Form 941

You file it from the first quarter in which you pay wages subject to income tax withholding or Social Security and Medicare tax. After that, you file every quarter, even with no wages, until you file a final return. A seasonal employer can skip the quarters when it pays no wages.

The IRS can tell an employer with $1,000 or less of yearly employment tax to file Form 944, once a year, instead. Household employers use Schedule H, and farm employers use Form 943.

The return reports both halves of Social Security and Medicare tax, the employee’s and the employer’s. For 2026, each half is 6.2% for Social Security, on wages up to $184,500, and 1.45% for Medicare. A qualified small business can elect to use its research credit against the employer’s half. It claims that credit on Form 941, with Form 8974 attached.

Filing the return is separate from paying the tax. Most employers deposit the tax during the quarter by electronic funds transfer, on a monthly or semiweekly schedule. Your schedule depends on the tax you reported in a 12-month lookback period. For 2026, that period runs from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025. More than $50,000 in it makes you a semiweekly depositor. How often you run payroll does not change your schedule.