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How to identify and process week 53

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Summary

What week 53 is, and how to process it in Sage 50 Payroll.

Description

What is a week 53?

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.

 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 Saturday, you won't have a week 53 this year end. 

Check if you have a week 53

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

  • You last processed your weekly paid employees on Saturday 29 March 2025
  • You last processed your fortnightly paid employees on Saturday 22 March 2025
  • You last processed your four weekly paid employees on Saturday 8 March 2025

In each of these instances you're next due to process the employees in week 53, on 5 April 2025.

Process a week 53

You don't need to do anything differently to process a week 53. 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. To do this, HMRC normally issue form P800 to the employee in the new tax year, 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.