Income tax · 2025 return
There are two dates, and which one is yours depends on how you pay — not just on how you file.
31 October 2026
Paper return, or filed online but paid another way
This is the statutory Pay and File date. It applies to a paper Form 11, and it also applies if you file on ROS but pay by any means other than ROS.
18 November 2026
ROS only — and only if you both file and pay through ROS
Revenue extends the date only for people who file the 2025 Form 11 on ROS and make the payment through ROS for both the 2025 income tax balance and 2026 preliminary tax. File on ROS and pay by bank transfer and you lose the extension: your date is 31 October.
31 August 2026
File by this date and Revenue does the self-assessment for you
Submit the return on or before this date and Revenue calculates the self-assessment. File after it and you must make your own — working out your own income tax, PRSI and USC and completing the self-assessment panel yourself.
€250 penalty. Filing after the date without completing the self-assessment panel may attract a €250 penalty. It is separate from the late filing surcharge and can apply even to a return filed well before the October deadline.
Filing on ROS sidesteps it — ROS calculates the liability for you at any point up to the deadline, so the panel is completed either way.
Revenue gives two dates for this
31 August 2026 on the form and helpsheet, 30 September 2026 in the Guide.
Revenue's own documents disagree. The Form 11 and its helpsheet both print 31 August 2026. The Guide to Completing 2025 Tax Returns says twice that the date "has now been extended to 30 September 2026". Revenue's filing deadlines page and eBrief No. 034/26 give neither. Work to 31 August: it is the date on the form you sign and the one the €250 penalty attaches to, and it is the safer error if the Guide is right.
People think of it as the return deadline. It is the return and two payments, and the extension only holds if all of it goes through ROS.
Your income tax return for the year ended 31 December 2025, including the Extracts From Accounts panel.
What you owe for 2025 after the preliminary tax you already paid for that year is credited.
A payment on account for the year you are currently in. Miss it and interest runs on it, separately from anything owed for 2025.
Pay at least the lowest of these and no interest arises on preliminary tax:
Revenue calls you a chargeable person if any one of these applies. One is enough — they are not cumulative.
Any business, trade, profession or vocation — the ordinary sole trader case.
Measured after capital allowances, expenses and losses carried forward, from all sources.
Gross means before capital allowances and losses — so this catches people whose net figure is under €5,000.
A director who beneficially owns, or can control directly or indirectly, more than 15% of the ordinary share capital.
Where that is your sole source — no PAYE employment alongside it — you are a chargeable person whatever the amount. Rental, foreign pensions, dividends, deposit interest, covenants and estate income all count.
If you have PAYE employment and your net non-PAYE income is under €5,000 — after expenses, capital allowances and losses — and it is either coded against your tax credits or taxed at source, you are not a chargeable person. That income is declared on a Form 12 through myAccount instead. One small rental alongside a salary usually lands here.
One catch. The €30,000 gross test still catches you even when the net figure is under €5,000, so check both before deciding.
Two separate charges. A late return triggers the surcharge; a late payment accrues interest. Miss both and you pay both.
Section 1084 keys the surcharge to the specified return date for the period, and Revenue's own manual says that date "is extended to mid-November where the taxpayer files via ROS". So a qualifying ROS filer gets both a later deadline and a later two-month boundary.
Filed within two months of your filing date
5% of the tax due or €12,695, whichever is lower.
Filed more than two months after your filing date
10% of the tax due or €63,485, whichever is lower.
Interest on late payment of income tax runs at 0.0219% for each day, or part of a day, that the payment is late. It is charged separately from the surcharge, so a late return that is also paid late attracts both.
A separate 10% surcharge applies if you file on time but have not filed and paid your Local Property Tax, or agreed a payment arrangement. It is capped at the LPT involved once you bring that up to date.
Gathering is the part that takes the evenings. The return itself is typing, once the figures exist.
31 October 2026 for a paper return, and for anyone who files online but pays by another method. 18 November 2026 only where you both file the return on ROS and make the payment through ROS for the 2025 balance and 2026 preliminary tax.
No. The extension needs both halves. File on ROS and pay any other way and your deadline is 31 October 2026 — the earlier date applies to the whole return, not just to the payment.
Three things: the 2025 Form 11 return, the balance of income tax for 2025, and preliminary tax for 2026. Missing any one of them exposes you to interest or a surcharge.
Not necessarily. With PAYE employment and net non-PAYE income under €5,000 — after expenses, capital allowances and losses — that is either coded against your tax credits or taxed at source, you are not a chargeable person, and the rental income goes on a Form 12 through myAccount instead. Above €5,000 net, or above €30,000 gross, you must file a Form 11.
A surcharge of 5% of the tax due, capped at €12,695, where the return is filed within two months of your filing date, and 10% capped at €63,485 after that. The two months run from the date that applies to you: 31 October 2026 if you file on paper or pay by another method, or 18 November 2026 if you both file and pay on ROS. Interest on late payment runs separately at 0.0219% for each day.
You have to make your own self-assessment — calculating your own income tax, PRSI and USC and completing the self-assessment panel — rather than having Revenue calculate it for you. Filing after that date without completing the panel may attract a €250 penalty, separate from the late filing surcharge. Filing on ROS avoids the issue, because ROS calculates the liability for you.
The lowest of 90% of your final 2026 liability, 100% of your 2025 liability, or 105% of your 2024 liability where you pay by direct debit and the 2024 liability was not nil. Most people use 100% of the prior year because the figure is already known.
Related
General information about deadlines and record-keeping, not tax advice. Dates and thresholds change — confirm anything you rely on with Revenue before you file.