Form 1042 Due Date, Extensions, and Late Penalties

Form 1042 is due on March 15 of the year following the calendar year in which you paid U.S. source income to foreign persons. Because March 15, 2026 falls on a Sunday, the Form 1042 due date for the 2025 tax year shifts to Monday, March 16, 2026.¹ The same shifted date applies to filing Forms 1042-S with the IRS and furnishing recipient copies.²

Whenever March 15 lands on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the due date rolls to the next business day.¹ In other years, the deadline sits on March 15 itself.

You Still File When No Tax Was Withheld

One point catches withholding agents off guard: Form 1042 is required even if no tax was withheld during the year. If you made reportable payments to foreign persons and applied a treaty exemption that reduced the rate to zero, the return is still due.³

Extensions Available Before the Deadline

Three separate extension mechanisms cover three separate obligations. Confusing them is one of the most common compliance errors in this area.

Extending Form 1042 Itself

Filing Form 7004 before the original March 15 due date gets you an automatic six-month extension to September 15.⁴ No justification is needed. The extension covers the paperwork only. Any tax owed must still be paid by the original March 15 deadline, and the IRS will charge failure-to-pay penalties and interest on any balance that remains unpaid past that date, even if your filing extension is valid.¹

Extending the IRS Filing of Forms 1042-S

To get more time to file Forms 1042-S with the IRS, submit Form 8809 by March 15. An automatic 30-day extension is available through the FIRE system.⁵ Form 8809 covers filing information returns with the IRS. It does not extend your deadline for delivering statements to recipients.⁶

Extending Recipient Statements

For extra time to deliver Form 1042-S copies to recipients, fax Form 15397 to the IRS before the furnishing deadline. This one is discretionary, not automatic. The IRS grants it only when qualifying circumstances prevented timely delivery, such as a federally declared disaster, the illness or death of the person responsible for filing, or not receiving the necessary payee data in time. If approved, the extension is typically 30 additional days.⁷

Deposits Have Their Own Deadlines During the Year

March 15 is not the only date on the calendar. Tax withheld from payments to foreign persons must be deposited through the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) as it accumulates. You cannot hold the money and pay it all with the annual return. The 2025 Form 1042 instructions set three deposit tiers:⁸

If you have accumulated $2,000 or more at the end of a quarter-monthly period, deposit within 3 business days. Quarter-monthly periods end on the 7th, 15th, 22nd, and last day of each month.
If the accumulated amount is $200 to $1,999 at month end, deposit within 15 days after month end. If you already made a $2,000-or-more deposit during the month under the first rule, carry any remaining balance under $2,000 into the next month.
If the total is under $200 at year end, pay it with Form 1042 or deposit it by March 15 of the following year.

Missing a deposit triggers its own penalty, separate from failure-to-file and failure-to-pay consequences. Agents who let deposits slide until the annual return often face stacked penalties even after paying the full amount.

What Late Filing and Late Payment Cost

Failure to File

If Form 1042 is not filed by the due date (including any valid extension), the IRS charges 5% of the unpaid tax for each month or partial month the return is late, up to 25%.⁹ When failure-to-file and failure-to-pay penalties apply in the same month, the filing penalty is reduced by the payment penalty amount, though the combined bill still climbs quickly.

Failure to Pay

A separate 0.5% per month penalty runs on tax that remains unpaid after the original March 15 due date, capped at 25%.¹⁰ This penalty accrues even if you have a valid filing extension through September 15. The extension gives you more time to file, not more time to pay. Interest also accrues on any underpayment from the due date until the balance is cleared, at rates the IRS sets quarterly.

Failure to Deposit

Late deposits carry escalating rates based on how many calendar days the deposit is overdue:¹¹

1–5 days late: 2% of the unpaid deposit
6–15 days late: 5% of the unpaid deposit
More than 15 days late: 10% of the unpaid deposit
More than 10 days after a first IRS notice, or upon receipt of an immediate payment demand: 15% of the unpaid deposit

These rates do not stack. A deposit made 12 days late is subject to the 5% rate, not 2% plus 5%.

Late or Incorrect Forms 1042-S

Separate penalties apply for failing to file correct Forms 1042-S with the IRS or furnish accurate statements to recipients. For returns due in 2026, the per-return amounts are:¹²

Corrected within 30 days of the due date: $60 per return
Corrected after 30 days but by August 1: $130 per return
Corrected after August 1 or never filed: $340 per return
Intentional disregard: $680 per return with no annual cap

Annual maximum penalties also apply and vary by filer size. Smaller businesses with average annual gross receipts of $5 million or less face lower annual caps, such as a maximum of $1,366,000 for the general penalty tier in 2026, compared to $4,098,500 for larger filers.¹³ The penalty for furnishing incorrect statements to recipients can reach $340 per statement for 2026.¹⁴

These penalties can be abated if you show reasonable cause and that the failure was not due to willful neglect. Winning that argument without documentation of what went wrong and what steps you took to comply is difficult. Willful failures can escalate to criminal penalties for tax evasion or fraud, though that outcome is reserved for the most egregious cases.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Discussion of Form 1042, Form 1042-S and Form 1042-T
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Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service. Form 1042-T Annual Summary and Transmittal of Forms 1042-S
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eCFR. 26 CFR 1.1461-1 – Payment and Returns of Tax Withheld
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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 7004
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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 8809, Application for Extension of Time to File Information Returns
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Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service. Form 8809 – Application for Extension of Time to File Information Returns
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Internal Revenue Service. Extension of Time to Furnish Statements to Recipients
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Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Instructions for Form 1042
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Internal Revenue Service. Failure to File Penalty
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Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 653 – IRS Notices and Bills, Penalties and Interest Charges
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Internal Revenue Service. Failure to Deposit Penalty
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Internal Revenue Service. Information Return Penalties
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Internal Revenue Service. Rev. Proc. 2024-40
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Internal Revenue Service. Penalties Related to Form 1042-S