EasyTaxUSA Tax Extension

Nothing. We prepare and e-file Form 4868 for you free and send you the IRS acknowledgment to keep with your records. Any tax you owe is paid to the IRS, not to us; you can pay online at IRS.gov by April 15. Finishing the return itself is priced separately, and the price is shown before you start: current-year plans start at $14.95 and prior-year federal returns at $59.95. See current year pricing and prior year pricing.

You can file it with EasyTaxUSA, free: create an account, enter a reasonable estimate of your tax, and we e-file Form 4868 and send you the IRS acknowledgment (you’ll need last year’s adjusted gross income to verify your identity). The IRS also offers its own methods at no charge (card and digital-wallet payments carry a small processor fee): pay online at IRS.gov and choose “Extension” as the reason, which makes the payment itself the request and gives you a confirmation number, or mail a paper Form 4868, postmarked by the due date, with or without a check. Whichever you choose, it must be done by the April due date and takes minutes. Not sure which method fits? Ask our tax pros, free.

You don’t have to explain why, and there is no approval letter. The extension is automatic as long as you make a reasonable estimate of your total tax, enter it on the form, and submit it by the April due date. Your proof is the electronic acknowledgment if you e-filed, the confirmation number if you paid online, or the postmark if you mailed it. The IRS contacts you only if the request is denied; silence means it went through. If you want to double-check, an e-filed extension or online extension payment generally appears in your IRS Online Account within a few business days. If an e-filed form is rejected, a form first sent on time can be corrected and retransmitted within 5 calendar days and still count as timely.

Work from your W-2s, 1099s and last year’s return; the IRS only needs a reasonable estimate, and guessing wrong doesn’t void the extension. Form 4868 asks for your expected total tax for the year, what you’ve already paid through withholding, estimated payments and refundable credits, and the difference. If nothing big changed, last year’s tax is a sensible floor; if you expect no tax at all, enter zero. Guessing low means interest and the 0.5% per month late-payment penalty on the shortfall (only an estimate the IRS finds unreasonable voids the extension). Guessing high costs nothing: the excess comes back as a refund when you file, so round up if you can. Our free tax calculator gives you a quick start.

File the extension anyway. The IRS says you can still get it even if you can’t pay the balance, and it protects you from the late-filing penalty of 5% per month, ten times the late-payment penalty. Pay whatever you can to shrink the interest and penalty. The IRS offers payment plans you can apply for online: a short-term plan of up to 180 days if you owe less than $100,000, with no setup fee, or a long-term installment agreement if you owe $50,000 or less. With an installment agreement and a return filed by the deadline, including extensions, the late-payment rate drops to 0.25% per month; it rises to 1% per month if the tax is still unpaid 10 days after the IRS issues a notice of intent to levy. If the balance is more than you can realistically handle, our tax resolution team can help with payment plans, penalty relief, and settlement options.

Not to avoid a penalty, but file one anyway. Both penalties are a percentage of unpaid tax, so if the IRS owes you there is nothing to penalize. The extension still earns its keep: it costs nothing, it protects you if your estimate turns out wrong and you actually owe, and it moves your refund window out. You normally have three years from the return’s due date to claim a refund; with a timely extension, the IRS counts the six extra months too, so for a 2025 return you have until October 15, 2029 instead of mid-April 2029. Miss the window and the refund becomes property of the U.S. Treasury. An extension never delays a refund, but waiting until October does, so file as soon as your paperwork is ready.

No second extension is available: individuals get one automatic six-month extension per year, apart from a discretionary letter request to December 15 for taxpayers out of the country. If you miss October 15, the return is late but must still be filed. If you owe, the late-filing penalty starts October 16 at 5% per month (any part of a month counts), with a minimum of $525 or 100% of the unpaid tax, whichever is smaller, once you’re more than 60 days late, so filing even a few days sooner saves money. If a form still hasn’t arrived, file by October 15 with your best information and amend when it shows up; an amendment is cheaper than a late-filing penalty. If you’re due a refund there is no penalty at all. The IRS stops accepting e-filed individual returns for annual maintenance each year, usually between late November and late December (the 2025 cutoff was December 26); after that your return must be mailed until e-file reopens in January. Sign in and finish now.

An extension can’t be requested after the original due date, so the answer is to file the return itself as fast as you can. The late-filing penalty is charged by the month or part of a month, so filing even a few days sooner can save a full 5%. If you’re owed a refund there’s no penalty at all. The only people who get extra time automatically are those abroad, in combat zones, or in federally declared disaster areas. Our 2025 filing page walks you through it, and we still e-file 2024 and 2023 returns if you’re behind more than one year.

Form 4868 is federal only, and states differ. Some grant an automatic state extension with no form (California), though you still must pay by April 15. Others require their own form and payment by April 15 (New York’s Form IT-370, which will not accept the federal form in its place). Nine states, including Texas and Florida, have no personal income tax at all, so there is nothing to extend. A valid federal extension with no state extension can trigger state late-filing penalties, so check your state’s tax agency each year or ask us. Like the federal extension, state extensions give you more time to file, not to pay.

Yes. If on the due date you are a U.S. citizen or resident living and working outside the United States and Puerto Rico, or on military duty there, you automatically get two extra months to file and pay (June 15) with no request, though interest still runs from April 15; attach a statement to your return explaining which situation applies. Filing Form 4868 by June 15 adds four more months, to October 15, and a letter to the IRS by October 15 can request a further discretionary extension to December 15. Service members in a combat zone or contingency operation, and their spouses, get their filing, payment and refund deadlines pushed back to at least 180 days after they leave the combat zone, plus however many days were left before the April deadline when they entered, with no penalties or interest for that period and no form required. Service members stationed inside the U.S. use Form 4868 like everyone else. See our military filing page for more.

The IRS automatically postpones filing and payment deadlines for taxpayers whose address of record is in a covered disaster area; no request is needed. The new dates are announced in state-specific IRS news releases and can run several months past the normal deadline. A return already on extension is due by the later of October 15 or the end of the postponement period, but a payment that was due before the disaster, such as the April 15 balance on a 2025 return, is usually not covered. Disaster victims may also get extra time to file Form 4868 itself. If your records are in a disaster area but you aren’t, you can call the IRS disaster hotline at 866-562-5227.

It depends on the account. A traditional or Roth IRA contribution for 2025 had to be made by April 15, 2026; an extension does not move that date. A SEP-IRA contribution, and the employer side of a solo 401(k), can be made by the due date of your return including extensions, so a self-employed filer on extension has until October 15 to fund it and still deduct it. An extension also does not delay quarterly estimated payments: the first 2026 estimate was still due April 15, 2026, alongside the 2025 balance, with the rest due June 15 and September 15, 2026 and January 15, 2027. Ask our tax pros if you’re not sure which rule applies to you.