The Texas Small Business Tax Calendar: Every Deadline in One Place

The Texas Small Business Tax Calendar: Every Deadline in One Place

No single agency is in charge of your tax year. The IRS wants estimated payments four times a year, the Texas Comptroller wants sales tax on the 20th and a franchise tax report in May, the county appraisal district wants a rendition in April, and if you have employees, payroll filings land every quarter on top of all of it. Each deadline is reasonable on its own. Scattered across three or four agencies, they are easy for an Austin owner to lose track of. This page pulls the whole year into one view so you can put every date on your calendar at once. The schedule below is the standing pattern as of 2026, and individual dates shift by a day or two when they fall on a weekend or holiday, so confirm the current year’s exact dates in IRS Publication 509 and with the Comptroller before you file. This is general education, not tax advice, so confirm which deadlines apply to your business with a CPA or tax professional.

January: The Heaviest Month on the Calendar

January stacks more deadlines into 31 days than any other month. The final estimated tax payment for the prior year is generally due January 15. Sales tax follows on January 20, which is the due date for December for monthly filers, for the fourth quarter for quarterly filers, and for the entire prior year for annual filers. Then January 31 arrives with the heaviest load of all: 1099-NEC forms are due to both recipients and the IRS, W-2s are due to employees and the Social Security Administration, and employers owe the fourth quarter Form 941, the annual Form 940 for federal unemployment tax, and the fourth quarter wage report to the Texas Workforce Commission.

None of this is manageable if the prior year’s books are still open. Owners who work through a year-end bookkeeping checklist in December walk into January with contractor totals, payroll records, and sales figures already reconciled. Those who skip it spend the month reconstructing numbers under deadline pressure.

Spring: Returns, Renditions, and the Franchise Tax

For calendar-year businesses, federal income tax returns come due in March and April. Partnership and S corporation returns are generally due March 15. Sole proprietor returns, filed with your personal Form 1040, and C corporation returns generally follow on April 15, the same day the new quarterly estimated tax cycle starts with the first payment for the current year.

Texas adds two deadlines of its own. Businesses with taxable equipment, furniture, or inventory generally owe a business personal property rendition to their county appraisal district by April 15, with an extension to May 15 available on written request. In Travis County that filing goes to the Travis Central Appraisal District. Then May 15 brings the Texas franchise tax report, which every taxable entity must file even when revenue falls below the no-tax-due threshold and nothing is owed.

The Deadlines That Repeat All Year

Sales tax is the metronome of the Texas tax year. The Comptroller assigns each permit holder a filing frequency. Monthly filers owe a return by the 20th of the following month, quarterly filers by April 20, July 20, October 20, and January 20, and annual filers by January 20. What goes into those returns, and how to keep the books that support them, is covered in our Texas sales tax bookkeeping guide.

Employers carry a second repeating cycle. Form 941, the quarterly federal payroll return, is generally due the last day of the month after each quarter ends: April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31. Texas Workforce Commission unemployment tax reports follow the same quarterly rhythm. Keep in mind that the deposit schedule for the payroll taxes themselves is separate from the filing schedule and usually faster, so confirm your deposit frequency with the IRS or your payroll provider.

June, September, and the Quiet Stretch

The second estimated payment is generally due June 15, only two months after the first, a spacing quirk that surprises owners who assume the payments are evenly spread. The third follows on September 15, the same day extended partnership and S corporation returns come due. Extended personal returns generally land on October 15, and an extended franchise tax report runs to November 15.

After that the calendar goes quiet, which is exactly why fall is the time to start year-end work rather than a reason to coast. Reconciling accounts, collecting W-9s from contractors, and reviewing payroll records in October and November is what makes the January pile-up routine instead of frantic.

Put the Calendar in Your Books, Not Your Head

Every deadline above gets easier when the numbers behind it are already reconciled, because at that point a filing is just a report drawn from current books. That is the practical case for keeping the bookkeeping continuous instead of catching it up each time an agency comes calling. Our monthly bookkeeping service keeps records deadline-ready all year, and tax preparation support hands your CPA clean numbers when each filing comes due. Mark the dates, verify the current year’s versions of them, and let your tax professional confirm which ones apply to your situation. A tax year without surprises is mostly a calendar problem, and calendar problems are solvable.