How do I align my pay periods to a four weekly tax period?

In task five of the set up process, you can either continue with the recommended settings provided by us or you can customise the set up.

If you use the recommended settings we’ll automatically align your pay period to the four weekly period. You’ll just need to select ‘Four Weekly’ from the list of payment frequencies.

You can edit these settings by clicking ‘Edit group’.

You can also customise your set-up by clicking ‘Customise set-up’ and then click ‘Add a pay period’.

Select ‘Four weekly’ from the drop down list next to How often do you pay your workers?

As the 2024/25 tax year began on a Saturday, select ‘Saturday – Friday’.

You’ll also need to confirm when the current pay period starts by selecting one of the options from the drop-down menu.

Four options will be displayed based on the current date. The dates are formatted in the drop-down menu as ‘Saturday [06] [04]’. This means Saturday 6 April.

The table below shows you the start dates of all four weekly tax periods throughout the year starting from 6 April. Select the date that matches a date in this list.

We’ll then ask you to choose a deadline for contributions. This is also known as your payment due date and is the date we’ll expect the contributions to have cleared in our bank account.

Your contributions need to have cleared in our account by the 22nd day of the month following the month you deducted contributions from your worker’s wages. That is unless you’re holding on to contributions for them during their opt-out period. For more information on holding on to workers’ contributions please see How can I hold on to contributions during a worker’s opt-out period?

At the end of the tax year you’ll have to create a new group for four weekly pay periods based on the day that 6 April falls on. You’ll then need to transfer your workers to the new group.

In the year 2024 this starts on 6 April and ends on 3 May. The last contribution schedule won’t cover 5 April 2025.