Tax Filing Deadlines: What Individuals and Businesses Need to Know

General information — verify the exact date for the current tax year on IRS.gov, since deadlines shift when they fall on a weekend or federal holiday.

Standard filing deadlines

Partnerships and S-corporations file a month earlier than individuals and C-corps because their income "passes through" to the owners' personal returns — the business return needs to be done first so those numbers are ready in time.

Extensions: what they actually do

Individuals request an extension with Form 4868; businesses use Form 7004. Both typically grant an additional six months to file the actual return.

What happens if you miss a deadline

Two separate penalties can apply: one for filing late, one for paying late — and the failure-to-file penalty is generally the more expensive of the two. If you're going to miss a deadline, filing an extension (and paying what you can toward any balance due) is almost always better than doing nothing.

Prior-year returns

If you have a return from a previous year that was never filed, it's not too late to fix that. There's no penalty for filing an accurate return late if no tax is owed, and for returns where tax is owed, filing sooner limits how much penalty and interest accrues.