It is 10 March. Your W-2s went out five weeks ago, on 2 February, because 31 January fell on a Saturday. Your T4s and the German elektronische Lohnsteuerbescheinigung cleared eight days ago, on 2 March, for the same reason: the last day of February was also a Saturday. India’s financial year closes in three weeks. The UK’s closes in four. Australia’s does not close until 30 June, and nobody in Sydney thinks of March as year end.
So this week you are filing for one year end, closing another, and still cleaning up a third.
The cleanup is the part nobody schedules. A December bonus went out coded as regular wages for eleven people in the US, a rerun in December and a W-2c plus a 941-X now. Canada’s T4 went out with a car benefit the leasing provider revised on 4 March, two days after you filed. And your UK payroll manager is working out whether the 26 March payday carries the final Full Payment Submission of the 2025-26 tax year, because if the year-end indicator is wrong there the fix lives in April.
Then the CFO asks why the March accrual for India is 9 percent heavier than February. That is Section 192(3): the employer adjusts any excess or deficiency from earlier months, and the clearing lands in the last run of the year.
None of this is unusual. It is what mid-March looks like past a few countries.
Four year-end dates, and the calendar year is only one of them
The calendar year governs payroll year end in the United States, Canada, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Brazil, Mexico, Japan and most of continental Europe and Latin America. The United Kingdom runs 6 April to 5 April. India runs 1 April to 31 March, as does New Zealand. Australia runs 1 July to 30 June.
Japan is its own case. Personal income tax follows the calendar year, so the year-end adjustment happened inside the November or December 2025 payroll and the withholding statements went to the tax office by 31 January, while the corporate fiscal year usually runs April to March. Payroll year end and finance year end sit in different months inside one legal entity.
So a global payroll team files something annual in every quarter, and there is no month in which “before the year closes” means one thing. In mid-March it means three things, two of them inside a month.
What went out in the last five weeks, and what you are amending now
For the 2025 calendar year, this is the pile that landed in the last five weeks.
- United States. Form W-2 to employees and Copy A to the Social Security Administration by 31 January, a Saturday in 2026, so 2 February. Form 941 for Q4 and Form 940 for FUTA moved with it, Form 940 getting to 10 February if every deposit was on time. The e-filing threshold is aggregated: 10 information returns across W-2s, 1099s and the rest, and paper is out.
- Canada. T4 slips to employees and the T4 return to CRA by the last day of February, Saturday 28 February this year, so Monday 2 March. CRA treats a return received or postmarked the next business day as on time.
- Germany. The elektronische Lohnsteuerbescheinigung had to reach the tax administration by the last day of February following the year, so the same first business day of March.
- ACA reporting. Forms 1095-C furnished to employees by 2 March, or, under the Paperwork Burden Reduction Act of 2024, a clear notice posted by that date offering copies on request, held up through 15 October 2026 and fulfilled within 30 days. Filing Forms 1094-C and 1095-C with the IRS is still ahead, electronically, by 31 March.
- France. The DSN carrying December 2025 was due 5 January for employers of 50 or more who pay within the month, and 15 January for everyone else. There is no separate annual social return; the monthly DSN is the annual filing, twelve times.
- Brazil. DIRF is gone. Instrução Normativa RFB 2.181/2024 ended it for facts occurring from 1 January 2025, so the last one covered calendar 2024. That information now flows monthly through eSocial and EFD-Reinf, which makes Brazil harder to file late and easier to get quietly wrong.
Two more calendar-year items land on 31 March. The Dutch werkkostenregeling final levy on anything above the free space, 2 percent of fiscal wages up to 400,000 euros and 1.18 percent above, must be declared and paid no later than the second return period of 2026, so a monthly filer settles 2025 in the February return, due 31 March. Irish share scheme reporting for 2025 falls the same day.
Three weeks to India, four to the UK, sixteen to Australia
India closes on 31 March. The work deciding how clean that close is happened in January and February, when the investment proofs came in, and it lands in the March payroll as a shortfall recovery. Then the filing calendar takes over: the quarterly TDS statement for salary covering the fourth quarter, Form 24Q, by 31 May, and the annual salary certificate, Form 16, to employees by 15 June. One caution. The Income-tax Act 2025 comes into force on 1 April 2026 and applies from tax year 2026-27, so FY 2025-26 files under the current designations. Renumbered salary forms in vendor release notes belong to the year starting after this one closes. Do not accept a new form number without a notification behind it.
The UK is the one that trips new global teams. The tax year ends 5 April, and the final Full Payment Submission is due on or before the last payday of that year, not in April. For a monthly payroll that payday is in March, which is why the UK year end is really a March event. P60s to employees by 31 May. P11D and P11D(b) by 6 July. Class 1A National Insurance on those benefits by 22 July if you pay electronically; the postal deadline is 19 July, a Sunday in 2026, so cleared funds have to reach HMRC by the last working day before it. Mandatory payrolling of benefits in kind was deferred from April 2026 to April 2027, so the P11D cycle survives another round.
Australia closes 30 June, sixteen weeks out, with the Single Touch Payroll finalisation declaration due 14 July, or 30 September for closely held payees at employers of 20 or more. New Zealand closes 31 March too, but payday filing is continuous, so there is no annual return to miss, only twelve months of small errors.
Why the last payroll of the year is the one you are still paying for in March
The final run of any year has the least slack in the system. Fewest people at their desks, fewest usable working days, largest gross, most one-off payments. Deloitte’s 2025 Payroll Benchmarking Survey, whose participants ran payroll in a median of 57 countries, reported that US and Canadian off-cycle payments are driven by terminations (93 percent), special payments (50 percent) and incorrect or missed payments (21 percent). All three peak in the last run.
What changes is not the error rate. It is the price of the fix. Find a Germany error in June and you correct it in the July run. Find the same error now, after the statutory filings have gone, and you are producing a W-2c and a 941-X, an amended T4, a corrected FPS carrying revised year-to-date figures, an eSocial rectification event, or a DSN with an annul-and-replace. Each has its own window, penalty exposure and audit footprint. Several are visible to the employee, which reopens the payroll inbox in the same weeks India and the UK are closing.
That is the honest reason to think about December in March. December 2025 is the amendment workload on your desk this morning. December 2026 is the one you have ten months to design.
Ten months is enough time to build a December that holds
Start with the hard-dated obligations, because they do not move and they do not wait for clean data. Brazil pays the 13th salary in two instalments, the first by 30 November and the second by 20 December. Mexico’s aguinaldo is at least 15 days of pay, due before 20 December under Article 87 of the Ley Federal del Trabajo. The Philippines requires 13th month pay no later than 24 December. Argentina, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Indonesia have their own versions. Put them in the calendar now, each with the data input it needs.
Leave carryover is quieter and more expensive, and it has a deadline this month. Under German law, statutory leave expires at 31 December unless there are grounds to carry it, in which case it must be taken by 31 March. Since the Court of Justice of the European Union and Bundesarbeitsgericht rulings, that expiry is not automatic: the employer must have warned the employee in good time, in writing, and carries the burden of proof. Miss the notice and the balance keeps rolling, which turns a leave accrual into a provision your auditor will ask about.
Then there is the arithmetic nobody owns. Bonus and equity events land in the last run, so a December payroll can carry two or three times normal gross under supplemental withholding rules that differ by country. Benefit-in-kind true-ups arrive from third parties in the last week of December or, as Canada found out on 4 March, after you have filed. And finance’s close date is almost never payroll’s close date. Payroll needs inputs frozen days before pay date; finance needs the journal days after it. Agree those two calendars in a half-hour meeting in September, or negotiate them on 22 December with whoever answers email.
What to put in the calendar this week
Open your country list and write two dates next to every row: that country’s real year-end date, and the first statutory deadline after it. If the list runs past 20 countries you will find at least two rows where nobody owns the annual filing, because it falls in a month when nothing else happens there.
Then do the three things March allows. Reconcile the filings that just went out against what you now know to be true, so amendments become a decision rather than a June discovery. Get the German leave notices checked before 31 March. And book the December 2026 input dates today: leave balances, benefit-in-kind statements, equity vesting schedules and termination lists, requested in the first week of November against a named owner and a hard date, plus a dry calculation in late November while there is still time to argue.
This is where run controls earn their money. In HR Blizz the pre-calculation AI check reads each run against the last 12 periods and flags the anomalies, corrections run as their own controlled off-cycle rather than an edit to a filed period, and statutory filings are generated inside the run, per country. In an ordinary month that is convenience. In March, finding it before the filing is the difference.
If your year end depends on a spreadsheet of deadlines and one person’s memory, talk to us before India closes.
Deadlines here are general information rather than tax advice, and every one of them should be confirmed locally.
FAQ
Q: When were Form W-2 and the T4 due for the 2025 tax year?
Form W-2 had to reach employees and the Social Security Administration by 31 January, which fell on a Saturday in 2026 and so moved to Monday 2 February 2026. Canadian T4 slips and the T4 return were due the last day of February, also a Saturday in 2026, moving that deadline to Monday 2 March 2026. Germany’s elektronische Lohnsteuerbescheinigung shared the same 2 March date.
Q: Which salary tax forms does an Indian employer file for FY 2025-26, and when?
FY 2025-26 closes on 31 March 2026 and still files under the Income-tax Act 1961 designations, because the Income-tax Act 2025 comes into force on 1 April 2026 and applies from tax year 2026-27. The quarterly TDS statement for salary covering the fourth quarter, Form 24Q, is due 31 May 2026, and Form 16, the annual salary certificate, goes to employees by 15 June 2026.
Q: What are the UK payroll year-end deadlines for the 2025-26 tax year?
The UK tax year ends 5 April 2026. The final Full Payment Submission is due on or before the last payday of that tax year, which for a monthly payroll falls in March. P60s go to employees by 31 May 2026, P11D and P11D(b) are due by 6 July 2026, and Class 1A National Insurance on benefits is payable by 22 July 2026 electronically. Mandatory payrolling of benefits in kind has been deferred to April 2027.
Q: Which countries mandate a 13th month payment, and when is it due?
Brazil pays the 13th salary in two instalments, due 30 November and 20 December. Mexico’s aguinaldo, at least 15 days of pay, is due before 20 December under Article 87 of the Ley Federal del Trabajo, and the Philippines requires 13th month pay by 24 December. Several other countries including Argentina, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Indonesia and Peru have statutory equivalents with different timing and different calculation bases.