Taxpayers hit by Super Typhoon Sinlaku in the Northern Mariana Islands have until Monday, November 2, 2026, to file and pay a range of federal taxes. That is one week from today. The IRS says the relief covers the islands of Saipan, Tinian, Rota and the Northern Islands, and it reaches payroll returns that were due October 31.
The agency announced the relief on May 4, 2026, in release NMI-2026-01. The IRS says the typhoon “began on April 11, 2026,” and that affected individuals and businesses have until “Nov. 2, 2026, to file various federal individual and business tax returns and make tax payments.”
The people with the most at stake are small employers and self-employed workers on the four islands, who face the October 31 payroll return, and individuals who put off a return or a payment after the storm. All of them now have a single date to meet, and the date falls on a Monday because October 31 is a Saturday.
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Which returns and payments move to November 2?
Individual income tax returns and payments that were normally due on or after April 11, 2026, are covered. So are estimated income tax payments due on or after that date, which can be paid through November 2 without failure-to-pay estimated tax penalties.
For businesses, the IRS lists quarterly payroll and certain excise tax returns normally due April 30, July 31 and October 31, 2026. All three are due November 2 under the relief. The release also covers other time-sensitive acts listed in Treas. Reg. 301.7508A-1(c)(1) and Rev. Proc. 2018-58 that fall between April 11 and November 2.
What is not covered?
Information returns are excluded. That means the W-2, 1094, 1095, 1097, 1098 and 1099 series, along with Forms 1042-S, 3921, 3922 and 8027. An employer in the covered islands should not read the November 2 date as moving its W-2 or 1099 filing.
Employment and excise tax deposits are also left out, unless a specific act is listed in Rev. Proc. 2018-58. There is a narrow penalty rule here: penalties on payroll and excise deposits due between April 11 and April 27, 2026, “will be abated as long as the tax deposits are made by April 27, 2026.”
Does anyone have to apply?
No. The IRS says it applies the relief automatically to taxpayers located in the covered area. People who live or do business outside the area but have records there, or who are otherwise affected, can call the IRS Special Services toll-free number at 866-562-5227.
A taxpayer who still gets a late filing or late payment penalty notice for a due date inside the relief window should call the number printed on that notice and ask the IRS to abate the penalty. Those who claim a disaster loss should write FEMA declaration number 4910-DR on the return. The same number goes in bold at the top of a Form 4506 or 4506-T request for copies of a return, and the IRS then waives the usual fee.
What else does the release offer?
The IRS also says qualified disaster relief payments are generally excluded from gross income. Eligible taxpayers may take special disaster distributions or hardship withdrawals from retirement plans, subject to each plan’s rules. Under H.R. 1491, the Disaster Related Extension of Deadlines Act, the postponement is treated as an extension when working out the time limit for claiming a refund.
The open question for the islands is the clock. With the deadline a week out, anyone who has not filed or paid has until Monday, November 2, and the IRS release is the reference for which of their forms is on the list.
Filing late after Sinlaku and worried about a penalty letter?
The relief fixes the filing date, but it does not stop IRS letters from arriving. A late-filing or late-payment notice for a date inside the relief window, or a refund that comes back smaller or later than expected, can be hard to read in a storm-recovery year.
The IRS Refund Recovery Kit turns to that next step, not the extension itself: a notice decoder for reading IRS letters, a refund status tracker spreadsheet, and the refund-trace steps (Form 3911) from Part 7, for a refund marked sent that never arrived.
Decode the next IRS letter with the notice decoder in the IRS Refund Recovery Kit →
More Financial Reading
- 21 Ways to Stretch a $2,087 Social Security Check
- 15 Places to Find Your Share of the $4.25 Billion States Give Back
- 17 Medicare Money Moves Now That Part D Caps at $2,400
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
