UK tax year calendar 2024/25: dates and deadlines

The UK tax year lasts for 12 months but doesn’t follow the calendar year. The tax year 2024/25 in the UK starts on 6 April 2024 and ends on 5 April 2025. The previous tax year 2023/24 ended on 5 April 2024. 

It’s important to stay up-to-date and to be aware of important tax return deadlines for the UK tax year. Missing these dates and deadlines can result in financial penalties or can even prevent your business from receiving money it may be entitled to. In order to stay aware of relevant tax return deadlines, be sure to set calendar reminders for important dates and always leave sufficient time to complete any paperwork and to account for any unforeseen circumstances. You can also bookmark this UK tax dates calendar article to help keep you on track for 2024 and 2025.

Whether you’re a sole trader, self-employed freelancer or contractor, member of an ordinary partnership, or managing director or sole director of a small limited company, there is a range of need-to-know tax dates and tax return filing deadlines throughout the year.

The new tax year begins on 6 April 2024 and it ends on 5 April 2025. Here is a summary of some of the main UK tax year dates and tax return deadlines for the 2024/25 tax year, so you can mark them in your diary and avoid paying a penalty for missing ones that are relevant to you. 

The Corporation Tax return-filing deadline is 12 months after the end of the accounting period to which it applies. This Corporation Tax return-filing deadline is different for different companies.

• Your accounting period is the 12-month period your Company Tax Return covers.
• It’s normally the same as the financial year your company annual accounts cover and it may have been different in the year in which you set up your company.
• You can change your company’s “year-end” (AKA its “accounting reference date”) to make the company’s financial year run for more or less than 12 months.

The deadline for paying your Corporation Tax bill is (normally) nine months and one day after the end of the accounting period (late-filing penalties can apply). 

• Use our interactive online calculator to work out how much Corporation Tax you’ll pay.

If you’re a sole trader (ie self-employed), a member of an ordinary partnership of otherwise need to report income to HMRC via Self Assessment, you can download the main tax return (SA100) and other supplementary pages (including the SA103S or SA103F for self-employment) from government website GOV.uk and send in your completed paper version by post.

• The deadline for a paper-version 2023/24 Self Assessment tax return is midnight on 31 October 2025.
• Most people fill out and file their Self Assessment tax return online and the online filing deadline for the 2023/24 Self Assessment tax returns is midnight on 31 January 2025 (although you can file it any time after 6 April if you want to get it done sooner).

The deadlines for paying your Self Assessment tax bill are usually:

• 31 January for any tax you owe for the previous tax year (called a “balancing payment”) and your first payment on account
• 31 July for your second payment on account.

Use our interactive online calculator to work out how much Income Tax and National Insurance you’ll pay if you’re self-employed.

All VAT-registered businesses – regardless of their VAT taxable turnover (including those that don’t go over the £90,000 registration threshold), must comply with Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT rules.

Basically, the government is digitising the UK tax system to better enable people and businesses to “get their tax right” and “stay on top of their tax affairs”, which will (according to HMRC) also reduce basic tax admin errors that cost the Exchequer billions of pounds a year in lost tax revenue.

The first phase of Making Tax Digital for VAT began on 1 April 2019, but it applied only to VAT-registered businesses with a taxable turnover above the VAT threshold. Now, all VAT-registered businesses must comply with MTD, which means they must keep digital VAT records using MTD-compliant third-party software that also submits their quarterly VAT returns to HMRC. Returns are generated and sent directly to HMRC from the software.

According to HMRC: “The deadlines for sending your VAT returns will not change after you sign up for Making Tax Digital for VAT. To see when your next return is due, sign in to your VAT online account.” GOV.uk also contains guidance on signing up for Making Tax Digital for VAT. VAT returns are normally due every three months (ie every quarter). 

• Use our interactive online calculator to work out how much VAT you’ll owe.

If you manage payroll yourself, you must report your employees’ payments and deductions to HMRC on or before each payday. Your payroll software will calculate how much tax and National Insurance is payable, including employer’s National Insurance contribution (NICs) on each employee’s earnings above £175 a week.

Based on the figures you report, you can find out how much you owe HMRC. Usually, you then must pay HMRC every month the amount you owe. Small employers that pay less than £1,500 a month can arrange to pay quarterly by contacting HMRC’s payment enquiry helpline.