Bookkeeping · Payroll & Compliance · Brief · Intro level
The small-business compliance calendar: a year of deadlines
A month-by-month map of the recurring federal payroll and filing deadlines — 941s, W-2s and 1099s on January 31, deposits, and the state items you must slot in yourself.
Small-business compliance is not hard so much as relentless: the same dozen deadlines, every year, in the same order. Put them on one calendar once, and the year runs itself. The table below covers the recurring federal payroll-and-filing skeleton; state items — sales tax, state withholding, unemployment wage reports, annual reports — follow state-specific dates you must slot in from each state's own notices. Weekend and holiday dates roll to the next business day.
The year, month by month
The recurring federal skeleton (calendar-year business; verify current-year dates on irs.gov):
| Month | What's due |
|---|---|
| January | Jan 31: W-2s to employees and SSA; 1099-NECs to recipients and IRS; Q4 Form 941; Form 940 (FUTA). Also: Q4 estimated taxes (Jan 15); update SUI rates and recheck deposit-schedule status |
| February | File any 1099/W-2 corrections fast — penalty tiers reward speed |
| March | Calendar-year S corp and partnership returns (Mar 15) or extensions |
| April | Apr 30: Q1 941. Individual and C corp returns or extensions (Apr 15); Q1 estimates |
| May | Quiet month — good for a classification and vendor-file review |
| June | Q2 estimates (Jun 15) |
| July | Jul 31: Q2 941. Retirement plan Form 5500 season for calendar-year plans |
| August | Quiet — workers' comp audit usually lands mid-year; respond promptly |
| September | Extended S corp/partnership returns (Sep 15); Q3 estimates |
| October | Oct 31: Q3 941. Extended individual returns (Oct 15). Start the W-9 chase |
| November | Confirm next year's deposit schedule from the lookback period |
| December | Year-end sweep: taxable fringes, S corp owner health premiums, bonus runs and the $100k deposit rule; verify employee addresses for W-2s |
| All year | Payroll tax deposits on your monthly/semiweekly schedule; state withholding, SUI, and sales tax filings on their assigned cadences |
Three hedges on that table. First, deposits are not on it by date because they depend on your assigned schedule — monthly depositors work to the 15th of each following month, semiweekly to paydays; see /bookkeeping/payroll-compliance/payroll-deposit-schedules. Second, income tax dates shift with fiscal years, disaster relief, and weekends — confirm each year against the IRS calendar and Publication 15. Third, sales tax varies entirely by state — monthly, quarterly, or annual, on the state's date; the workflow is at /bookkeeping/payroll-compliance/sales-tax-filing-workflow.
Why January 31 deserves fear and preparation
Four obligations converge: W-2s, 1099-NECs (no automatic extension), the Q4 941, and the annual FUTA return. Every one of them depends on records from the year just closed — which is why the December sweep and the October W-9 chase appear on the calendar above. The businesses that suffer in January are the ones doing December's work there; the full defense is the system in /bookkeeping/payroll-compliance/1099-season-playbook.
Building the calendar, once
- Copy the table into the shared calendar with reminders two weeks and two days ahead.
- Add each state's dates from its own registration letters — withholding, SUI wage reports, sales tax, annual report.
- Add entity-specific items: estimated taxes, retirement plan filings, local licenses.
- Each January, re-verify the year's exact dates and your deposit status, then leave it alone.
A deadline on a calendar with a two-week warning almost never generates a penalty. A deadline in someone's head eventually does — and when it does, read /bookkeeping/payroll-compliance/penalty-notices-payroll before paying.
Frequently asked questions
- What are the four Form 941 deadlines each year?
- April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31 — the last day of the month following each calendar quarter. Payroll tax deposits happen earlier, throughout each quarter, on your monthly or semiweekly schedule; the 941 reconciles them.
- What is due on January 31?
- The heaviest day of the compliance year: W-2s to employees and the Social Security Administration, 1099-NEC forms to recipients and the IRS, the fourth-quarter Form 941, and the annual Form 940 (FUTA). Sales tax, state withholding annual reconciliations, and Q4 estimated taxes also cluster in January.
- Do state deadlines follow the federal calendar?
- Only loosely. State withholding returns, unemployment wage reports (commonly quarterly, often month-end after the quarter), sales tax (cadence assigned by the state), and annual report/franchise filings all run on state-specific dates. Build them into the same calendar from each state's own notices rather than assuming they match the federal dates.