For the HR professional who is somehow expected to know everything, remember everything, and do everything — this one’s for you.

You Did Not Go Into HR to Become a Calendar App

Let’s be honest. When you pictured your career in HR, you imagined coaching managers through tough conversations, championing a great onboarding experience, maybe rolling out a learning program that people actually wanted to attend.

You did not picture yourself cross-referencing a spreadsheet at 11pm in January because someone just asked whether the W-2s went out on time.

And yet — here we are.

The reality of HR, especially in an SMB or mid-market organization where you might be a team of one (or one-and-a-half), is that compliance doesn’t pause while you’re doing the work you actually love. Federal deadlines don’t care that you’re also running open enrollment, onboarding three new hires, and trying to find a date that works for a mandatory training that nobody wants to attend.

That’s exactly why we built the U.S. HR Compliance Calendar — a free, interactive, filterable resource designed to give you one reliable place to track every major federal and state HR deadline throughout the year. No fluff. No subscription required. Just the dates, the context, and the source links to verify each one.

Consider this blog post the guided tour.

What Even Counts as an “HR Compliance Deadline”?

Good question — and one worth answering clearly, because “HR compliance” is one of those umbrella phrases that can mean everything from “did we post the right labor law notices” to “did we file the right forms with the right federal agency by the right date or face significant financial penalties.”

For the purposes of this calendar, we’re covering five major categories:

• Payroll & tax — W-2s, 1099s, quarterly Form 941 filings, FUTA, and year-end payroll close
• Benefits & ACA — ACA employer reporting (1094-C/1095-C), ERISA Form 5500, COBRA, HSA/FSA limits, Medicare Part D notices
• Federal reporting — EEO-1 workforce demographic data
• Safety & posting — OSHA 300A annual summary posting requirements
• State & local — State income tax remittance, SUI rate notices, paid family leave program updates

Each item in the calendar includes the deadline, who it applies to (because not everything applies to every employer), the penalty stakes, and a direct link to the primary government source so you can verify the current-year date yourself.

That last part matters. A lot. Deadlines shift. Penalty amounts get indexed. Government portals open and close. We’ll say it once here and stamp it all over the calendar: always confirm at the source before acting. This resource is your orientation, not your attorney.

The 2026 Updates You Need to Know About Right Now

Before we walk through the year, let’s flag the changes that are easy to miss — especially if you’re working off a compliance checklist you’ve been recycling since 2024.

HSA and FSA Limits Went Up. The Dependent Care FSA Went Way Up.

The IRS adjusts contribution limits annually for inflation, and 2026 is no different — except for one notable exception.

2026 HSA limits:

• Self-only coverage: $4,400 (up from $4,300 in 2025)
• Family coverage: $8,750 (up from $8,550 in 2025)

2026 Health FSA limit: $3,400 (up from $3,300), with a carryover limit of $680

And then there’s the big one: Dependent Care FSA. The annual household limit jumped to $7,500 in 2026 — up from $5,000, where it had been stuck for years. This wasn’t an inflation adjustment. This was a legislative change, courtesy of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in July 2025. It’s the kind of change that employees will genuinely thank you for communicating clearly, because a $2,500 increase in pre-tax dependent care savings is real money for working parents.

If you’re heading into your next open enrollment, this is the headline.

The Social Security Wage Base Is $184,500

The 2026 Social Security taxable wage base is $184,500, up from $176,100 in 2025. If your payroll system or internal tracking hasn’t been updated since 2024, note that the old figure was $168,600 — so you could be two years behind. Your payroll software should handle this automatically, but it’s worth a manual check before the first payroll of the year.

California Employers: Your FUTA Bill Is Higher This Year

For the 2025 tax year (reported on Form 940 due January 31, 2026), California is subject to a FUTA credit reduction of 1.2% because the state hasn’t fully repaid its federal unemployment loan. That means California employers owe more FUTA than the standard calculation — and if your payroll vendor doesn’t flag this automatically, you’ll want to verify before filing.

Connecticut and New York were on the watch list but paid off their loans in time, so they’re in the clear for 2025.

The EEO-1 Window Might Open — and Close — Before August

The calendar places EEO-1 filing in August because that’s where it has historically landed. But in recent years, the EEOC has been opening the portal earlier and closing it faster. The 2024 reporting year window ran April 30 to June 24, 2025 — well before August. As of May 2026, the 2026 window hasn’t been announced yet.

If EEO-1 is on your plate, set a Google alert for “EEO-1 filing 2026” and bookmark eeocdata.eeoc.gov. Don’t let “it’s usually August” become “we missed the window.”

A Month-by-Month Look at the Year

Here’s your quick-reference tour. Every item here is in the interactive calendar — click any deadline to expand the full detail, notes, and source link.

January — The Sprint Out of the Blocks

January is the most compliance-dense month of the year, and it hits before most people have finished their “new year, new processes” optimism.

January 31 alone carries:

• W-2 and W-3 distribution and SSA filing — furnish to employees and file with Social Security. Penalties run $60–$630 per form depending on how late you are.
• 1099-NEC filing — if you paid any contractor $600 or more in the prior year, this is due to the IRS and to the recipient on the same day.
• Form 940 (FUTA annual return) — with a note that if all FUTA deposits were made on time, you get a small extension to February 10.
• Form 941 Q4 — the quarterly payroll tax return covering October–December.

January is also a good time to audit your new hire reporting process. The federal requirement is continuous (within 20 days of hire in most states, sometimes 7), but the start of the year is a natural moment to make sure your internal workflow is actually happening.

February — Post Your OSHA Summary

By February 1, employers with 10 or more employees in most industries must post the OSHA 300A Annual Summary somewhere visible to workers. It stays up through April 30.

Low-hazard industries — certain retail, finance, and real estate employers — may be partially exempt. Check OSHA’s list before assuming you’re covered or you’re not.

ACA paper filers also have a February 28 deadline for 1094-C/1095-C. If you’re e-filing (which is now the default for virtually everyone filing 10+ forms), your deadline is March 31.

March — ACA Season Continues

March brings the 1095-C furnishing deadline for employees and the March 31 e-file deadline for ACA employer reporting. This is also when CMS prescription drug coverage reporting is due — a quieter deadline that’s easy to overlook.

April — Q1 Payroll + OSHA Wrap-Up

Form 941 Q1 is due April 30 (extends to May 10 if all deposits were made on time). The OSHA 300A posting period ends April 30 as well — but the underlying 300 Log must be retained for five years regardless.

State income tax Q1 withholding remittance is typically due in mid-April for states that have income tax. Schedules vary significantly by state and by your deposit frequency — confirm with your state department of revenue.

May — SUI Rate Notices

Keep an eye on your State Unemployment Insurance rate notice. These typically arrive in late Q1 or early Q2, and most states give you only a 30-day window to contest a rate increase. Missing that window means accepting the rate — involuntarily.

June–July — Benefits Planning Season (Yes, Already)

Before summer gets away from you, June and July are when smart HR teams start preparing for fall open enrollment — reviewing plan documents, opening renewal conversations with brokers, and drafting employee communications.

Form 941 Q2 is due July 31. If you have 100+ plan participants, Form 5500 is also due July 31 — with a 2.5-month extension available via Form 5558, which must itself be filed before the July 31 deadline.

August — EEO-1 (Monitor Closely)

See the note above. The EEO-1 Component 1 filing is nominally placed here, but the window may open and close significantly earlier. Watch the EEOC portal.

September — ERISA SAR + State Paid Leave Prep

The Summary Annual Report for ERISA plans is due to participants by September 30 for calendar-year plans.

September and October are also when state paid leave programs announce updated contribution rates and benefit caps for January 1. If you’re in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington, Maryland, Minnesota, or Delaware, this is the time to review changes and update payroll systems before year-end.

October — The Busy One

Three things land in October:

1. Medicare Part D creditable coverage notices — due before October 15 to any Medicare-eligible employees or dependents. Applies to every employer with prescription drug coverage, regardless of size.
2. Open enrollment — most windows open in October or November. Required annual notices (CHIP, Women’s Health & Cancer Rights Act, SBC, Newborns’ Act) must accompany or precede enrollment.
3. Form 941 Q3 — due October 31.

November — The Calm Before Year-End

November isn’t a heavy deadline month, but it’s the most important month for year-end payroll accuracy. Verify W-2 data, confirm the new Social Security wage base, reconcile imputed income, check bonus coding, and flag any S-Corp 2% shareholder health insurance premiums that need to be added to wages.

Do this in November. Not December 30.

December — Lock It In

December 15 is the window to remind employees about HSA and FSA elections before they lock in. With the 2026 Dependent Care FSA increase being as significant as it is, this is a communication moment worth investing in.

December 31 is both the payroll year close (everything that goes on a W-2 must be in the system before your payroll vendor closes the year) and a natural checkpoint for a COBRA compliance audit — reviewing whether all qualifying event notices went out within required timeframes throughout the year.

How to Use the Interactive Calendar

The calendar is filterable by three dimensions:

• Employee count — so you’re not staring at deadlines that don’t apply to a 40-person company
• Category — filter to just payroll, just benefits, just safety, etc.
• Urgency — surface only high-penalty-risk items, or recurring quarterly deadlines

You can also toggle individual states to layer in state-specific reminders. If you operate in California, New York, or any of the active paid leave states, this will surface relevant context alongside the federal calendar.

Click any deadline to expand the full detail card — description, compliance notes, employer size applicability, and a direct link to the primary source.

2026 HR Compliance Calendar

A Note on Using This Resource

We built this for HR generalists who are doing the work of three people with the resources of one. The goal is to make compliance feel less like an ambush and more like something you can stay ahead of — even when you’re also running a training, handling a PIP, and answering a benefits question, all before lunch.

That said: this calendar is an orientation tool, not legal or tax advice. Deadlines shift. Penalty calculations get updated. State laws change faster than anyone’s content team can keep up with. Always verify the current-year date at the source linked on each item before acting.

If you’re unsure whether a specific rule applies to your organization, your payroll vendor, benefits broker, or employment counsel is the right call.

The interactive HR Compliance Calendar is free to use. Bookmark it, share it with your team, and check back. 🙂