You still owe the 2026 tax, due when you file by April 15, 2027. Missed quarterly taxes also bring a penalty that works like interest. It runs on each quarterly amount you skipped, for the days it stayed unpaid. Paying now shrinks it, and depending on your 2025 return, you may owe no penalty at all.

How much is the penalty for missed quarterly taxes?

The penalty is about 19 cents a day for each $1,000 of a missed quarterly payment, at the IRS underpayment rate of 7% a year that applies October 1 through December 31, 2026. The underpayment rate is the interest rate the IRS charges on unpaid tax, set as the federal short-term rate plus 3 percentage points and reset every quarter under 26 U.S.C. §6621.

The penalty is figured separately for each quarterly due date. Paying extra later does not erase the penalty on an earlier quarter. Each payment is credited to the earliest missed installment first (Form 2210 instructions). The clock on each missed amount stops on the day you pay it or on April 15, 2027, whichever comes first (26 U.S.C. §6654(b)(2)).

The shortfall counts self-employment tax (the Social Security and Medicare tax self-employed people pay on their own earnings) as well as income tax, because estimated tax covers both (the IRS estimated taxes page).

The IRS generally cannot waive this penalty for reasonable cause (a good excuse for paying late), but it can remove or reduce it when the underpayment came from a casualty, local disaster, or other unusual circumstance (the IRS underpayment penalty page).

Do I owe a penalty at all for missed quarterly taxes?

You may owe none. Under what is called the first-year exception, you owe no 2026 penalty if your 2025 return showed no tax for a full 12-month year and you were a U.S. citizen or resident all of 2025 (26 U.S.C. §6654(e)(2)). You also owe no penalty if your 2026 tax after withholding is under $1,000 (the 2026 Form 1040-ES).

Without the first-year exception, you can still avoid the penalty by meeting the safe harbor, a minimum payment level set by the IRS. You meet it if your withholding and on-time payments reached the smaller of 90% of your 2026 tax or 100% of your 2025 tax. That 100% becomes 110% if your 2025 adjusted gross income (your total income minus certain adjustments, before deductions) was over $150,000 ($75,000 if married filing separately), and the 2025 return must cover 12 months (IRS Topic 306).

Does paying now, or making the January 15, 2027 payment, still help?

Yes. A payment made now goes to the earliest missed installment first and stops the penalty on that amount from the day it is paid, and the fourth 2026 payment is due January 15, 2027 (Form 1040-ES (2026)). You do not have to make the January 15, 2027 payment if you file your 2026 return by February 1, 2027 and pay the whole balance with it.

"So I just recently found out I am required (as someone who is self-employed) to make estimated quarterly tax payments. I haven't made any for last year or this year."

— a self-employed member of the TurboTax Community, November 2024

If you have made no 2026 payments either, take a hypothetical 2026 tax of $12,000. Your 2025 return showed $4,000 of tax and adjusted gross income under $150,000. The safe-harbor amount is the smaller of $10,800 (90% of $12,000) or $4,000 (100% of your 2025 tax), so $4,000. Each required installment, meaning the amount due each quarter, is 25% of that, or $1,000 (26 U.S.C. §6654(d)). You paid nothing in April, June, or September. You pay $4,000 in November 2026.

The November payment covers the three missed $1,000 installments first and the January 15, 2027 installment ahead of its due date, and the penalty on the three late ones stops on the day you pay. The other $8,000 is due with the return by April 15, 2027, with no underpayment penalty on it. How to make the payment is covered in this guide written for first-time 1099 workers, and the steps are the same for creators.

What if most of my creator income came late in the year, like a fall brand deal?

You may be able to lower or remove the penalty on the early installments with the annualized income installment method, Schedule AI of Form 2210, which sizes each required payment to the income you had earned by that due date (Form 2210 instructions). If you use Schedule AI for one due date, you must use it for all four, and you need records showing when the income arrived. If most of your 2026 income landed in the fall, I would check Schedule AI before paying a penalty bill.

What if I can't pay the full balance by April 15, 2027?

File the 2026 return on time anyway, because the failure-to-file penalty is 5% of the unpaid tax for each month or part of a month the return is late, up to 25%, while the failure-to-pay penalty is 0.5% a month (the IRS failure-to-file page and failure-to-pay page). If the return is more than 60 days late, the minimum failure-to-file penalty for returns required to be filed in 2027 is the lesser of $535 or 100% of the tax on the return. A filing extension does not extend the April 15, 2027 payment deadline.

Pay what you can with the return, then set up a plan on the IRS payment plans page.

• A short-term plan pays the balance in 180 days or less with no setup fee, and you can apply online if you owe less than $100,000.
• A long-term plan is monthly payments, and you can apply online if you owe $50,000 or less and have filed all required returns.

Penalties and interest keep running until the balance is paid, but with a timely filed return and an approved plan the failure-to-pay penalty drops to 0.25% a month. To file on time, the content creator tax checklist, written for YouTubers and TikTok creators, lists the platform payouts, brand-deal 1099s and receipts to gather.

Do I need to file Form 2210 myself?

Generally no. If you leave the penalty line on your 2026 return blank, the IRS figures the penalty and sends you a bill. You fill out Form 2210 yourself when you want to use Schedule AI for income that arrived unevenly.

N&T Tax & Advisory Group is based in Santa Clarita and prepares tax returns for content creators remotely anywhere in the US.