If you pay your employees weekly, fortnightly or four weekly and your normal process date falls on Friday 5th April, then you have an extra pay run, commonly known as week 53. If you pay your staff monthly, then you will not have an extra pay run. The number of days in the tax year does not divide into a whole number of week, so 5th April becomes week 53.
If you do have a week 53, there is nothing that you need to do differently. Simply complete you payroll in the normal way dated 05/04/2019 before you process your payroll year end.
To check if you have a week 53
In the 2018/2019 tax year, tax week 53 is Friday 5th April 2019. You have a week 53 if the following applies:
Your normal pay day is a Friday and…
• You last process your weekly paid employees on Friday 29th March 2019.
• You last process your fortnightly paid employees on Friday 22nd March 2019.
• You last process your four weekly paid employees on Friday 8th March 2019.
In each of these instances, you are next due to process the employees on the 5th April 2019, week 53.
These are the only scenarios when you must process a week 53, the next processing date for all other pay dates falls into the 2019/2020 tax year.
How tax and national insurance (NI) calculates at week 53
At week 53, tax calculates using week 1/ month 1 allowance. NI is calculated as in any other period, using the weekly, two weekly or four weekly thresholds as appropriate.
