Form 941: Employer's Quarterly Federal Tax Return
Published November 7, 2026
Form 941 is the quarterly federal tax return for employers. You use it to report the wages you paid, the tips your employees reported to you, the federal income tax you withheld, and both the employer and employee shares of social security and Medicare tax. You file it once for each calendar quarter.
This post is general information from the March 2026 revision of Form 941 and its instructions (Rev. 3-2026). The IRS says that revision is the one to use for all four quarters of 2026. The post does not tell you what to file in your case.
Who must file
The instructions say you must file Form 941 if you pay wages subject to federal income tax withholding, or to social security and Medicare taxes. You file each quarter even if you paid no wages in that quarter, unless you have already filed a final return.
Some employers follow other rules. Employers of household employees usually do not file Form 941; the instructions point to Schedule H (Form 1040) and Publication 926. Employers of farm workers do not file Form 941 for agricultural wages; they use Form 943. Employers who qualify for Form 944, an annual return, can ask the IRS to let them file quarterly Forms 941 instead.
Form 941 does not report unemployment tax. That goes on Form 940: Employer's Annual Federal Unemployment (FUTA) Tax Return. Backup withholding and withholding on pensions, annuities, and gambling winnings go on Form 945.
What the form asks
- Part 1 asks how many employees received pay for the pay period that includes March 12, June 12, September 12, or December 12, depending on the quarter.
- Lines 2 and 3 report wages, tips, and other compensation, and the federal income tax withheld from them.
- The lines that follow cover social security and Medicare tax, adjustments for fractions of cents, sick pay, tips, and group-term life insurance, and the totals that lead to line 12.
- Part 2 is your deposit schedule and your tax liability for the quarter. For monthly depositors, the instructions say the total liability for the quarter must equal the total taxes on line 12.
When the return is due
The due date is the last day of the month after the quarter ends:
- January, February, and March: April 30.
- April, May, and June: July 31.
- July, August, and September: October 31.
- October, November, and December: January 31.
If you made all of your deposits on time, the instructions say you may file by the 10th day of the second month after the quarter ends. For the first quarter, that is May 10. A postmark on or before the due date counts as timely. If a due date falls on a weekend or legal holiday, the due date moves to the next business day.
When you must deposit
Your deposit schedule does not depend on how often you pay your employees. It depends on the tax you reported on Form 941 during a four-quarter lookback period. For 2026, the lookback period runs from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025. If you filed Form 944 in 2024 or 2025, the lookback period is the 2024 calendar year.
- If the lookback taxes were $50,000 or less, you are a monthly schedule depositor.
- If they were more than $50,000, you are a semiweekly schedule depositor.
- A monthly depositor who accumulates a $100,000 tax liability on any day becomes a semiweekly depositor the next day, under the $100,000 next-day deposit rule described in Publication 15.
If your total taxes for the current quarter and the prior quarter are both under $2,500, and you did not hit the $100,000 rule, the instructions say you do not have to make a deposit. You still have to pay any amount due with a timely return to avoid penalties. The instructions also say all federal tax deposits must be made electronically by EFT.
Before you file
Use the revision that matches the tax year. The 2026 revision is the one to use for the 2026 quarters. Older revisions are on IRS.gov. If you find an error on a return you already filed, the correction goes on Form 941-X, not on the next quarter's form.
For record keeping, see How Long Should I Keep My Tax Records?.
Sources: Sources: IRS, Form 941, Employer's QUARTERLY Federal Tax Return (Rev. March 2026) (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f941.pdf); Instructions for Form 941 (Rev. March 2026) (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i941.pdf) This is general information, not advice about your specific return.
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