EFTPS phase out for individuals - 2026

[Semi-Retyrd]

After doing my 2025 tax year taxes I used Login.gov to enter EFTPS and arranged all my estimated tax payments for tax year 2026 with no problem or warnings. I also use Login.gov to enter my my Social Security account where I can download my SS 1099 early in December.

 

[Semi-Retyrd]

To just double check I logged into EFTPS a few minutes ago and searched for any warning messages. There were none. In the "about" section the long history of EFTPS was noted and again nothing about its discontinuation.
This leads me to believe any news about phase out is misinformation or some sort of scam.

 

[agh1]

From the EFTPS Welcome Page:

Notice to Individual Taxpayers:
Effective October 17th, 2025, Individuals will not be able to create new enrollments via EFTPS.gov. If you are an individual taxpayer and are not enrolled in EFTPS.gov by October 17th, you'll need to create an IRS Online Account for Individuals or use the IRS Direct Pay guest path.



If you are already enrolled in EFTPS.gov to make your individual tax payments you will still be able to make payments; however, it is encouraged you transition to IRS Online Account for Individuals or IRS Direct Pay. All individuals will be required to transition from EFTPS.gov later in 2026.

 

[JoeWras]

I took a look at my irs.gov account today. I see the payment options. Everything looks ready to go.

Do you have to enter your bank account info every time you schedule a payment? That was already set up with EFTPS.

Not sure if anyone answered audrey's question, so in case someone is wondering...

You can save your bank account information so it makes the next payment painless and less error prone. This is unlike my state's system which requires re-entering the routing number for each payment.

Since I did the ID.me thing, I'm going to stick with irs.gov for payments. It is very clear and simple, and much less confusing than EFTPS. You can schedule your future estimated payments, which I like to do so I don't have to fret it over the year. And like EFTPS, you can cancel or edit those future payments if the need arises.

The only weird thing is it allows only 4 entries per day. So if you want to pay owed tax and set up 4 future estimated payments, you have to do that over two days. I guess I have a final tax task tomorrow morning.

 

[audreyh1]

Thanks, yes. I saw that you can elect to save bank info and select that for later payments. I have scheduled my final 2025 payment plus estimated tax payments due during 2026.

In my experience it was treating all the estimated tax payments as 1 entry in terms of the daily limit.

There were a couple of bugs in the user interface, but I worked around them.

 

[gromit]

I was just on the IRS site making a single payment. It states that you're limited to 4 transactions per day, but once you get into the payment process there was a single line of text stating that you may make up to 5 payments per transaction. So, in theory you could make 20 payments a day.

 

[audreyh1]

I was just on the IRS site making a single payment. It states that you're limited to 4 transactions per day, but once you get into the payment process there was a single line of text stating that you may make up to 5 payments per transaction. So, in theory you could make 20 payments a day.

Exactly, something like that. It doesn’t restrict me as I only need to do 5 payments a year, and normally they would only take two different transactions.