Estimated tax payments: who pays, when, and how much

Who has to make estimated tax payments

Estimated tax payments are how you pay federal tax on income that has no withholding. Taxes must be paid as you earn or receive income during the year, either through withholding or estimated tax payments, and the IRS says that if you are in business for yourself, you generally need to make estimated tax payments.

The IRS rule: individuals, including sole proprietors, partners, and S corporation shareholders generally have to make estimated tax payments if they expect to owe $1,000 or more when their return is filed. Estimated tax is used to pay not only income tax, but other taxes such as self-employment tax and alternative minimum tax.

Self-employment tax is easy to leave out of the estimate. Its rate is 15.3%, made up of 12.4% for social security and 2.9% for Medicare, and you owe it when your net earnings from self-employment are $400 or more. It comes on top of income tax, so even a modest profit can bring the tax you owe to $1,000 or more.

Every rule, threshold and date on this page was checked against IRS pages on 3 Oct 2026.

• If you also have a job with wages, you can have more tax withheld from your pay instead of making estimated payments. To do that, file a new Form W-4 with your employer.
• If you had no tax liability last year, you may not need to pay estimated tax this year. The exception applies if you were a U.S. citizen or resident alien for all of 2025 and you had no tax liability for the full 12-month 2025 tax year. No tax liability means your total tax was zero or you didn’t have to file an income tax return.
• Corporations have a lower threshold, $500 or more. This page covers individuals, including sole proprietors.

Estimated tax due dates for 2026

The IRS divides the year into four payment periods, each with its own due date. The periods are not equal quarters, as the table shows. Each payment covers the income you earned in its period.

Weekends and holidays: if a due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday, the payment will be on time if you make it on the next day that isn’t a Saturday, Sunday or holiday.

Payments by mail: if you mail a check, the date of the U.S. postmark is the date of payment.

The January payment: you can skip it if you file your 2026 tax return by February 1, 2027, and pay the entire balance due with your return.

Paying more often: you can pay weekly or monthly, as long as you’ve paid enough in by the end of the quarter.

Starting partway through the year: if, after March 31, 2026, a large change in income means you must start making payments, you should figure the amount of your estimated tax payments by using the annualized income installment method.

How to pay quarterly taxes to the IRS

Paying from a bank account through Direct Pay or your IRS Online Account has no fees. Card payments carry a processor fee, listed in the last step.

1. Work out the amount

   Use the worksheet in Form 1040-ES to estimate the year's tax, or use the safe-harbor amounts in the next section. The IRS's general guidance is to pay in four equal amounts. If your sales run higher than you planned, complete another Form 1040-ES worksheet to recalculate your estimated tax for the next quarter.

2. Pay with IRS Direct Pay

   Direct Pay takes the money directly from your checking or savings account at no cost to you, with no sign-in required. The steps: Select the payment type and reason for payment. Then enter the tax year. Choose estimated tax as the reason and Form 1040-ES as the form. For a current-year estimated payment, you will need to select another year’s return to verify your information. You can schedule a payment up to 365 days in advance. Because it checks your identity against a past return, you can't use Direct Pay if you have never filed a federal tax return.

3. Or pay from your IRS Online Account

   Your IRS Online Account takes estimated tax payments from a bank account with no fees and lets you schedule future payments up to a year in advance.

4. Use EFTPS only if you already have it

   EFTPS is a free system offered by the U.S. Department of Treasury to pay your federal taxes. New sign-ups are closed: individual taxpayers can no longer create new EFTPS accounts. The IRS page says to pay most individual taxes through your Online Account instead. If you enrolled earlier, current EFTPS users can still use EFTPS for now.

5. Or pay by card or by check

   Card payments go through IRS-approved processors, and a fee is charged by these service providers. For a personal credit card the fee is 1.75% ($2.50 minimum) at Pay1040 and 1.85% ($2.50 minimum) at ACI Payments, and no part of the fee goes to the IRS. A check goes by mail with the Form 1040-ES payment voucher, made payable to United States Treasury.

The safe-harbor rule that avoids the penalty

The IRS can charge a penalty if you do not pay enough tax by each due date, even if you are due a refund when you file your tax return. The safe-harbor rules set the minimum to pay on time so that no penalty applies.

You generally do not owe the penalty if one of the rules in the table applies. Between the prior-year and current-year rules, the smaller amount is enough.

The penalty is figured on three things: the amount of the underpayment, the period when the underpayment was due and underpaid and the published quarterly interest rates for underpayments. Because time unpaid counts, a late payment still costs less than no payment.

If your sales come in unevenly, for example in a holiday season, you may be able to avoid or lower the penalty by annualizing your income and making unequal payments, using Form 2210, Schedule AI, Annualized Income Installment Method. If you use this method, file Form 2210, including Schedule AI, with your 2026 tax return even if no penalty is owed.

How much to set aside for taxes on 1099 income: a worked example

Example: a candle seller, filing single, with no other job and no withholding. Her 2025 return showed total tax of $3,400 and adjusted gross income of $18,600. In 2026 the shop is growing and she expects a net profit of $30,000. These are illustrations, not a tax calculation for your situation.

1. Find last year's total tax

   Example: her 2025 total tax was $3,400. Her adjusted gross income was well under the higher-income line, so the prior-year safe harbor is 100% of the tax shown on the return for the prior year, which is $3,400.

2. Estimate this year's tax

   Example: self-employment tax is 15.3% of 92.35% of net profit, which on $30,000 comes to about $4,239. Assume the Form 1040-ES worksheet puts her income tax at about $1,300 after deductions. Her 2026 total is about $5,540, and the current-year safe harbor, 90% of the tax for the current year, is about $4,990.

3. Pay the smaller safe-harbor amount

   Example: $3,400 is smaller than $4,990, so she pays $850 by each of the four due dates. That keeps her clear of the underpayment penalty even though her 2026 tax is higher than last year's.

4. Set aside the rest for the return

   Example: her 2026 tax is about $5,540 and she paid $3,400 during the year, so about $2,140 is due with her return. In total she needs about 18.5 cents of every dollar of profit, so she moves that share of each week's profit into a separate savings account.

5. Check again after each quarter

   Example: if sales run ahead of plan by summer, she reruns the worksheet. Her safe harbor stays at $3,400, but the balance due with her return grows.

Form 1099-K and estimated tax under the new threshold

The IRS explains that the One, Big, Beautiful Bill retroactively reinstated the reporting threshold in effect prior to the passage of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Payment apps and online marketplaces now have to send you a Form 1099-K only if the payments you received for goods or services total over $20,000 in more than 200 transactions. Card payments you take directly are different: if customers pay you by card, you'll get a Form 1099-K from your payment card processor no matter how many payments you got or how much they were for.

The form does not change what you owe: if you receive payments for selling goods or services, you must report all income on your tax return. The 1099-K threshold counts the gross amount of reportable payment transactions, while self-employment tax is figured on 92.35% of net profit, so keep your own sales and expense records.

State estimated taxes and the limits of this guide

This page covers federal estimated tax only. States that tax income set their own rules, forms and due dates for estimated payments, and these vary by state. Check your state revenue department's site for its rules.

This page is general information, not tax advice. Your other income, filing status, credits and deductions change the numbers, so a tax professional or the IRS can confirm what applies to you.

Where Nation fits

Questions about estimated tax payments