Payroll Tax Deposit Schedule: Monthly vs. Semi-Weekly

The semiweekly rule, as a lookup

If a business is on the semiweekly schedule, the due date depends entirely on which day of the week the payday falls on, not the date of the payday itself.

Add an extra day to either window for each legal holiday that falls within the period. A deposit due date that lands on a non-business day is still timely if it is made the next business day instead.

How the schedule actually gets assigned

The schedule is not a choice, it is calculated from a lookback period set once a year. For Form 941 filers, the lookback is the four quarters from July 1 of the second preceding year through June 30 of the prior year. $50,000 or less of tax reported in that window makes the employer a monthly depositor, due the 15th of the following month; more than $50,000 makes it semiweekly, on the calendar above. Form 944 filers use a different lookback entirely, the calendar year two years back, rather than the four-quarter window.

A brand-new employer starts on the monthly schedule in its first year by default, since there is no lookback history yet, unless it trips the next-day rule below before the year ends.

The $100,000 rule changes more than one deposit

Accumulating $100,000 or more of liability on a single day forces a deposit by the next business day, and it does something more lasting than just that one deposit: it locks the employer into semiweekly status for the rest of that year and for all of the following year, regardless of what the lookback calculation would have otherwise set. A single large payroll run can override a year of otherwise-monthly history.

The under-$2,500 exception, and the electronic-only rule

A quarterly liability under $2,500 can be paid with a timely Form 941 instead of deposited separately. Above that line, deposits are mandatory, and every deposit has to be made electronically, through EFTPS, a business tax account, or Direct Pay for businesses. There is no paper-check option once the threshold is crossed.

FUTA runs on its own clock

FUTA deposits do not follow the monthly or semiweekly 941 schedule at all. FUTA is deposited by the last day of the month after any quarter in which cumulative FUTA liability passes $500, a separate quarterly rhythm layered on top of whatever schedule governs federal income tax and FICA.

What BEG runs on your schedule

BEG determines the client's schedule from the lookback period at the start of each year, calculates the liability for every pay date, and makes the federal deposits along with the state withholding and SUI deposits on that schedule from cleared client funds. The client's job is to fund by the deadline; BEG will not advance tax money on the client's behalf. State deposit schedules are set by each state's revenue and unemployment agencies and are applied by BEG inside the client's payroll system.

Full BEG managed payroll tracks this schedule automatically every pay period.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources: IRS Tax Topic 757, Deposit Requirements; IRS Tax Topic 759, Form 940. This is general tax information, not tax or legal advice.