For a fiscal year corporation, using the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System comes down to two things calendar year filers don’t have to think about: your estimated income tax installments fall on the 15th day of the 4th, 6th, 9th, and 12th months of your fiscal year, and when you schedule the payment in EFTPS the tax period month must match your fiscal year end rather than the calendar quarter. Get those two right and the rest of the system works the same way it does for everyone else.1Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1120 (2025) – Section: Estimated Tax Payments2Internal Revenue Service. Publication 4990 – EFTPS Payment Instruction Booklet
Your Four Installment Dates
A corporation must make estimated income tax payments if it expects its total tax for the year, after credits, to be $500 or more.1Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1120 (2025) – Section: Estimated Tax Payments Those payments come in four installments, each due on the 15th day of the 4th, 6th, 9th, and 12th months of the corporation’s fiscal year.
Two worked examples:
- Fiscal year October 1 to September 30: installments due January 15, March 15, June 15, and September 15.
- Fiscal year July 1 to June 30: installments due October 15, December 15, March 15, and June 15.
When any of those dates falls on a weekend or federal holiday, the deadline rolls to the next business day.1Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1120 (2025) – Section: Estimated Tax Payments
Each installment must equal at least 25% of the required annual payment to avoid an underpayment penalty. The required annual payment is the lesser of 100% of the current year’s expected tax or 100% of the tax shown on the prior year’s return.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6655 – Failure by Corporation to Pay Estimated Income Tax The prior-year safe harbor is helpful early in the year when your current-year tax is still an estimate, but read the large corporation section below before you rely on it.
One boundary worth naming: this schedule governs your Form 1120 estimated income tax. Payroll tax deposits under Form 941 do not follow your fiscal year at all. They run on a monthly or semiweekly schedule based on a lookback period, with a next-day rule triggered when accumulated liability hits $100,000.5Internal Revenue Service. Employment Tax Due Dates
Entering the Right Tax Period in EFTPS
This is the field fiscal year corporations get wrong most often. When you schedule a 1120 estimated tax payment, EFTPS asks for a Tax Period. For Form 1120 and related income tax forms, the tax period month must match your fiscal year end, not the calendar quarter and not the month of the installment you are paying.4Internal Revenue Service. Publication 4990 – EFTPS Payment Instruction Booklet
A corporation with a September 30 fiscal year end enters “09” as the tax period month for every installment during that year, whether it is the first payment in January or the last in September. A June 30 fiscal year end enters “06” for all four. If you enter the month of the installment date, or the current calendar quarter, the IRS will post the payment to the wrong period and you will spend weeks getting it moved.
Scheduling the Payment
Log in with your EIN, PIN, and Internet Password, then choose “Make a Payment.” Select the tax form — “1120 Estimated Tax” for income tax installments. Enter the tax period as above. Enter the amount and pick a settlement date, which is when the Treasury will actually pull the funds from your bank.
To count as timely, your payment instruction must be submitted by 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on the day before the settlement date.2Internal Revenue Service. Publication 4990 – EFTPS Payment Instruction Booklet For a January 15 due date, that means the instruction is confirmed no later than 8:00 p.m. ET on January 14. You can schedule as far as 365 days in advance, which is worth doing for the whole fiscal year at once when your installment amounts are set.6Treasury Fiscal Service. Your Guide for Paying Taxes
EFTPS returns a confirmation number as soon as you submit. Save it. It is your evidence that the instruction was on time, and you’ll need it to modify or cancel the payment later.
Prefer the phone? EFTPS accepts payments at 1-800-555-3453, 24 hours a day. Customer service is at 1-800-555-4477, weekdays 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern.2Internal Revenue Service. Publication 4990 – EFTPS Payment Instruction Booklet
If You Miss the 8 P.M. Cutoff
A same-day wire transfer through your bank is the fallback. This does not run through EFTPS. Download the IRS Same-Day Taxpayer Worksheet, fill in the tax form type, tax period, and amount, and take it to your financial institution to initiate a Fedwire transfer.7Internal Revenue Service. Same-Day Wire Federal Tax Payments A separate worksheet is required for each tax form or tax period. Bank fees, cutoff times, and availability vary, so confirm the details with your bank in advance rather than the afternoon you need to use it.
Enrolling if You Haven’t Already
New corporations enroll at EFTPS.gov. Have three things ready: your nine-digit EIN, the legal name and address the IRS has on file, and the routing and account numbers for the funding bank account.8Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS). Welcome to EFTPS Online
After you submit the enrollment, the Treasury mails a PIN to your IRS address of record within five to seven business days.8Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS). Welcome to EFTPS Online You then log in with your EIN and PIN and create an Internet Password. All three credentials are required for every future session. Verify the bank routing and account numbers you entered before scheduling your first payment; a wrong digit means a failed withdrawal, and the first sign of trouble is often a penalty notice.
The Large Corporation Rule
A “large corporation” is any corporation (or its predecessor) that had taxable income of $1,000,000 or more in any of the three tax years immediately before the current year.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6655 – Failure by Corporation to Pay Estimated Income Tax Crossing that line once during the three-year testing window makes you a large corporation for the current year.
The consequence for scheduling installments: a large corporation cannot use the prior-year safe harbor for installments two, three, and four. Those must be based on 100% of the current year’s expected tax. The first installment can still use the prior-year figure, but any shortfall it creates gets added to the second installment.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6655 – Failure by Corporation to Pay Estimated Income Tax There is also a rate premium: large corporate underpayments are charged interest two points above the standard corporate rate. For the second quarter of 2026, that means 8% versus 6%.9Internal Revenue Service. Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-08
Fixing a Payment Before It Settles
After you schedule anything, go back to “Pending Payments” and verify the tax form, tax period, amount, and settlement date. Errors caught here are trivial to fix; errors caught after settlement are not.
You cannot edit a scheduled payment. You cancel it, save the cancellation acknowledgment number alongside the original confirmation number, and enter a new instruction with the correct details. Cancellations must be submitted before the settlement date, and the exact cutoff time depends on the payment channel, so don’t wait for the last hour. If the funds have already been pulled, correcting a misapplied payment moves to the IRS by phone and paperwork, and that process is slow.
Penalties When a Deposit Is Late or Wrong
The failure-to-deposit penalty applies to any tax payment that is late, short, or made through the wrong method — a mailed check when electronic deposit is required counts as “wrong method” even if it arrives on the due date. The rate scales with lateness:10Internal Revenue Service. Failure to Deposit Penalty
- 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 a first IRS notice, or upon receipt of an immediate payment notice: 15% of the unpaid deposit
The tiers do not stack. A deposit 20 days late is penalized at 10%, not 2% plus 5% plus 10%.10Internal Revenue Service. Failure to Deposit Penalty
Underpayment interest on estimated tax is separate from the deposit penalty. It runs from the installment due date to the earlier of the date the tax is actually paid or the return due date, at the quarterly rate set under IRC Section 6621. For the first quarter of 2026 the corporate underpayment rate is 7%; for the second quarter it is 6% for standard corporations and 8% for large corporations.9Internal Revenue Service. Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-08 The IRS calculates this when you file Form 2220 with your annual return, or it will calculate it and bill you.
If EFTPS itself is down and prevents a timely payment, the IRS lists system outages as a valid basis for reasonable cause relief.11Internal Revenue Service. Penalty Relief for Reasonable Cause Document the outage while it’s happening: screenshots, error messages, and timestamps. You will need to show that you exercised ordinary care and still could not get the payment through.