What Happens If You Submit RTI Late to HMRC
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Why a Late FPS Is Rarely a Disaster
If you have just realised your Full Payment Submission did not go in on time, or you are not sure when it was due, you are in good company. Real Time Information catches out plenty of small employers, usually through a bank holiday, a system problem or a misunderstanding of the deadline rather than anything deliberate.
The position is rarely as bad as it feels. HMRC runs a penalty regime for late submissions, but it publishes specific situations in which it will not charge one, and a list of cases where reporting after payday is allowed in the first place. This guide covers both, what the penalties are when they do apply, and what to do today if you submit RTI late.
The Rule: On or Before Payday
Every time you pay an employee, your FPS must reach HMRC on or before the date they are paid. Not after payday while you tidy up, but before or on it. If you pay on the 25th, the FPS needs to be in by the end of the 25th.
This is the reverse of how payroll often feels in practice. The order needs to be: run payroll, submit the FPS, then make the payment.
The payment date on the FPS should be the date employees actually receive the money, not the period being paid for and not the date you processed the payroll. Getting that field wrong is one of the quieter ways to end up with late filing markers you did not expect.
When Reporting After Payday Is Allowed
HMRC publishes a specific list of situations where you can send the FPS after payday without it counting as a failure:
| Situation | When to report |
|---|---|
| Payday falls on a weekend or bank holiday | The next banking day, entering the regular payment date and selecting late reporting reason code G |
| You have not yet received your employer PAYE reference | As soon as possible after it arrives, with late reporting reason code G |
| An ad hoc payment outside your regular payroll, such as overtime you only heard about after sending the FPS | In your next regular FPS or an additional FPS |
| Pay depends on work done on the day and cannot be calculated in advance, such as harvest workers paid on what they pick | Within 7 days of paying |
| A new employee without a P45 who is either paid below HMRC’s weekly threshold or has worked for you less than a week | Within 7 days of paying |
| Certain non-cash payments | Within 14 days of the end of the tax month, or when you deduct tax and National Insurance if earlier |
| An expense or benefit subject to National Insurance but not Income Tax through payroll | Within 14 days of the end of the tax month |
The PAYE reference case is the one most first-time employers meet. You cannot register as an employer more than two months before you first pay someone, and the reference can take four to six weeks to arrive. If it has not arrived by payday, pay your employee on time anyway and submit the FPS late with the reason code once it does. Delaying wages to protect a filing date is the wrong trade.
For a standard monthly payroll with none of these features, none of the exceptions apply. The FPS is due on or before payday.
When HMRC Will Not Charge a Penalty
Separately from the permitted exceptions, HMRC publishes three situations in which it will not charge a late filing penalty:
It is your first failure in the tax year. One late report per tax year does not attract a penalty. You may get an online warning message instead. This does not apply to annual schemes, where employees are paid once a year.
All payments on the late FPS are within three days of payday. HMRC will not normally penalise this, but it says employers who regularly file after payday within that window may be contacted or considered for a penalty. It is a safety margin for occasional slips, not a second deadline.
You are a new employer and sent your first FPS within 30 days of paying an employee. This covers the early weeks while systems and references are still settling.
Also worth knowing for new employers: HMRC will close a new PAYE scheme if it receives no report and no payment within 120 days.
How Much the Penalties Are
Outside those situations, late filing penalties apply per month in which a report was late, banded by the number of employees in the PAYE scheme:
| Employees in the scheme | Penalty per month |
|---|---|
| 1 to 9 | £100 |
| 10 to 49 | £200 |
| 50 to 249 | £300 |
| 250 or more | £400 |
The charge is per month, not per employee. So an employer with five staff who files late three months running, with none of the exemptions applying beyond the first failure of the year, faces two £100 penalties rather than three. Penalties are worked out monthly but notices are issued quarterly, so a problem in April may not surface as a letter until the summer.
If a report is more than three months late, HMRC can add a further penalty of 5% of the tax and National Insurance that should have been reported.
Two other regimes sit alongside late filing and are easy to confuse with it. Inaccuracy penalties apply where an FPS understates tax or National Insurance, and are treated more seriously than lateness. Late payment penalties apply when the money itself arrives after the 22nd, or the 19th by post: the first late payment in a tax year is not counted, and later ones attract a percentage of the late amount that rises with the number of defaults, with further charges if a payment is six and then twelve months late. Filing on time does not protect you if the payment is late, and the reverse is also true.
Correcting an Error Versus Missing a Submission
These are treated differently.
You filed on time but got something wrong. Send a corrected FPS as soon as you find it. Correcting an on-time submission does not make the original late. For a tax year that has already closed, the correction goes through a further FPS for that year showing the corrected year-to-date figures. The Earlier Year Update has been withdrawn for this purpose, so guidance still telling you to send an EYU for a recent year is out of date.
You did not file at all. If HMRC expected an FPS and none arrived, a late filing marker is recorded, and penalties follow if it persists. Submit as soon as you can, with the actual payment date, because a late submission is always better than a missing one.
You paid nobody that month. Send an Employer Payment Summary by the 19th of the following tax month to tell HMRC there was no payroll. Failing to send it is itself one of the triggers for a penalty, because HMRC otherwise reads silence as a missed FPS.
Reasonable Excuse and Appeals
You can appeal a late filing penalty where you had a reasonable excuse, which broadly means something unforeseen and outside your control that genuinely prevented you filing on time.
HMRC typically accepts serious illness or bereavement affecting the person responsible for payroll, fire, flood or similar damage to premises or systems, HMRC’s own systems being unavailable, and a documented failure at your payroll software provider’s end. Keep screenshots and error messages at the time, because evidence assembled weeks later is weaker.
It typically does not accept not knowing about the deadline, being too busy, or a planned absence that could have been covered.
Appeal within 30 days of the date on the penalty notice, online through your HMRC business tax account or in writing, setting out the excuse and the evidence plainly.
What to Do If You Have Just Submitted Late
- Submit the FPS now. Late beats missing, every time.
- Enter the date employees were actually paid, not today’s date.
- If one of the permitted exceptions applies, select the late reporting reason in your software rather than leaving it blank.
- Check whether this is your first failure in the tax year, or whether the payments fall within three days of payday. If either applies, you may receive no penalty at all.
- Keep an eye on your HMRC online account for warnings and notices, remembering that notices arrive quarterly.
- Respond to any notice promptly, even if you intend to appeal.
- Talk to an accountant if the problem spans several months, involves incorrect figures, or you are unsure which rules apply.
How to Stop It Happening Again
Use payroll software that submits directly and reminds you. Sage Payroll, Xero Payroll, QuickBooks Payroll, BrightPay and FreeAgent all handle RTI submissions from inside the software, and most prompt you before the deadline. Many will also prompt for a late reporting reason if you try to submit after payday, which is worth paying attention to rather than clicking through.
Know the limits of Basic PAYE Tools. HMRC’s free software handles FPS submissions for employers with nine or fewer employees, but it does not produce payslips, and payslips are a legal requirement, issued on or before payday. If you use it, you need something else for payslips, which is usually the point at which paid software starts to look cheaper than it seemed.
Run payroll before payday. This is the most effective change you can make. Run on payday itself and any outage, forgotten password or broken update makes you late. Run two or three working days ahead and you have room to fix problems, and time to catch errors before the money goes out.
Set a recurring reminder three working days before each payday if your software does not do it for you.
FAQ
Will I definitely get a penalty for a late FPS?
No. There is no penalty for your first failure in a tax year, none where all payments on the late FPS fall within three days of payday, and none for a new employer’s first FPS sent within 30 days of paying someone. Outside those, penalties are banded by employer size and charged per month.
Can I submit an FPS after payday?
Yes, and you should do it as soon as possible, using the original payment date. Some situations permit reporting after payday outright, such as a payday falling on a bank holiday or not yet having your PAYE reference, and in those cases you select the relevant late reporting reason in your software.
I did not pay anyone this month. Do I need to do anything?
Yes. Send an Employer Payment Summary by the 19th of the following tax month. Without it, HMRC may treat the month as a missed FPS.
How do I correct a mistake from last tax year?
Send a further FPS for that tax year with the corrected year-to-date figures. The Earlier Year Update is no longer the route for this.
How do I appeal a penalty?
Within 30 days of the penalty notice, online through your business tax account or in writing. Set out the reasonable excuse clearly and attach whatever evidence you have from the time.
Submitting RTI Late: The Bottom Line
A late FPS usually feels worse than it turns out to be. The first failure in a tax year costs nothing, filings within three days of payday are normally let go, new employers get thirty days for their first report, and several situations allow reporting after payday in the first place.
Submit the late FPS now with the right payment date, watch your HMRC account for notices, and then fix the process so it does not happen again: payroll software that submits directly, and a payroll run that happens a few days before payday rather than on it.
This article is general information about UK payroll reporting rules, not advice, and it does not take account of your circumstances. Penalty rules, exceptions and deadlines change. Software plans and prices change too. Check the current position on GOV.UK and speak to a qualified accountant or payroll professional before relying on anything here.