRS notice demanding payment, or upon receiving a notice for immediate payment: 15%.⁹

Interest runs on top of the penalty from the original due date, and assessment is automatic when the IRS spots a late deposit.

A clean compliance record can qualify you for First Time Abate, which removes the failure-to-deposit penalty. You need all required returns filed for the three prior tax years and no penalties in that window (other than ones removed for a reason other than First Time Abate itself), plus no more than three prior deposit penalty waivers in the preceding three years.¹⁰ You can request it before paying the underlying tax in full.

One boundary worth naming: the penalties above cover being late. A separate regime, the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty, applies when withheld income tax and the employee share of FICA are willfully not paid over at all, and it can be assessed personally against owners, officers, and anyone with authority over which bills get paid.¹¹ Depositing late is not the same as triggering it, but the two live in the same neighborhood, and repeated missed deposits are how employers stumble into the harsher rule.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 757, Forms 941 and 944 – Deposit Requirements
2
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 15 (2026), (Circular E), Employer’s Tax Guide
3
eCFR. 26 CFR 31.6302-1 – Deposit Rules for Taxes Under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) and Withheld Income Taxes
4
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 944, Employer’s Annual Federal Tax Return
5
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 759, Form 940, Employers Annual Federal Unemployment (FUTA) Tax Return – Filing and Deposit Requirements
6
Internal Revenue Service. EFTPS: The Electronic Federal Tax Payment System
7
EFTPS. Welcome to EFTPS Online
8
Internal Revenue Service. Same-Day Wire Federal Tax Payments
9
Internal Revenue Service. Failure to Deposit Penalty
10
Internal Revenue Service. Administrative Penalty Relief
11
Internal Revenue Service. Employment Taxes and the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty (TFRP)