Form 941-V: Who Can Use It, Deadlines, and Penalties

The Form 941-V payment voucher is the slip small employers detach from the bottom of Form 941 and mail with a check when paying a quarterly balance due. Its only job is to help the IRS match your paper payment to the right employer account for the right quarter. Most employers must pay employment taxes electronically, so the voucher is an exception route reserved for small balances, and the IRS is now openly discouraging even that.

Who Can Still Pay With the Voucher

You can use Form 941-V only if all three of these are true:

Your total taxes after adjustments and nonrefundable credits on Line 12 of Form 941 are under $2,500 for either the current quarter or the preceding quarter.
You did not incur a $100,000 next-day deposit obligation at any point during the current quarter.
You are paying in full with a return filed on or before the deadline.

If your balance due is $2,500 or more and none of the exceptions apply, you must pay electronically. There is one additional group who can use the voucher: monthly schedule depositors making a payment under the accuracy of deposits rule, in which case the payment can be $2,500 or more.¹

Even when you qualify, the 2026 Form 941 instructions cite Executive Order 14247 and tell employers to pay their balance due electronically.² Paper payment remains available, but the IRS is signaling that it may not stay that way.

Filling Out the Voucher

The voucher has four fields, and every one of them is copied straight from your finished Form 941. There is no signature line and nothing to calculate.

Employer Identification Number. Enter the nine-digit EIN exactly as it appears on your Form 941. A transposed digit can cause the IRS to apply your payment to the wrong account or reject it, and you will owe late-payment penalties while the mix-up is resolved.
Payment amount. Enter the dollar-and-cents figure from Line 14 of Form 941, which is your balance due after all adjustments and credits.¹
Tax period. Fill in the circle for the quarter you are paying: Q1, Q2, Q3, or Q4.
Name and address. Enter your business name, street address, city, state, and ZIP code exactly as they appear on Form 941.

The most common mistake is a mismatched EIN or payment amount. Check both against your return before sealing the envelope.

Preparing the Check and Mailing It

Make the check or money order payable to “United States Treasury.” On the face of the check, write your EIN, “Form 941,” and the tax period, for example “1st Quarter 2026.” That information is your backup if the voucher gets separated from the payment during IRS processing.²

Detach Form 941-V from the bottom of your Form 941. Place the voucher and check loosely in the envelope with the signed return. Do not staple the voucher or the payment to the return or to each other.¹

Send returns with payment to:

Internal Revenue Service
P.O. Box 932100
Louisville, KY 40293-2100³

Returns without a payment go to a different address listed in the Form 941 instructions. Sending a return with payment to the wrong processing center will delay everything, so verify the address before mailing.

Deadlines and Proving You Mailed on Time

Form 941 and any voucher payment are due on the last day of the month following the end of each quarter: April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31. If a due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day.⁴

A postmark on or before the deadline counts as timely filing under federal tax law, even if the IRS receives the envelope days later.⁵ The problem is proving it. A regular first-class stamp leaves no receipt. USPS Certified Mail with a return receipt gives you a postmarked record the IRS accepts as proof.

If you use a private carrier, only specific services qualify. The IRS approves select DHL Express, FedEx, and UPS options, but not their basic ground services. FedEx Standard Overnight qualifies; FedEx Ground does not.⁶ With a non-approved carrier, the delivery date rather than the ship date controls, and that can turn an on-time payment into a late one.

Penalties If You Should Have Paid Electronically

Using Form 941-V for an amount that should have been deposited electronically is treated as a failure to deposit. The penalty scales with how late the deposit is:⁷

1 to 5 days late: 2% of the undeposited amount
6 to 15 days late: 5%
More than 15 days late: 10%
Not deposited within 10 days of the first delinquency notice: 15%

A separate late-payment penalty of 0.5% per month accrues on any unpaid balance, capped at 25%, and daily interest runs on top of that at the IRS underpayment rate.⁸ If you are close to the $2,500 threshold, pay electronically to be safe.

If Your Check Never Clears

Paper checks go missing more often than employers expect. If two weeks pass and your bank still shows no clearing, call the IRS at 800-829-1040 to confirm whether the payment was credited to your account.⁹

If the IRS has no record and the check has not cleared, you can place a stop-payment on the original check and send a replacement. The IRS will not assess a dishonored-check penalty in that situation. If your bank charges a stop-payment fee, file Form 8546 to request reimbursement from the IRS.⁹

1
Internal Revenue Service. Form 941 – Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return
2
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 941
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Internal Revenue Service. Where to File Your Taxes for Form 941
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Internal Revenue Service. Employment Tax Due Dates
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eCFR. 26 CFR 301.7502-1 – Timely Mailing of Documents and Payments Treated as Timely Filing and Paying
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Internal Revenue Service. Private Delivery Services (PDS)
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 6656 – Failure to Make Deposit of Taxes
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Internal Revenue Service. Quarterly Interest Rates
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Internal Revenue Service. General Procedural Questions 2