EFTPS Due Dates: Monthly, Semiweekly, and the 8 PM Cutoff

EFTPS due dates fall into two schedules set by the IRS: monthly depositors owe by the 15th of the month after payroll, and semi-weekly depositors owe on either the Wednesday or Friday after payday. On top of that, every payment made through the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System has to be scheduled by 8:00 PM Eastern Time on the day before the due date, or it will settle late.

Which Deposit Schedule You’re On

Your schedule for a calendar year is assigned in advance based on a lookback period, not on what you’re paying right now. For 2026, the lookback period runs from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025. The IRS totals the employment tax you reported on Form 941, line 12, across those four quarters.¹

$50,000 or less in the lookback period: monthly schedule for the whole year.
More than $50,000: semi-weekly schedule for the whole year.

That classification stays locked in for the year unless the $100,000 next-day rule kicks you up mid-year.²

New employers start on the monthly schedule by default, because the IRS treats lookback quarters before the business existed as zero.²

Monthly Deposit Due Dates

If you’re a monthly depositor, everything you accumulated in employment taxes during a calendar month is due by the 15th of the following month. Taxes withheld from January payrolls are due February 15; February taxes are due March 15, and so on.³

When the 15th lands on a Saturday, Sunday, or federal holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day. That shift comes up several times a year, so check a calendar at the start of each quarter instead of assuming the 15th is always the date.⁴

Semi-Weekly Deposit Due Dates

Semi-weekly depositors follow a split calendar tied to the day wages were actually paid:

Wages paid Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday: deposit due the following Wednesday.
Wages paid Saturday, Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday: deposit due the following Friday.

The name is misleading. You aren’t necessarily depositing twice a week. If you run payroll once a week, you have one deposit that week. If you happen to run payroll on both a Wednesday and a Friday, both amounts share the same Wednesday deadline the next week.⁴

Federal holidays push a semi-weekly due date to the next business day, the same way they do for monthly deposits.

The 8:00 PM Eastern Time Scheduling Cutoff

This is the detail that catches employers who otherwise know their schedule cold. Payments made through the EFTPS website or the voice response system must be scheduled by 8:00 PM Eastern Time on the day before the due date.⁵

If your deposit is due Wednesday, your EFTPS transaction has to be complete by 8:00 PM ET Tuesday. A payment initiated at 8:01 PM ET Tuesday will settle on Thursday and count as late.

The 8:00 PM ET cutoff applies regardless of your local time zone. In Los Angeles, that’s 5:00 PM Pacific. Build a buffer into your payroll workflow. Trying to submit at 7:45 PM ET and running into a login problem or a banking hiccup leaves you no recovery time.

Once you successfully schedule a payment, EFTPS generates a confirmation number. Keep it. The IRS wants employment tax records, including deposit confirmations, retained for at least four years after the tax is due or paid, whichever is later.⁶ You can cancel or modify a scheduled payment, but only up to that same 8:00 PM ET cutoff. After it passes, the payment is locked.

The $100,000 Next-Day Deposit Rule

If your accumulated employment tax liability hits $100,000 or more on any single day, the normal schedules don’t apply to that liability. You must deposit the full amount by the close of the next business day. The rule overrides both the monthly 15th and the Wednesday/Friday semi-weekly deadlines.¹

Crossing the $100,000 threshold also changes your status. A monthly depositor who accumulates $100,000 on any day becomes a semi-weekly depositor starting the next day, and stays semi-weekly for the rest of that calendar year and all of the following year.³

The $100,000 figure counts federal income tax withholding plus both the employer and employee shares of Social Security and Medicare. Large bonus runs and year-end equity compensation are the usual triggers. If a single payroll might come close to six figures in combined tax, do the math ahead of time so you aren’t scrambling for a next-business-day wire.

Missed the 8:00 PM Cutoff: Same-Day Wire

If the EFTPS window has closed and the deposit is due tomorrow, a same-day wire transfer through your bank is the last legitimate option to avoid a late deposit. The IRS accepts same-day wires as an alternative electronic funds transfer method.⁷

Download the IRS Same-Day Taxpayer Worksheet, fill it out with your tax information, and take it to your bank. Each tax type and tax period needs its own worksheet. Wires have to be received by the Federal Tax Collection Service by 5:00 PM ET to be credited that day; anything arriving after 5:00 PM ET gets rejected and returned rather than held over.⁸

Your bank will charge a fee, and its own wire cutoff will be earlier than the 5:00 PM ET federal one. Confirm both numbers with your bank before you ever actually need this route. Finding out at 3:00 PM that your bank’s wire desk closed at noon is not a good afternoon.

Very Small Employers and Form 944

Not every employer files quarterly. If your total annual liability for Social Security, Medicare, and withheld income tax is $1,000 or less, the IRS may authorize you to file Form 944 once a year instead of Form 941 each quarter.⁹

Form 944 filers whose annual tax liability is under $2,500 skip the deposit schedule entirely and simply pay when they file the return, which is due January 31 of the following year.¹⁰ You cannot elect Form 944 on your own; the IRS has to authorize the switch. If you haven’t received specific notice that you’re a Form 944 filer, keep filing Form 941 quarterly and following your assigned monthly or semi-weekly schedule.

Penalties When a Deposit Is Late

The IRS assesses the failure-to-deposit penalty automatically once it processes your Form 941 and sees a shortfall. The rate is tiered by how late the deposit is, and the tiers do not stack. A deposit that’s 10 days late is charged at 5%, not 2% plus 5%.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.
More than 10 days after the first IRS notice, or on receipt of an immediate-payment notice: 15% of the unpaid deposit.

A small shortfall can escape penalty under the de minimis safe harbor if it doesn’t exceed the greater of $100 or 2% of the required deposit, and you make up the difference by a specific date. For monthly depositors, that makeup deadline is the return due date for the period. For semi-weekly depositors, it’s the earlier of the first Wednesday or Friday on or after the 15th of the following month, or the return due date.¹²

If your bank rejects an EFTPS payment for insufficient funds, that’s a separate penalty on top of any failure-to-deposit charge. For payments of $1,250 or more, it’s 2% of the payment. For payments under $1,250, it’s the lesser of the payment amount or $25.¹³

1
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 15 (2026), (Circular E), Employer’s Tax Guide
2
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 757, Forms 941 and 944 – Deposit Requirements
3
Internal Revenue Service. Notice 931, Deposit Requirements for Employment Taxes
4
Internal Revenue Service. Employment Tax Due Dates
5
U.S. Department of the Treasury. Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS)
6
Internal Revenue Service. How Long Should I Keep Records
7
Internal Revenue Service. Same-Day Wire Federal Tax Payments
8
Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS). Same-Day Wire Taxpayer Worksheet
9
Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Instructions for Form 944
10
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 944 (2025)
11
Internal Revenue Service. Failure to Deposit Penalty
12
Internal Revenue Service. IRM 20.1.4, Failure to Deposit Penalty
13
Internal Revenue Service. Dishonored Check or Other Form of Payment Penalty