If you don't pay your employees monthly, you sometimes need to process a Week 53 at the end of the tax year.

For the 2025/2026 tax year, this occurs if your regular weekly, fortnightly or four weekly pay date falls on 5 April 2026.

Don't avoid week 53 by using a different date to your regular pay date. If you've already done this, correct it using the steps below.

To resolve this, you need to reprocess your payroll from the week 53 payment back up to date.

Reprocess

1. Back up your data.
2. Restore a backup from the last period before the week 53 was due.
3. Check the Last Updated date. Ensure it's set to the last period before week 53 was due.
4. Click Payroll then Change Process Date.
5. Set the process date to your 05/04/2026.
6. Process the payments as normal and update records.
7. Submit an FPS as normal to provide the week 53 values to HMRC.

If you'd already processed any periods in the new tax year, reprocess these now using the correct regular pay date. If any employees' tax codes change for the new tax year, remember to update these.

Once complete, compare the net pay on the new payslips to what you've paid the employee.

You need to account for any under or overpayments you've made following the changes above. For help with this, visit our can I correct a mistake in the next pay period article.