The FPS: every payday
“Send the FPS on or before your employees’ payday”1. It reports what you paid and what you deducted: employer details, the employee’s details, pay and deductions, and National Insurance1. Include everyone you pay, even if they get less than £96 a week1. Enter the usual payday even if you pay early or late1.
Sending an FPS after payday without a valid reason can lead to a warning for the first late FPS each month and then penalties2.
The EPS: when you claim or adjust
The EPS tells HMRC about reductions in what you owe, such as statutory pay you can reclaim, and is sent by the 19th of the next tax month1. Employment Allowance can cut the employer’s National Insurance by up to £10,500 a year4, but if a company has only one director, that director must not be the only employee liable for employer’s National Insurance5.
Year end: the P60
The final FPS of the tax year is sent on or before its payday, and employees get their P60 by 31 May3. The director needs their P60 to check the salary figures on their own Self Assessment return.
Check your company’s dates and set a reminder
Search the Companies House register. Your company page shows its filing dates, what to file next and a reminder you can set.
Directors’ National Insurance
For a director, the earnings period for Class 1 National Insurance “is normally the year in which the earnings are paid”6: an annual earnings period. A director paid a large sum in one month isn’t charged as if that month repeated all year.
| 2026 to 2027 | Annual figure |
|---|---|
| Lower earnings limit | £6,7084 |
| Secondary threshold (employer starts paying) | £5,0004 |
| Primary threshold (employee starts paying) | £12,5704 |
| Employee rate, main | 8%4 |
| Employer rate | 15%4 |
Benefits and CIS
Benefits such as a company car, if they aren’t taxed through payroll, are reported after the tax year on a P11D: read P11D benefits for directors. A company that is itself paid as a construction subcontractor uses the same EPS to claim back the CIS taken from its income: read reclaiming CIS deductions.
Filing payroll
Fileyear’s payroll works out the tax, National Insurance, student loans, pension and statutory pay for everyone paid, weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly or monthly, including a director’s National Insurance on the annual or the alternative method. It files the FPS for each payday and an EPS for a month with no pay, to claim Employment Allowance or to recover statutory pay, and gives you payslips, P45s for leavers and P60s after the last payday of the year. A director paid once a year can use HMRC’s annual scheme: one FPS in the month of payment, marked as the year’s final submission.