Two postponed filing dates now sit on the IRS disaster relief list: November 2, 2026 and February 1, 2027. Which one applies depends on the declared area where a taxpayer lives, runs a business or keeps the records needed to file. Many of the declarations cover named counties, not whole states.
Which areas carry November 2 and which carry February 1
The IRS’s disaster relief index, dated September 16, links each declaration to its own announcement. Four entries on the list carry the November 2, 2026 date: Mississippi (MS-2026-02), Wisconsin (WI-2026-02), the Northern Mariana Islands (NMI-2026-01) and Michigan (MI-2026-02).
The February 1, 2027 date covers a longer roster. It includes the Hawaii County earthquake, the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, Indiana, Washington wildfires, Nebraska wildfires and storms, a Northern Mariana Islands typhoon, West Virginia, a second Mississippi declaration, Louisiana and Georgia wildfires. Mississippi therefore appears under both dates, for two separate disasters.
Counting from October 1, the November 2 date is 32 days away, while February 1, 2027 gives roughly four months. The gap between the two dates tracks when each disaster began: the Michigan storms started April 10, and the Mississippi tropical storm June 18, according to the announcements below.
The index is a directory and a count of its rows depends on whether each declaration or each jurisdiction is tallied, so this article gives no total.
Michigan’s 36 counties show how narrow a declaration can be
The Michigan announcement, release MI-2026-02 of July 13, lists 36 counties, among them Alcona, Allegan, Kalamazoo, Marquette, Muskegon, Saginaw and Washtenaw. It is not statewide. The disaster period began April 10, 2026, and covers severe storms, tornadoes and flooding.
The postponed items go beyond individual income tax returns. The IRS release names business returns, quarterly payroll returns and estimated tax payments, all moved to November 2, 2026. A household in a Michigan county outside the list keeps the ordinary deadlines unless it falls within one of the other categories of covered taxpayers.
Residents, business owners and people whose records are elsewhere
The IRS says the declaration allows it to postpone deadlines “for taxpayers who reside or have a business in the disaster area.” Relief also reaches taxpayers who live elsewhere but whose records needed to meet a deadline are stuck in the covered area. The Mississippi announcement adds two more groups: workers affiliated with recognized government or philanthropic relief organizations in the area, and individuals injured or killed in the disaster.
Each announcement is the place where a taxpayer finds the exact county list, because the index page itself only links to them. A household that assumes a state name on the index means every county in that state can misjudge its own date, and the IRS notice for the specific declaration is the document that settles it.
The records rule matters for a bookkeeper or accountant who keeps a client’s files in a flooded office. A taxpayer in an unaffected county can still fall within the relief if the paperwork needed to file sits in the declared area.
What the February 1 relief does and does not postpone
The Mississippi announcement for Tropical Storm Arthur, MS-2026-03, issued August 7, covers eight counties: Covington, George, Greene, Hancock, Harrison, Pearl River, Stone and Wayne. The disaster began June 18, 2026, and the release ties it to FEMA declaration 4930-DR.
Most federal returns and payments originally due between June 18, 2026 and February 1, 2027 move to the later date, as do estimated tax payments due on or after June 18. Individuals with valid extensions for 2025 returns also get February 1, 2027, but the release states that tax payments originally due April 15, 2026 are not eligible for relief. The extension of time to file stretched the paperwork deadline, not the date the tax itself was due.
Certain filings are not covered. The IRS excludes information returns such as the W-2, the 1094 and 1095 series and the 1097 through 1099 series, plus employment and excise tax deposits, though penalty abatement applies to some deposits made by a stated date.
Penalty notices, hotlines and the refund clock
A taxpayer in a covered area who receives a late-filing or late-payment penalty notice that conflicts with the postponed date can call the number on the notice, according to the IRS. The agency says it abates those penalties on request. The Mississippi release lists free tax-help hotlines: 800-906-9887 for VITA and Tax Counseling for the Elderly volunteers and 888-227-7669 for AARP Tax-Aide.
The Michigan release also notes a refund-clock rule. Under the Disaster Related Extension of Deadlines Act, “the postponement of a federal tax return deadline due to a federally declared disaster is treated as an extension for purposes of calculating the limit on a tax refund.” That affects households who file late in a covered area and later claim a refund.
The IRS announcements are the controlling record, and each declaration page names its own counties and its own cutoff dates. The disaster index confirms only that those two dates are the current ones.
Keeping refund paperwork straight after a disaster declaration
A postponed deadline does not end the paperwork. Households in a declared area can end up holding late notices, partial refunds and a mix of old and new due dates.
The IRS Refund Recovery Kit is a 13-page kit with a notice decoder, a refund status tracker spreadsheet and the Form 3911 refund-trace steps.
Start with The IRS Refund Recovery Kit’s refund status tracker →
AI assisted in drafting this piece, and the dates and counties were checked against the IRS announcements it cites.
