Quarterly estimated taxes for 1099 drivers: the January 15 payment

If you drive for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart or Amazon Flex, nobody takes tax out of what the apps pay you, so the IRS expects it in four payments during the year. The last one for 2026 is due Friday, January 15, 2027. You generally have to pay it if you expect to owe $1,000 or more for 2026 after withholding and refundable credits. For most drivers the simplest safe amount is a quarter of the 2025 total tax by each due date. If you skipped the first three, paying the missed quarters along with the fourth by January 15 still makes the penalty smaller.

Who has to pay

Form 1040-ES for 2026 gives the rule in two parts. You must pay estimated tax if both apply:

1. “You expect to owe at least $1,000 in tax for 2026, after subtracting your withholding and refundable credits.”
2. “You expect your withholding and refundable credits to be less than the smaller of: a. 90% of the tax to be shown on your 2026 tax return, or b. 100% of the tax shown on your 2025 tax return.”

It is not only income tax. Publication 505: “Estimated tax is used to pay both income tax and self-employment tax, as well as other taxes and amounts reported on your tax return.” Self-employment tax alone reaches $1,000 on a little over $7,000 of profit.

You don’t have to pay estimated tax for 2026 if you were a U.S. citizen or resident alien for all of 2025 and “had no tax liability for the full 12-month 2025 tax year”: your total tax was zero, or you didn’t have to file. Zero here means your 2025 total tax (line 24, less refundable credits, as explained under Last year’s figure below) was zero. Withholding doesn’t count: if a W-2 job’s withholding covered your 2025 tax or you got a refund, you still had a tax liability and this exception doesn’t apply.

The four dates for 2026

Payment	For income earned	Due
1st	January 1 – March 31	April 15, 2026
2nd	April 1 – May 31	June 15, 2026
3rd	June 1 – August 31	September 15, 2026
4th	September 1 – December 31	January 15, 2027

A due date on a weekend or a legal holiday moves to the next business day, but none of these do.

You can skip the January payment by filing early. Form 1040-ES: “You don’t have to make the payment due January 15, 2027, if you file your 2026 tax return by February 1, 2027, and pay the entire balance due with your return.” The tax code says January 31. In 2027 that is a Sunday, so the date moves to Monday, February 1. That is also the deadline for a payer to send you a 1099-NEC, so this works only if your own records of your pay and your miles are complete without the forms. This covers only the January installment: Publication 505 says any penalty for skipping the first three is still “figured up to” the day you file and pay (see If you have paid nothing so far).

How much avoids the penalty

You avoid the penalty if your withholding and on-time estimated payments reach the smaller of two amounts, the safe harbors, in four equal installments:

Safe harbor	Required for 2026	Where the number comes from
Last year’s tax	100% of your 2025 tax, or 110% if your 2025 AGI was over $150,000 ($75,000 if married filing separately in 2026)	Your 2025 Form 1040: line 24, less refundable credits
This year’s tax	90% of your 2026 tax	An estimate of the year, starting from your profit after the car

Each installment is “25 percent of the required annual payment” (26 U.S.C. § 6654(d)).

A safe harbor only keeps the penalty away; it does not settle the year. Form 1040-ES: “Even if you pay the required annual payment, you may still owe tax when you file your return.” Whatever your 2026 return shows beyond what you have paid is due when you file it, by April 15, 2027.

Last year’s figure. Publication 505: “Your 2025 total tax is the amount on Form 1040 or 1040–SR, line 24 reduced by” a list of items. For most drivers the ones that matter are refundable credits, such as the earned income credit: lines 27a, 28, 29 and 30, and Schedule 3, lines 9 and 12. Line 24, “This is your total tax”, already includes your 2025 self-employment tax. If you didn’t file a 2025 return, this route is closed.

This year’s figure has to be 90% of the tax your 2026 return actually shows, so an estimate that turns out low leaves you short.

Started late, or earned unevenly? If you first had income after August 31, Publication 505 makes January 15 your first payment. The penalty, though, is still figured on four equal installments, so the earlier ones count as due, unless you use the annualized income installment method. It figures each installment from what you had earned by its date, and Form 1040-ES says it may “lower or eliminate the amount of your required estimated tax payment for one or more periods”. To use it, “file Form 2210, including Schedule AI, with your 2026 tax return even if no penalty is owed.”

If you have paid nothing so far

The penalty works like interest on each installment, from its due date until it is paid. The instructions for Form 2210: “The penalty is figured separately for each installment due date. Therefore, you may owe the penalty for an earlier due date even if you paid enough tax later to make up the underpayment.” And: “The penalty is figured for the number of days that each underpayment remains unpaid.”

So a January payment still counts. It goes to the oldest unpaid installment first, “even if you designate a payment for a later period”. To stop the clock on April, June and September and cover January on time, the January 15 payment has to cover all four installments: on the simple route, the whole of last year’s tax. One quarter’s worth pays off only April; the others keep running until they are paid. Without it, the clock runs until you do pay, up to April 15, 2027: 90 days more than a January 15 payment.

The rate is the IRS underpayment rate, set each quarter: 6% a year from April through June 2026, and 7% from July through December 2026. The IRS posts each new quarter’s rate on its Quarterly interest rates page, and the days from January 1, 2027 fall under the rate for the first quarter of 2027. Unless you file Form 2210 yourself (for example with Schedule AI), the IRS figures the penalty and sends a bill.

A W-2 job: withholding counts as paid evenly

Income tax withheld from a paycheck counts toward the installments as if paid evenly through the year, whenever it was taken out. The tax code deems “an equal part of such amount” paid on each due date (§ 6654(g)), and the Form 2210 instructions say “you are considered to have paid one-fourth of these amounts on each payment due date unless you can show otherwise.”

So extra withholding from your last paychecks of the year also covers April, June and September. Form 1040-ES suggests it: “file a new Form W-4, Employee’s Withholding Certificate, with your employer”, with the extra amount per paycheck in Step 4(c). Do it soon. Publication 505: “your employer must put your new Form W-4 into effect no later than the start of the first payroll period ending on or after the 30th day after the day on which you give your employer your revised Form W-4.”

Self-employment tax

The IRS calls it “similar to the Social Security and Medicare taxes withheld from the pay of most wage earners”, but on 1099 income it is all yours: 15.3%, which is 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare. Topic 554: “Generally, the amount subject to self-employment tax is 92.35% of your net earnings from self-employment.” You usually owe it once those earnings reach $400 for the year. Half of it is deducted from your income, which lowers income tax but not the self-employment tax. The Social Security part stops once wages and self-employment earnings together pass $184,500 in 2026.

How business miles change the number

Both taxes are figured on profit, after what the work cost. At the standard mileage rate, the car’s cost is your business miles times 72.5¢ for drives through June 30, 2026, and 76¢ from July 1 (the 2026 rates). Each dollar of it takes 92.35% × 15.3%, about 14.1¢, off self-employment tax: about 10.2¢ a mile before July 1 and 10.7¢ after, with income tax down too, at your own rate (what a deduction is worth).

A driver’s year, worked through

Jordan drives for Uber and DoorDash, files single, has no other job and has paid no estimated tax for 2026. The 2025 Form 1040 shows $4,200 on line 24, no refundable credits, and AGI well under $150,000. Before the car, the 2026 profit is $40,000. The log shows 8,000 business miles from January through June and 10,000 from July through December.

Step	Working	Amount
Profit before the car	App pay less phone, bags and other costs	$40,000.00
Business miles, January–June	8,000 × 72.5¢	$5,800.00
Business miles, July–December	10,000 × 76¢	$7,600.00
Profit after the car	$40,000 − $13,400	$26,600.00
Self-employment tax without the miles	$40,000 × 92.35% = $36,940, × 15.3%	$5,651.82
Self-employment tax with the miles	$26,600 × 92.35% = $24,565.10, × 15.3%	$3,758.46
Difference	$13,400 × 92.35% × 15.3%	$1,893.36

Income tax falls too. The mileage calculator splits a year at July 1 for you.

The simplest safe route is 100% of 2025’s tax: $4,200, or $1,050 an installment. Jordan pays $4,200 on January 15, 2027, which covers January on time and stops the penalty on the three missed installments. The penalty itself is figured on the smaller safe harbor, and for Jordan that is 90% of 2026’s tax (below), so each required installment is $1,000.83. Figured as the Form 2210 worksheet does it (the installment × days late ÷ 365 × the rate), by December 31, 2026 it stands at:

Missed installment	Due	Days late by December 31	Penalty
1st, $1,000.83	April 15, 2026	260: 76 at 6%, 184 at 7%	$47.82
2nd, $1,000.83	June 15, 2026	199: 15 at 6%, 184 at 7%	$37.78
3rd, $1,000.83	September 15, 2026	107, at 7%	$20.54
Total			$106.14

January’s first 15 days add a little, at the rate for early 2027. Paying with the return on April 15 would add 90 days to each of the four.

The 90% route. Worked through the Form 1040-ES worksheet, $26,600 of profit gives Jordan $4,448 of 2026 tax: $3,758 of self-employment tax and $690 of income tax, after the deduction for half the self-employment tax, the $16,100 standard deduction and the qualified business income deduction. 90% of that is $4,003, under $4,200, so this route asks for less by January 15. The $4,200 route is safe too. Either way the rest of the $4,448 is due with the return: $248 after $4,200, or $445 after $4,003. The $4,448 is only as good as the year’s mileage log.

How to pay

From the IRS payments pages and Form 1040-ES:

• Your IRS Online Account. From a bank account; schedule a payment up to 365 days ahead and see the estimated payments you have made.
• IRS Direct Pay. From a checking or savings account, free, no sign-in.
• A card or digital wallet, through an IRS-approved processor, for its fee: in October 2026, $2.10 to $2.15 by debit card, or 1.75% to 1.85% by credit card, at least $2.50.
• EFTPS. Free, but “Individual taxpayers can no longer create new EFTPS accounts.” Existing users can still pay through it for now.
• A check or money order with a Form 1040-ES voucher, payable to “United States Treasury”, with “2026 Form 1040-ES” and your SSN on it, mailed to the address the form lists for your state. The postmark counts, and it is now the date the payment “is processed at a facility”, which may be later than the day you mail it.

You can also pay weekly or monthly, “as long as you’ve paid enough in by the end of the quarter” (Estimated taxes).

All of this is federal tax. If your state has an income tax, it may expect estimated payments of its own: check with its revenue department.

The bottom line

If you expect to owe $1,000 or more for 2026 after withholding and refundable credits, and those won’t reach either safe harbor, the fourth payment is due January 15, 2027. A quarter of last year’s total tax by each date keeps the penalty away (110% if your 2025 AGI was over $150,000, or $75,000 married filing separately), and a quarter of 90% of this year’s tax can be less; either way, the rest of 2026’s tax is still due with the return. A late installment is charged by the day, so January still helps, and extra W-2 withholding counts for the whole year.

Sources

• IRS, Form 1040-ES (2026), Estimated Tax for Individuals: the general rule, the exception for no 2025 tax liability, the 110% rule, the payment dates and the January 15 exception, the annualized method for uneven income and Schedule AI, the caution that the required annual payment may still leave tax due, the 2026 standard deduction and tax rate schedules, increasing withholding, the ways to pay and the voucher, and the 2026 Social Security wage base.
• IRS, Publication 505 (2026), Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax (PDF of the 2026 edition): chapter 2, Estimated Tax for 2026 (what estimated tax covers, who does not have to pay, Total tax for 2025—line 12b, When To Pay Estimated Tax, January payment, When To Start, Table 2-1); chapter 1, How Do You Increase Your Withholding? (Step 4(c)) and When Will Your New Form W-4 Go Into Effect?
• IRS, Instructions for Form 2210 (2025), the latest published: the penalty figured separately for each installment and by the days it stays unpaid, payments applied to the earliest installment first, withholding treated as paid one-fourth on each due date, and the penalty worksheet.
• 26 U.S. Code § 6654: installments of 25% of the required annual payment, the 90%, 100% and 110% amounts, the period of an underpayment, withholding deemed paid in equal parts, and the January 31 rule.
• IRS, Form 1040 (2025): line 24, total tax, and lines 27a, 28, 29 and 30, refundable credits.
• IRS, Quarterly interest rates and IR-2026-98: the underpayment rate for each quarter of 2026.
• IRS, Estimated taxes and Topic 306, Penalty for underpayment of estimated tax: who must pay, the safe harbors and paying more often than four times.
• IRS, Topic 554, Self-employment tax and Self-employment tax (Social Security and Medicare taxes): 15.3%, 92.35% of net earnings, the $400 line and the deduction for half.
• IRS, Online account for individuals, Direct Pay, Pay by card or digital wallet and EFTPS: the ways to pay, the card fees, and no new EFTPS enrollments for individuals.
• IRS, Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC: the January 31 due date for a 1099-NEC, moved to the next business day.
• IRS, Notice 2026-10 and Announcement 2026-11: the 2026 business rates, 72.5¢ and then 76¢ from July 1.

This article is general information, not tax advice. Tax situations vary — check with a qualified professional before you file.