Tax deadlines for 2026 and 2027

Most people need only two or three of these: April 15 for the return, October 15 if they extend it, and the four estimated tax dates if they are self-employed or have other income nothing is withheld from. The rest are for businesses and employers.

The phrase covers two different dates. For 2025 income, the return was due April 15, 2026, and anyone who requested an extension by then has until October 15, 2026 to file it. The extension did not move the payment date: tax still unpaid since April 15 has been building interest and a late-payment penalty.

For 2026 income, the return is due Thursday, April 15, 2027. That day is a business day, so nothing moves it; the District of Columbia’s Emancipation Day holiday falls the next day, Friday, April 16, and does not change it.

States set their own deadlines, which do not always match the federal one, and several states have no broad income tax at all; the state pages cover each one.

The IRS offers three ways to get until October 15 to file an individual return. Pay what you owe with one of its online payment options and check the box that the payment is for an extension, which needs no separate form and gives you a confirmation number. Request the extension electronically through IRS Free File, which has no income limit for extensions. Or file Form 4868, by mail, through an IRS e-file partner or through a tax professional.

Whichever way you use, it has to be done by the April due date, and it covers the return only. The IRS’s own wording is that the extension is only for filing your return, so estimate what you owe and pay it by April 15.

A U.S. citizen or resident alien who is living outside the country on the regular due date gets an automatic two months, to June 15, and can use Form 4868 for four more, to October 15. Businesses use Form 7004 for an automatic six-month extension, and a corporation still has to deposit the tax it estimates it owes by the original date.

Partnerships and S corporations file first. For a calendar-year business, Form 1065 and Form 1120-S, with a Schedule K-1 for each partner or shareholder, are due March 15, 2027; a calendar-year C corporation files Form 1120 by April 15, 2027, the same day as individuals.

An LLC follows the deadline of whatever the IRS treats it as. By default, an LLC with two or more members is taxed as a partnership and files Form 1065, and a single-member LLC is disregarded, so its income goes on the owner’s own return, due April 15. An LLC that elects to be taxed as a corporation files as one, and keeps that corporation’s dates.

Employers give employees their Forms W-2, and file them with the Social Security Administration, by January 31; for 2026 wages that is Monday, February 1, 2027, because January 31 is a Sunday. Form 1099-NEC for payments to contractors is due to both the contractor and the IRS on the same day. Most other 1099s go to recipients then, and to the IRS by February 28 on paper, March 1 in 2027, or March 31 if filed electronically.

Form 941, the quarterly payroll return, is due the last day of the month after each quarter. An employer that deposited every bit of the quarter’s tax on time gets ten more days to file it. The deposits themselves run on a separate monthly or semiweekly schedule, explained in Publication 15.

If a deadline lands on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday, you are on time if you act by the next day that is none of those. For federal tax, “legal holiday” means a legal holiday in the District of Columbia, which adds Emancipation Day, April 16, to the usual federal list. A statewide holiday counts in narrower cases: it delays a filing deadline if the IRS office where you must file is in that state, and for an individual it also delays one for residents of that state. It never delays a federal tax deposit.

In the year ahead that moves January 31 to February 1, 2027, February 15, Washington’s Birthday, to February 16, February 28 to March 1, July 31 to August 2, and October 31 to November 1. The last 2027 estimated payment moves the furthest: January 15, 2028 is a Saturday and January 17 is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so it is due Tuesday, January 18.

Mailing still works, but read the postmark rule carefully. A return or payment postmarked by the due date counts as on time, and the IRS now points out that the postmark date is the date the mail is processed at a postal facility, which may be later than the day you dropped it in a mailbox. Paying and filing electronically avoids the question.

When FEMA declares a disaster, the IRS usually postpones federal deadlines for people and businesses whose address of record is in the covered area. The extra time is automatic; you do not need to ask for it.

In 2026 it postponed deadlines for parts of more than a dozen states and territories. Several declarations, including ones covering areas of Hawaii, Indiana, Nebraska, Washington and West Virginia, moved deadlines to February 1, 2027; others ran to November 2, 2026. Each announcement on the IRS’s disaster relief page lists the counties it covers and which deadlines it moves.

File anyway, as soon as you can, even if you cannot pay. The failure-to-file penalty is 5% of the unpaid tax for each month or part of a month the return is late, up to 25%, while the failure-to-pay penalty is 0.5% a month, so filing on time and paying what you can costs far less than waiting. Interest accrues daily on top, from the original due date.

If you are owed a refund, there is no failure-to-file penalty, because it is figured on tax still owed. The risk there is losing the refund: it generally has to be claimed within three years of the return’s due date.