Fiscal Calendar 2026

Fiscal calendar 2026 at a glance

A fiscal calendar is the 12-month cycle a business uses for its accounts, budgets and tax returns. It can match the calendar year or end on any other date; the fiscal year takes the name of the year it ends in. The table gives FY2026 and its four quarters for the most common year-ends.

Planning the next year? Add one year to every date: a September 30 company’s FY2027 runs October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027, with Q1 ending December 31, 2026. A mid-month year-end such as April 5 keeps its day: each quarter starts on the 6th and ends on the 5th.

Government fiscal years in 2026

The US federal fiscal year 2026 ends on September 30, 2026, and fiscal year 2027 starts on October 1, 2026, according to the U.S. Treasury. The Government of Canada’s fiscal year runs April 1 to March 31. The UK tax year runs 6 April to 5 April (GOV.UK), and the Australian income year runs 1 July to 30 June (ATO). A government year sets public budgets and some filing calendars; it does not set your company’s fiscal year. For Canadian corporate and personal filing dates, see Canadian tax deadlines 2026.

4-4-5, 4-5-4 and 52/53-week calendars explained

A 4-4-5 calendar replaces calendar months with weeks: each quarter has two 4-week periods and one 5-week period, 13 weeks in all. Because every period is a whole number of weeks, each one ends on the same weekday and has the same number of weekends, which makes week-over-week sales and payroll comparisons clean. Retailers and manufacturers use them most.

The variants

• 4-4-5: the long period comes last in each quarter.
• 4-5-4: the long period is in the middle. This is the retail standard the National Retail Federation (NRF) publishes each year.
• 5-4-4: the long period comes first.

Why some years have a 53rd week

Fifty-two weeks is 364 days, one day short of a year (two in a leap year). To stop the year-end drifting, a 52/53-week calendar ends on the same weekday nearest a fixed date and adds a 53rd week every five or six years. The NRF lists 2006, 2012, 2017 and 2023 as 53-week years. If your company uses a retail calendar, take the exact FY2026 week dates from the NRF’s published calendar or your finance team, not from a month-based table like the one above.

Year-end close checklist (and the monthly version)

The year-end close is the twelfth month-end close plus a handful of annual jobs. Tick items off as you go; the ticks stay on this page until you reload it.

Every month-end

• Reconcile every bank and credit card account to its statement.
• Match each card and bank charge to a receipt or invoice, and chase the missing ones now, not in twelve months.
• Review categories on the month's expenses and fix anything posted to the wrong account.
• Record accruals: expenses incurred but not yet billed, and revenue earned but not yet invoiced.
• Review accounts receivable and accounts payable ageing.
• Run the month's P&L and compare it with last month and the budget.

Add at year-end

• Complete the twelfth month-end close first; the year-end close builds on it.
• Count inventory (if you hold any) and reconcile it to the books.
• Update the fixed-asset register: additions, disposals and depreciation.
• Review prepaid expenses and accrued liabilities and adjust them to the year-end balance.
• Collect contractor details for year-end information returns (in the US, Form 1099-NEC).
• Reconcile payroll records to the payroll filings.
• Hand your accountant the trial balance, the reconciliations and the receipt backup.
• Lock the closed period in your accounting software so nothing is posted into it later.

The step that slows most closes is the second one: charges with no receipt. If the gaps pile up, the year-end catch-up pulls missing receipts from Gmail and bulk uploads before you hand the books over. For how overhead categories such as rent and software are usually grouped, see general and administrative expenses; if you pay contractors, the 1099 income and expense tracker covers the records behind year-end forms. Filing rules differ by country and business type — confirm with your tax professional.

Run your books on your fiscal year in ExpenseBot

ExpenseBot is an expense tracker that captures receipts from Gmail and photos into a Google Sheet you own, and it reports on your fiscal year instead of the calendar year once you tell it when your year ends.

1. Open Settings, find the General Settings card and choose Configure Settings.
2. Under Fiscal Year End, pick a preset (September 30, June 30, March 31, January 31, October 31, April 5) or Custom Date… for any month and day.
3. Save. The Report Wizard then offers fiscal periods such as FY2026 Q4 and FY2026, with dates that follow your year end.

Fiscal years are labelled by the year they end, the same rule as the table above. ExpenseBot does not support 4-4-5, 4-5-4 or 52/53-week calendars, and it is not a general ledger: it does not post accruals or lock periods, so the close itself stays in your accounting software.

Dates are for planning; confirm filing deadlines with your tax professional. Last updated September 29, 2026.