Filing and paying: Redditi SC deadlines, the IRES balance and payments on account

Elena runs an IT consultancy SRL in Bari. The company's IRES for 2025 comes to €18,400, and it already paid €15,000 of that during 2025 as payments on account. Elena plans to settle everything in November, once the return has gone in. In fact the company owes €10,760 at the end of June, because the balance and the first instalment for 2026 fall due on the same day.

Two calendars that do not line up

Many directors mentally tie paying tax to filing the return. For an SRL the two events are months apart. The balance is normally paid before the return is submitted: the company pays on figures it has already worked out, and the return follows later to document them for the Agenzia.

The filing calendar comes from the Agenzia's page on the 2026 Redditi SC return. Where the financial year matches the calendar year, filing opens on 15 April. The final deadline is the last day of the tenth month after the month in which the tax period closed.

For a year ending on 31 December 2025, the tenth month is October 2026. This year, however, 31 October is a Saturday, so the Agenzia gives 2 November 2026 as the deadline. A date worked out from the general rule should always be checked against that year's official page, which accounts for weekends and holidays.

The payment calendar has a different anchor. According to the Agenzia's page on income tax payments, the IRES balance and any first payment on account are due by the last day of the sixth month after the close of the tax period. For a calendar year, that is 30 June.

Paying thirty days later, with a surcharge

The sixth-month deadline has some give. The same page allows the balance and first instalment to be paid within the following thirty days, with the amounts increased by 0.40 per cent as interest. It is not a penalty. It is a price, known in advance, for an extra month of cash.

Whether it is worth it is a treasury question. The 0.40% applies to the whole amount paid late, balance and first instalment together. If the alternative is going overdrawn at the bank to pay in June, compare the cost of the overdraft with the surcharge, using the real figures.

After the thirtieth day the surcharge no longer covers anything. A later payment becomes a late payment, with the penalties and interest that follow, which can be regularised through the ravvedimento operoso procedure. The thirty-day option has to be chosen in time, not discovered in July once the window has closed.

When the accounts are approved after four months

Some SRLs approve their accounts more than four months after year end, where the law allows it. For them the Agenzia's page moves the deadline: the balance and first instalment are due by the last day of the month following the month of approval. The calendar then hangs on the members' meeting rather than on the year end.

There is a backstop against endless postponement. If the accounts are not approved within the set period, payment is still due by the last day of the month after that period expires. The option to pay within the next thirty days with the 0.40% surcharge remains available here too.

In practice, a director who postpones the meeting is also moving the tax deadline. Put the expected approval date in the company's diary and work out the new payment date straight away. Minutes dated precisely also prove which deadline applied.

The balance for the year just closed

The balance is the difference between the tax shown in the return and what the company already paid during the year on account, together with the other amounts the return lets it deduct. If payments on account exceeded the tax, the balance is negative and the company is in credit.

You only know the balance once the figures are final. That is why the work on sections RF and RN, covered in the first module, must be ready before the June deadline even though the return itself goes in months later. An SRL that leaves its numbers until September pays an estimate in June and risks getting it wrong.

For Elena the sum is short. IRES due for 2025 is €18,400 and payments on account during 2025 came to €15,000, so the balance is €3,400. On its own that does not explain the €10,760 due on 30 June: most of that figure is the payment on account for the current year.

Payments on account for the current year

The Agenzia's page sets IRES payments on account at 100 per cent. During the year, in other words, the company pays in advance the full tax it will only declare the following year. Our examples measure the advance against the IRES of the year just declared; that is the usual assumption, to confirm with your accountant against the return's instructions.

The advance is split into two instalments. Forty per cent of the amount due is paid at the first deadline, together with the balance. The rest is paid at the second deadline, the last day of the eleventh month after the tax period closed, which is 30 November for a calendar year.

Companies subject to the synthetic tax reliability indices, known as ISA, split it differently. Each of the two instalments is 50 per cent of the advance due. For the same advance, an ISA company therefore pays more in June and less in November than a company outside the ISA system.

The same page adds an exception for very small sums: the advance is paid in two instalments unless the amount due at the first deadline does not exceed 103 euros. The page's wording on what then happens is far from clear, and the course does not interpret it. With amounts that small, check the rule in the return's instructions.

The 2026 extension for ISA taxpayers

For 2026 the Agenzia's page reports an extension introduced by article 6 of Decree-Law 89/2026. It covers taxpayers in business activities for which ISA indices have been approved, whether they apply them or fall under an exclusion, and whose declared revenue stays within the limit set by the decree approving each index.

These taxpayers, due to pay by 30 June 2026, may pay by 20 July 2026 with no surcharge. Alternatively they may pay by the thirtieth day after that, adding 0.80 per cent to the amounts due. The extension applies to payments arising from income tax, IRAP and VAT returns.

Do not assume the extension will return in later years. It is a one-year measure tied to a specific decree, and the page reporting it was last updated on 29 May 2026. Each spring, reopen the page and check whether a similar measure has been adopted before you plan summer payments.

Cash planning built around the deadlines

An SRL's taxes arrive in two predictable waves: June, with the balance and first instalment, and November, with the second instalment. A company that knows this can set money aside each month in a separate account, rather than finding in late spring that its cash is already committed to suppliers and payroll.

One simple method is to prepare in January an estimate of the tax for the year just closed, based on the provisional books. From that estimate come the balance and the advances. In March, as the accounts take shape, the estimate is refreshed; in May, with the tax adjustments settled, it becomes the payment plan.

Watch what payments on account do in a growth year. When profit rises, the year's tax rises and so does the following year's advance: June brings a larger balance on top of a larger first instalment. Those are the years that test a small SRL's cash.

Filing the return and keeping proof

The return can only be filed electronically. The Agenzia offers the RedditiOnLine SC software and access to its services through SPID, CIE, CNS or Fisconline and Entratel credentials. Many SRLs have an authorised intermediary file on their behalf and keep the evidence of submission.

Filing generates two separate messages. The first confirms the file was received. The second follows processing and, if no errors were found, confirms that the return has been filed. Ask your intermediary for both and keep them with the accounts, because the second one is what closes the matter.

Every amount arising from the return is paid through the F24 form. Each line carries a tax code and a reference year, telling the Treasury whether a balance or an advance is being paid and for which period. A wrong code does not cancel the payment, but it opens a correction that has to be followed up.