Payroll year end is more than one deadline. Your final submission has to close the old tax year with the right indicators set, every employee needs a P60 by 31 May, any benefits in kind have to be reported by 6 July, and the new tax year brings fresh codes and thresholds that must be applied from the first run. Miss a piece and it surfaces later as a query or a penalty. We handle the whole year-end for you: closing the old year, issuing the documents, and starting the new one without a break. This page walks through each part and the dates that matter.
What payroll year end involves
The payroll year runs to a fixed calendar. The tax year ends on 5 April and the new one begins on 6 April, and around that turn a set of jobs all fall due together. Year end is not a single form, it is a short sequence: you close off the year that has ended, give your staff their year-end documents, report anything that sits outside the normal pay run, and then get the new year set up correctly so your first run of it is right.
Because Real Time Information means you have been reporting pay to HMRC every run all year, year end is far less of an upheaval than it once was. The heavy lifting has already happened in each pay period. But the closing steps still have to be done, and done on time, or the year is left open and starts generating queries, and your employees are left without the P60s they rely on. Getting year end right is really about tidiness and timing: making sure the year that ended is properly shut, and the year ahead is properly opened.
The final FPS or EPS of the tax year
The first job of year end is telling HMRC that the year is over. Your last submission of the tax year, which is usually your final Full Payment Submission (FPS), or an Employer Payment Summary (EPS) where that is the last thing you send, has to carry the year-end indicators that mark it as the final submission for the year. Any final adjustments for the year are reported at the same time.
This matters because a submission without the year-end markers leaves HMRC's records showing an open, unfinished year, which is a common source of avoidable correspondence. We make sure your final FPS or EPS is filed with the indicators set correctly and the figures reconciled, so the year closes cleanly the first time. Because we have filed your RTI accurately in every run through the year, there is no last-minute reconciliation of figures that should have been reported months ago. Our RTI submissions service explains how that year-round filing works.
P60s to employees by 31 May
Once the year is closed, every employee who was working for you on the last day of the tax year,5 April, is entitled to a P60. The P60 is the summary of their total pay, income tax and National Insurance for the whole year, and it has to reach each of them by31 May.
P60s matter more to your staff than they might look. People rely on them for mortgage and loan applications, for completing self-assessment tax returns, for claiming tax refunds, and for simply checking that the tax deducted from them over the year was right. A missing or late P60 causes real problems for the person waiting on it. We produce the P60s from the figures we have filed all year and get them ready so each of your people has theirs well inside the 31 May deadline.
P11D and P11D(b) by 6 July
If you provide taxable benefits in kind, such as company cars, private medical cover or beneficial loans, and you have not payrolled them, year end also brings the P11D deadlines. AP11D for each affected employee and a P11D(b) for the business are due to HMRC by 6 July, and the employer's Class 1A National Insuranceon those benefits follows shortly after in July.
These returns are a distinct piece of year end with their own deadline, and they catch employers out because they fall after the P60s are done and it feels as though year end is finished. We prepare and file any P11Ds and your P11D(b) as part of the whole year-end job, and calculate the Class 1A due, so nothing is forgotten in the gap. Our P11D and benefits in kind page covers this in full, and if you would rather tax benefits in real time, our payrolling benefits in kind page explains the alternative.
Updating tax codes and starting the new year
Closing the old year is only half the job. The new tax year, from 6 April, brings changes that have to be in place before your first run of the year: updated tax codes, revised thresholds and rates for tax, National Insurance and other deductions, and any specific code changes HMRC has issued for individual employees.
Tax codes are the part people most often get wrong. HMRC issues code notices to be applied from the start of the new year, and some codes carry forward while others change, so simply reusing last year's codes can leave staff taxed on the wrong basis, which surfaces later as an unwelcome bill. We apply the correct codes and the new year's thresholds, carry your employees' records forward, and roll your payroll into the new tax year without a break, so your first run of the year is right and nothing has to be unpicked afterwards.
The year-end timeline at a glance
Year end is easier to manage when the dates are laid out in order. Here is how the key deadlines fall after the tax year ends on 5 April. We work to each of them on your behalf.
| What is due | Deadline | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tax year ends | 5 April | The last day of the payroll year |
| New tax year begins | 6 April | New codes and thresholds apply from here |
| Final FPS or EPS | Around the year end | Filed with the year-end indicators set |
| P60s to employees | 31 May | For anyone employed on 5 April |
| P11D and P11D(b) to HMRC | 6 July | Where benefits in kind are not payrolled |
| Class 1A NIC paid | 22 July | 19 July if paying by post |
Year end is a sequence, not a single date. The old year has to be closed, staff need their P60s, benefits have to be reported, and the new year has to be set up, each on its own deadline. We track all of it so nothing slips through the gap between one job finishing and the next falling due.
How we handle year end for you
For our clients, year end is simply part of the service, not a separate project you have to brace for. We file your final submission with the year-end indicators set so the old year closes cleanly, produce your P60s and get them to your staff by 31 May, and prepare and file any P11D and P11D(b) by 6 July with the Class 1A National Insurance worked out. We then apply the new year's tax codes and thresholds and roll your payroll into the new tax year, so there is no gap and no scramble.
Because we run your payroll and your RTI together all year, year end with us is a tidy formality rather than a reconstruction. The figures are already right, the year is already reported, and the closing steps happen on schedule. You get a clean year-end position and staff who have their documents on time.
We are a South Wales payroll bureau with more than 60 years of combined experience, and many of our clients have been with us since 2006. We are CIPP members and Chartered Accountants (ICAEW), and we are ICO registered and Cyber Essentials certified, so your year end and your employees' data are in careful, accredited hands. If you want your payroll year end handled from the final submission to the first run of the new year, talk to us about your payroll or see how our pricing works.