What is RTI? Real Time Information reporting explained

Real Time Information — RTI — is the system through which every UK employer reports payroll to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). If you run a payroll, you are already inside it: every payslip you produce generates data that reaches HMRC on or before the day your employees are paid. This guide explains where RTI came from, the submissions it involves, who must file, and what happens when filings are late — with links to detailed guides on each part of the system.

What is RTI and why was it introduced?

Before 2013, employers reported PAYE (Pay As You Earn) information to HMRC once a year, on end-of-year returns. HMRC only discovered what employees had actually earned — and whether the right tax had been collected — months after the tax year closed. The result was a system that ran on estimates and corrections: wrong tax codes persisting for months, underpayments and overpayments discovered in bulk each summer.

RTI, rolled out to most employers during 2013, inverted the model. Instead of an annual return, employers report pay, tax and National Insurance every time they pay employees, electronically, on or before payday. HMRC's records now update in near real time, which serves two purposes: employee tax codes can be corrected during the year rather than after it, and government systems that depend on current earnings data — most importantly Universal Credit — can see what claimants actually earned this month, not last year.

For employers, the practical consequence is rhythm. Payroll reporting is no longer a year-end event; it is part of every pay run, at whatever frequency you pay.

The RTI submission types

Day to day, RTI consists of two submissions, with a third mechanism for correcting closed years.

The Full Payment Submission (FPS)

The FPS is the workhorse. Sent on or before each payday, it reports every employee paid in the run: gross pay, tax deducted, employee and employer National Insurance, student loan deductions, pension contributions, starter and leaver information, and cumulative year-to-date figures. It is how HMRC learns that an employment has started, what it pays, and when it ends. Because it is tied to payday rather than a calendar date, an employer paying weekly files 52 or 53 of them a year.

Our dedicated guide to the Full Payment Submission covers the data fields, the on-or-before rule and the three-day easement, and how to correct an FPS that went out wrong.

The Employer Payment Summary (EPS)

The EPS is the adjustments channel. It carries no employee data; instead it reports things about the scheme as a whole that change what you owe HMRC or explain a gap in filings: recovery of statutory payments such as Statutory Maternity Pay, a claim for the Employment Allowance, Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) deductions suffered by a limited-company subcontractor, a tax month in which no employees were paid, or a planned period of inactivity. Unlike the FPS it is not sent every period — only when one of those situations applies, by the 19th of the following tax month.

See our full guide to the Employer Payment Summary, including a month-by-month decision checklist.

Corrections and the end of the EYU

For years, mistakes discovered after a tax year closed were fixed with an Earlier Year Update (EYU), a submission reporting the difference between the original and corrected figures. The EYU has been withdrawn. Closed years are now corrected the same way as open ones: by sending an additional FPS carrying the corrected year-to-date figures, which overwrite what HMRC previously held. One mechanism, one direction of travel — the latest YTD figures win.

Who must file RTI?

Every employer operating a PAYE scheme, with only narrow exceptions. That includes:

• Limited companies with employees — including one-person companies where the director takes a salary;
• Sole traders and partnerships with staff;
• Charities and community organisations that employ people;
• Household employers — a family employing a nanny or carer through PAYE;
• Employers whose employees all earn below the tax and NI thresholds, if any employee has another job or receives a pension (which is what triggers the need for a PAYE scheme).

If you have no PAYE scheme because no employee meets the conditions requiring one, RTI does not apply — but once a scheme exists, HMRC expects a submission for every tax month, whether that is an FPS from a pay run or an EPS explaining that nobody was paid.

How RTI filing actually works

RTI is software-to-software. There is no web form on which to type an FPS; submissions travel from payroll software to HMRC's Government Gateway in a defined electronic format, and HMRC returns an acknowledgement for each one. In practice the flow inside good software looks like this:

Step	What happens
1. Run payroll	Software calculates pay, tax, NI and other deductions for the period
2. Review	You check the run — payslips, totals, starters and leavers
3. Submit FPS	The software builds the FPS from the run and sends it to HMRC on or before payday
4. Acknowledgement	HMRC confirms receipt; the software stores the acknowledgement as your filing evidence
5. Month-end EPS (if needed)	Where there are recoveries, claims or a nil-payment period, an EPS follows by the 19th

The acknowledgement trail matters more than it looks. If a filing dispute ever arises, the timestamped acknowledgements are your proof of what was sent and when. Taxriva files FPS and EPS submissions to HMRC from within each pay run and keeps that trail automatically — see our FPS and EPS filing software page for the details.

Penalties: an overview

RTI has teeth, though they are more measured than employers sometimes fear. Late FPS filings attract monthly penalties scaled to scheme size — £100 per month for schemes with 1 to 9 employees, rising to £400 for schemes with 250 or more — but the first late submission in a tax year is not penalised, and filings within three days of payday are not normally penalised either, provided lateness does not become a pattern. Separate penalties exist for inaccurate returns where carelessness or deliberate error is involved, and interest and penalties apply to late payment of the PAYE itself, which is a distinct obligation from late filing.

Where no submission arrives at all for a period, HMRC may also raise an estimated charge and pursue it until real figures are filed. The full penalty structure, the concessions, late reporting reason codes and the appeals route are covered in our guide to late FPS submission penalties.

RTI in the payroll year

RTI did not abolish the tax year — it changed what year end feels like. Under RTI, the final FPS or EPS of the year (flagged as the final submission) replaces the old end-of-year return, and P60s for employees are generated from data HMRC already holds. For the 2026/27 tax year, that means the last submission on or before 5 April 2027 closes the year, and most corrections after that date travel as year-to-date FPS amendments rather than separate year-end filings.

Quick reference

• RTI = Real Time Information: payroll reported to HMRC on or before every payday, since 2013.
• Two regular submissions: the FPS (employee-level, every payday) and the EPS (scheme-level, only when needed).
• The EYU is gone — closed years are corrected with a year-to-date FPS.
• Applies to every PAYE scheme, from one employee to thousands.
• Filing is software-to-software — keep the acknowledgements.
• Late filing penalties scale with scheme size; the first late FPS each tax year is penalty-free.