How to identify and process week 53

NOTE: If you pay your employees monthly, then you don't have a week 53. Or, if you don't pay your employees on a Thursday or Friday, you won't have a week 53.

Normally, week 53 occurs if your regular pay date for weekly, fortnightly or four weekly paid employees falls on 5 April. This is because the number of days in the tax year doesn't divide into a whole number of tax weeks.

However, in the 2023/2024 tax year February has an extra day due to 2024 being a leap year. This extra day means that there are two days in week 53 this year:

Check if you have a week 53

You have a week 53 this payroll year end if your normal pay day is a Thursday or Friday and:

In each of these instances, you're next due to process the employees within week 53.

Process a week 53

You don't need to do anything differently to process a week 53. Simply set the correct process date and process it in the same way as any other pay period and your software completes the correct calculations.

NOTE: Don't set a different process date to your normal pay date to avoid a week 53. If you incorrectly skip a week 53, you must correct it. Find out how to correct week 53 avoided with an incorrect process date.

Form P800

When you process week 53, your employees get extra tax free pay. This is correct, however HMRC will reclaim any resulting underpaid tax, normally in the next tax year. To do this, HMRC issue form P800 to the employee, and they may issue a new tax code.

Visit our how tax and national insurance calculates in week 53 article to find out more about the calculations, and form P800.

What is a week 53?

Check if you have a week 53

Process a week 53

Form P800