IFTA Quarterly Due Dates

The four quarters and the four due dates

The IFTA calendar is four quarters, each due on the last day of the following month. January, February, and March are due April 30. April, May, and June are due July 31. July, August, and September are due October 31. October, November, and December are due January 31 of the next year. Memorize the four dates. The quarter that feels "current" in October is the quarter that already ended on September 30. People file the wrong three months because they think the quarter they are standing in is the quarter that is due.

Write the dates on the same sheet as the fuel receipts. April 30, July 31, October 31, January 31. If you are a new carrier, the first return is the quarter in which you were credentialed, including a partial quarter. "We got decals in September" does not skip a third-quarter return. It makes the third-quarter return shorter. IFTA for new carriers is how the credential starts. The due date does not wait for you to feel ready.

Q3 2026 is due October 31, 2026

The third quarter of 2026 is July 1 through September 30, 2026. It is due October 31, 2026. That is the return in front of a carrier reading this in early October 2026. It includes the miles and gallons of those three months, in every jurisdiction, including a jurisdiction you only crossed. It does not include October's miles. October belongs to the fourth quarter, due January 31, 2027.

Pull the fuel tickets and the miles before the last week. A return assembled on the evening of the due date is how a jurisdiction gets left off. The how-to-file page is the form. This sentence is only which months are inside Q3 2026.

Weekends are the base jurisdiction's rule

October 31, 2026 is a Saturday. The IRS Form 2290 instructions, for a different tax, say that when a due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, you file by the next business day. That is why a September first-use Form 2290 is due November 2, 2026. IFTA is not Form 2290. Do not copy the IRS weekend rule onto the quarterly fuel tax and then file on Monday, November 2, as if the articles of IFTA had adopted the Internal Revenue Code.

The base jurisdiction is the state that issued your IFTA license. Its instructions, its portal, or its notice tell you whether a Saturday due date moves. Confirm that instruction before you rely on Monday. If the portal will not accept a return after Saturday, Monday is late regardless of what Form 2290 did. If the base jurisdiction publishes that the due date moves to the next business day, follow that publication and keep a copy. The safe file is the one that meets the earlier date when you are unsure. This page will not announce a universal Monday extension it cannot cite.

A zero-mile quarter is still a return

A quarter with no miles is still filed. "We did not run" is an explanation you can put in the file. It is not a skipped return. The base jurisdiction is looking for the return, not for a minimum of miles. A carrier that sat for maintenance, a carrier between contracts, and a carrier whose only unit was wrecked still have a quarter. File zeros if the miles are zero. Filing nothing reads as a missing quarter, which is the penalty conversation.

If you ran and you think the miles are someone else's, the lease page is who files. Do not file zeros for miles that were run on your decals. Zeros are for a true zero. They are not a way to push the miles onto a carrier who was not the registrant.

Decals are not the quarterly return

The IFTA license and the decals are annual credentials. They show that the truck is in the agreement. They do not report the miles. A truck with current decals and a missing quarter is not "filed." The new-carrier page is how you get the credential. How to file is how the miles go in. Renewing decals in December does not complete the third-quarter return that was due in October, and it does not complete the fourth-quarter return that will be due in January.

Keep the decal year and the quarter separate on the compliance sheet. Decal year 2026 or 2027 is one line. Q3 2026 filed or not is another. Shippers sometimes ask for a picture of the decal and think they have seen the tax. They have seen the sticker.

Penalties start after the due date

After the due date, interest and penalty are the base jurisdiction's IFTA rules, not a percent this page is willing to invent. The penalties guide is the framework: what a late return can trigger, and why the assessment you receive is the number that matters. If your state publishes a rate, use that publication. If this article printed a percent from memory, it would be the wrong kind of help. File before you need the percent.

A return that is on time and wrong is a different problem from a return that is late. Amendments exist. They are not a reason to skip the due date. Get the quarter in, then correct a jurisdiction you mis-keyed. The audit page, if you need the record habit, is about the paperwork that supports the numbers. The calendar is whether the return existed on the due date.

The form is the other guide. The sticker is not the form.

The quarter and the fuel receipt do not have to be purchased in the same mental bucket. A gallon bought on September 30 belongs to the third quarter even if you do not turn the receipt in until October. A gallon bought on October 1 belongs to the fourth quarter even if the trip started in September. Sort the receipts by purchase date before you total jurisdictions. A stack sorted by the week you cleaned the truck will put October fuel into the return that is due October 31, which is the wrong quarter, and it will make the third quarter look short.

Distance works the same way. Miles driven on September 30 are third-quarter miles. Miles driven after midnight into October are not, even if the bill of lading is the same load. If a trip straddles the quarter, split it. The return that is due October 31, 2026 is not a report on "loads we finished in October." It is a report on activity from July 1 through September 30. Carriers who file by load number instead of by date are the ones who cannot explain a jurisdiction total when the base state asks.

Keep one folder per quarter, named by the due date, and drop receipts into it during the quarter rather than in the last week. The Saturday problem is smaller when the return is ready on October 15. It is a crisis when the only plan was to use a weekend that the base jurisdiction may not give you.

If the portal shows a different due date than this calendar, the portal is the base jurisdiction speaking. Follow it, and keep the screenshot with the return.

Frequently Asked Questions