Statutory filings every UK employer must make
Reviewed by Mellow Editorial Team, HR & payroll content team
Every UK employer has a fixed set of statutory filings to make throughout the tax year. Miss them and you face automatic penalties, interest charges, and in some cases personal liability — so knowing exactly what is due and when is non-negotiable.
Real Time Information: your ongoing payroll obligation
The backbone of employer compliance is Real Time Information (RTI). Under RTI, you must submit a Full Payment Submission (FPS) to HMRC on or before every payday — not monthly, not quarterly, but every single time you pay an employee. The FPS tells HMRC how much each employee was paid, what tax and National Insurance was deducted, and what the employer's National Insurance liability is.
Employer National Insurance runs at 13.8% for category A employees. Employee National Insurance is 8% on earnings within the main band, then 2% above the upper earnings limit. Income tax is deducted against each employee's tax code, with a personal allowance of £12,570, a basic rate of 20%, a higher rate of 40%, and an additional rate of 45%.
If you have nothing to pay in a particular pay period — for example, a director-only company with no salary run — you should submit an Employer Payment Summary (EPS) instead, so HMRC does not issue a late-filing notice.
Year-end returns: P60 and P11D
Two annual filings have fixed statutory deadlines.
P60. At the end of each tax year you must give every employee who is still on your payroll a P60 summarising their total pay and deductions for the year. The deadline is 31 May following the end of the tax year. You do not file the P60 with HMRC directly — it is a document for the employee — but failing to issue it on time is a compliance breach.
P11D. If any employees or directors received benefits in kind during the tax year — company cars, private medical insurance, loans above the interest-free threshold, or other non-cash benefits — you must report them on a P11D for each relevant individual. You must also submit a P11D(b) to declare the total Class 1A National Insurance due on those benefits. The deadline for both is 6 July following the end of the tax year. Class 1A National Insurance must be paid to HMRC by 22 July (19 July if paying by cheque).
If you process benefits through payroll rather than reporting them on a P11D — a practice known as payrolling benefits — you still need to submit a P11D(b) for the Class 1A charge, but you avoid issuing individual P11D forms.
Auto-enrolment pension duties
Auto-enrolment is not just a one-time setup task. As an employer you have ongoing duties to enrol eligible workers, contribute to their pensions, and report to The Pensions Regulator.
Minimum contributions for qualifying earnings are 3% from the employer and 5% from the employee, giving a combined minimum of 8%. You must re-enrol any workers who have opted out roughly every three years and submit a re-declaration of compliance to The Pensions Regulator each time.
New starters must be assessed on or before their first payday. Given that the Employment Rights Act 2025 has strengthened day-one rights for workers, getting this assessment right from the outset matters more than ever.
Statutory leave and pay records
Employers must maintain accurate records to support statutory payments. Statutory Sick Pay, Statutory Maternity Pay, Statutory Paternity Pay, Shared Parental Pay, and Statutory Adoption Pay all flow through payroll and are reported via the FPS and EPS. Where you recover statutory payments through an offset against your PAYE liability, the EPS is the mechanism for doing so.
Employees are entitled to 5.6 weeks of statutory annual leave per year — 28 days including bank holidays for someone working a standard five-day week. While leave itself is not reported to HMRC, maintaining records of entitlement taken and pay during leave supports both your payroll calculations and any Employment Tribunal defence.
Keeping records and meeting payment deadlines
Filing the returns is only half the obligation. HMRC also requires you to keep payroll records — including payslips, P45s, and details of expenses and benefits — for at least three years after the end of the tax year they relate to. Some records, particularly those linked to pension contributions, may need to be kept longer to satisfy The Pensions Regulator.
For PAYE payments, employers paying electronically must clear funds into HMRC's account by the 22nd of each month (or quarter if you are a small employer who has agreed quarterly payment). Missing the payment deadline, even if the FPS was filed correctly, generates interest and potential surcharges.
How Mellow runs payroll across six countries on one platform gives a practical picture of how these obligations sit alongside international payroll complexity — relevant if you employ people both inside and outside the UK.
---
Run HR and payroll in United Kingdom with Mellow
Mellow brings HR, payroll and 12 AI agents into one platform — built to handle United Kingdom properly, with payroll included, from £4 per employee per month. The AI agents don't just answer questions; they generate contracts, run cost estimates and draft letters for you.
- United Kingdom payroll software
[Start a free trial →](/register)