Dates and deadlines, 2026 to 2028

The eight dates below are available as a calendar file to add to a diary.

1 January 2027: the tax starts

Section 158(1) of the Finance Act 2026 provides that Part 5 has effect in relation to goods imported into the United Kingdom on or after 1 January 2027, and the five statutory instruments come into force on the same day. A good is imported when the customs declaration is accepted, so a consignment declared on 31 December 2026 is outside the tax and one declared on 1 January 2027 is inside it; goods at sea over the new year, or in a customs warehouse, are caught if the declaration that releases them is accepted on or after that day.

1 January 2027: the registration clock starts

Paragraph 2(2) of Schedule 17 makes a person trigger registration on the first day of a month if covered goods worth £50,000 or more were imported in the preceding twelve months, or on any day the person expects to import £50,000 of covered goods within thirty days. Goods imported in 2026 do not count, so the look-back test can first be met on 1 February 2027; the forward-looking test can be met on 1 January 2027 itself. From the day of the trigger, every covered import is charged.

31 January 2028: the registration deadline for 2027

The ordinary rule in paragraph 2(4) gives thirty days from the trigger. Regulation 2(2) of SI 2026/830 replaces that period with 31 January 2028 for any person who triggers registration in 2027. A person who first triggers in 2028 is back on the thirty-day rule. HMRC guidance states that registration opens by 1 January 2028. The deadline is a deadline for a formality; the liability starts with the trigger.

31 December 2027: the end of the first accounting period

Regulation 2(3) of SI 2026/830 makes the first accounting period the whole of 2027, followed by the quarters from 1 January to 31 March 2028 and from 1 April to 30 June 2028, after which the ordinary quarters in paragraph 6(2) of Schedule 17 apply.

31 May, 31 July and 29 September 2028: the first three returns and payments

Regulation 2(3) and (4) of SI 2026/830 substitute fixed dates for the three opening periods: before the end of 31 May 2028 for the 2027 period, before the end of 31 July 2028 for the quarter to 31 March 2028, and before the end of 29 September 2028 for the quarter to 30 June 2028, for the return under paragraph 7 and the payment under paragraph 6 alike. From the quarter ending 30 September 2028 the ordinary rule applies: before the end of the last working day of the second month after the quarter.

A word on working days

Section 155(1) defines a working day as a day other than a Saturday, a Sunday or a bank holiday in any part of the United Kingdom under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, so a bank holiday in Scotland or Northern Ireland alone shortens the deadline for everyone. Paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 to that Act, as amended by the St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007, makes 30 November a bank holiday in Scotland when it is not a weekend, so the deadline for the quarter to 30 September 2028 is Wednesday 29 November 2028 for a business anywhere in the United Kingdom.

Two further periods

Regulation 6 of SI 2026/802 keeps a record relating to an accounting period for six years from the day after the period ends, so records for 2027 are kept until the end of 2033. Paragraph 26(1) of Schedule 17 bars a repayment of any amount paid more than three years before the claim.

Dates that are not in any instrument

No instrument names a date on which emissions from purchased electricity come into the tax; HM Treasury's factsheet, which is guidance, states that the inclusion of indirect emissions within scope will be delayed until 2029 at the earliest. No instrument names a date for the Treasury's default values notice or for the Commissioners' final notices, which existed only in draft on 13 September 2026. The status board records each as it is published.

The date most businesses find has already passed

The data for goods imported in 2027 must, under regulation 9(2) of SI 2026/995, come from a monitoring period that is 2027 itself, the preceding calendar year with verified data, or the year of production, and each is a calendar year the supplier has to monitor as it runs. A supplier that has not started monitoring cannot supply a 2027 figure in time for the first return, and the importer files on the default value.