Which Hurricane Isaias Deadlines Move to Feb. 4 or Feb. 8 and Which Don't

On October 14, 2026, the IRS announced Hurricane Isaias tax relief in two separate releases: taxpayers in 40 listed Alabama counties now have until Feb. 4, 2027, and taxpayers in 27 listed Florida counties have until Feb. 8, 2027, to file returns and make payments that come due inside each state's window. The Alabama window opens on Oct. 7, 2026, and the Florida window on Oct. 9, 2026, because each release dates the storm from its own start. For readers, the change is narrower than the headline: a 2025 return on extension and a January estimated-tax installment move, but the 2025 balance due April 15, 2026, does not, and payroll deposits get only a penalty waiver that ends this month.

The trap sits in the word “deadline.” Each date is the new due date only for items that originally came due inside the window. A balance that came due before it keeps its old due date and keeps accruing, even when the same taxpayer's return moves to February. Alongside both releases sits a third pair of numbers: the Code now sets a mandatory postponement of 120 days, while the regulation still reads 60.

What the IRS Published on October 14

The IRS news release AL-2026-01 on Hurricane Isaias in Alabama dates the storm from Oct. 7, 2026, and then says: “These taxpayers now have until Feb. 4, 2027, to file various federal individual and business tax returns and make tax payments.” The IRS news release FL-2026-07 on Hurricane Isaias in Florida, dated the same day, repeats that sentence with Feb. 8, 2027, and dates the storm from Oct. 9, 2026.

The releases rest on different declarations. Alabama's relief comes “Following the disaster declaration issued by the State of Alabama,” numbered AL-0017-DR. Florida's comes “Following the disaster declaration issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),” numbered 3655-EM. The Code handles those two kinds of declaration in different subsections.

The Alabama list names 40 counties and the Florida list 27; neither release prints a total. Escambia and Washington appear on both lists, as different counties in different states, so Escambia County, Alabama, works from Feb. 4 while Escambia County, Florida, works from Feb. 8. Inside the lists, “The IRS automatically identifies taxpayers located in the covered disaster area and applies filing and payment relief.” Affected taxpayers outside them are told to call the IRS Special Services line at 866-562-5227.

Two Windows, Counted From Two Start Dates

Both releases define the window the same way. Florida's version reads: “For instance, certain deadlines falling on or after Oct. 9, 2026, and before Feb. 8, 2027, are granted additional time to file.” The follow-on sentence gives the result: “As a result, affected individuals and businesses will have until Feb. 8, 2027, to file returns and pay any taxes that were originally due during this period.” Alabama's sentences match except for the dates, Oct. 7 and Feb. 4.

The windows differ in length. Oct. 7, 2026, to Feb. 4, 2027, is 120 days; Oct. 9, 2026, to Feb. 8, 2027, is 122. Counting 120 days from Oct. 9 lands on Saturday, Feb. 6, 2027, and Feb. 8 is the Monday after. The releases state no day count, so the 120-day pattern is arithmetic, not a stated rule. The start dates set the boundary: a due date before Oct. 7 in Alabama, or Oct. 9 in Florida, is outside the window.

The Extension Filer Holds Two Due Dates

Extension filers are the likeliest to misread the new date. Florida's release says: “The Feb. 8, 2027, deadline applies to individuals who had a valid extension to file their 2025 individual income tax return.” The next sentence, which appears in both releases, sets the limit: “Because tax payments related to these 2025 returns were due on April 15, 2026, those payments are not eligible for this relief.”

An extension filer holds two due dates for one return. The extended filing date fell in October, after the storm began, so it moves. The payment date was April 15, 2026, so it stays. The regulation frames the test around the due date. Under eCFR 26 CFR 301.7508A-1, paragraph (b)(2): “When an affected taxpayer is required to perform a tax-related act by a due date that falls within the postponement period, the affected taxpayer is eligible for postponement of time to perform the act until the last day of the period. The affected taxpayer is eligible for relief from interest, penalties, additional amounts, or additions to tax during the postponement period.”

Relief from interest attaches to acts due inside the window. An April balance is “not eligible for this relief,” so ordinary interest and penalty rules keep running on it. An Alabama extension filer who left it unpaid and pays on Feb. 4, 2027, has carried that balance for 295 days; a Florida filer paying on Feb. 8, for 299. The return is timely through the new date. The money owed since April is not.

Payment plans get a narrower version. Both releases say: “Missed payments during the postponement period will not cause an installment agreement to default.” Then: “However, the usual interest and late-payment penalty charges will continue to accrue during this period.” The plan survives; the cost of waiting keeps running.

Which Due Dates Fall Inside the Window

The releases point to the regulation for the postponed acts. Paragraph (c)(1) of 301.7508A-1 lists seven: (i) filing income, estate, gift, generation-skipping, excise and employment tax returns, with firearms, harbor maintenance, and alcohol and tobacco taxes carved out of excise; (ii) paying those taxes, including installment agreement payments; (iii) certain retirement plan contributions, distributions, recharacterizations and rollovers; (iv) filing a Tax Court petition or seeking review of a Tax Court decision; (v) filing a refund claim; (vi) bringing a refund suit; and (vii) any other act named in guidance published in the Internal Revenue Bulletin. Item (iv) moves a petition period closing inside the window; how that clock starts is in Ninety Days to Petition the Tax Court Starts at Mailing, Not the Notice Date.

Item (ii) carries the exception behind the shortest deadline in both releases. It covers payment of tax “but not including deposits of taxes pursuant to section 6302 and the regulations under section 6302.” Payroll and excise deposits are not postponed; the releases waive the penalty for a short stretch instead. Alabama: “Penalties on payroll and excise tax deposits due on or after Oct. 7, 2026, and before Oct. 22, 2026, will be abated as long as the tax deposits are made by Oct. 22, 2026.” Florida's runs from Oct. 9 to Oct. 26, 2026: 17 days against Alabama's 15, and 15 days from Oct. 9 would have ended on Saturday, Oct. 24. Neither Feb. 4 nor Feb. 8 applies to deposits.

The quarterly returns that report those deposits do move. Alabama: “The Feb. 4, 2027, deadline also applies to affected quarterly payroll and certain excise tax returns normally due on Nov. 2, 2026.” Florida's sentence ends “normally due on Nov. 2, 2026, and Feb. 1, 2027.” Alabama's list omits Feb. 1, 2027, but that date is on or after Oct. 7 and before Feb. 4, so the general window sentence still reaches it.

Estimated tax has its own sentence. In Alabama's, payments originally due on or after Oct. 7, 2026, “are postponed through Feb. 4, 2027,” and carry no estimated-tax penalty if paid by then; Florida's uses Oct. 9 and Feb. 8. For a calendar-year individual, that captures the fourth 2026 installment, due in January 2027, and leaves out the September installment. Whether paying last year's tax in full avoids the underpayment penalty at all is a separate test, covered in The Wallet Compass on paying last year's tax in full.

Alabama's Release Prints Feb. 7 Once

One sentence in the Alabama release disagrees with the rest of the page. Where Florida's extension sentence says Feb. 8, Alabama's reads: “The Feb. 7, 2027, deadline applies to individuals who had a valid extension to file their 2025 individual income tax return.” That is the only place Feb. 7 appears on the page. Every other end date in the release, including the window sentence, is Feb. 4. Feb. 7, 2027, is a Sunday.

That leaves an Alabama extension filer a three-day gap. The window definition and the “As a result” sentence both end at Feb. 4; Feb. 7 has no window sentence behind it. Until the IRS reissues the page, a return filed by Feb. 4 satisfies both readings, and one filed later relies on the single sentence that disagrees with every other end date in the release.

The Statute Says 120 Days, the Regulation Still Says 60

Alabama's relief exists because of a 2025 law. The Filing Relief for Natural Disasters Act, Public Law 119-29, on GovInfo, enacted July 24, 2025, added subsection (c) to section 7508A. As codified in 26 U.S.C. 7508A, Legal Information Institute text of the U.S. Code, (c)(1) lets the Secretary, after consulting FEMA and on a governor's written request, apply subsections (a) and (b) to a qualified State declared disaster “in the same manner” as a federal one. That definition lists “any hurricane,” and the law applies “to declarations made after the date of the enactment of this Act.”

The same law moved the mandatory rule, now subsection (e), from 60 days to 120 in three places: (e)(1)(B), the multiple-declaration rule in (e)(6), and the heading. Subsection (e)(1) starts the period “on the earliest incident date specified in the declaration” and ends it “on the date which is 120 days after the later of such earliest incident date described in subparagraph (A) or the date such declaration was issued,” for six kinds of qualified taxpayer: (A) residents, (B) businesses based there, (C) relief workers, (D) taxpayers whose needed records are kept there, (E) visitors killed or injured, and (F) joint-return spouses.

The regulation has not caught up. The eCFR page for 301.7508A-1, marked up to date as of Oct. 15, 2026, still carries the heading “Mandatory 60-day postponement” and cites section 7508A(d), the subsection's letter before the 2025 redesignation. Its formula differs too: “The mandatory 60-day postponement period begins on the earliest incident date specified in a disaster declaration for a federally declared disaster and ends on the date that is 60 days after the latest incident date specified in the disaster declaration.”

The texts part ways on length and on anchor. Take a hypothetical storm with an incident period of Oct. 7 to Oct. 10, 2026, and a major-disaster declaration on Nov. 2, 2026. The regulation's formula ends the mandatory period on Dec. 9, 2026; the statute's ends it on March 2, 2027, 83 days later and 26 days past Alabama's Feb. 4. The statute is the later text.

Neither Isaias release appears to depend on subsection (e) today. Its disaster area is “an area in which a major disaster for which the President provides financial assistance under section 408 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5174) occurs.” Alabama's relief rests on a governor's declaration under subsection (c); Florida's on 3655-EM, whose EM suffix points to an emergency declaration rather than a major disaster. If a major-disaster declaration with section 408 assistance follows in either state, (e)(5) says its period “shall be in addition to (or concurrent with, as the case may be) any period specified under subsection (a) or (b) with respect to such person.” A late declaration could carry the mandatory end date past Feb. 4 or Feb. 8.

The Refund Clock Moves Too

Public Law 119-64, enacted Dec. 26, 2025, added a subsection to 7508A: “For purposes of section 6511(b)(2)(A), any period disregarded under this section with respect to the time prescribed for filing any return of tax shall be treated as an extension of time for filing such return.” Both releases describe the effect as treating the postponement “as an extension for purposes of calculating the limit on a tax refund,” giving more time to claim a refund or credit.

They word the scope differently. Alabama's says “the postponement of a federal tax return deadline under section 7508A is treated as an extension.” Florida's says “the postponement of a federal tax return deadline due to a federally declared disaster is treated as an extension.” The statute reaches “any period disregarded under this section,” and a period disregarded for Alabama through (c)(1), which applies subsection (a) to a state-declared disaster, is disregarded under this section, so Alabama's wording tracks the statute and Florida's narrower phrase describes its own federal declaration, not the edge of the rule.

Numbers to Re-check

• Feb. 4 and Feb. 8, 2027. Alabama and Florida end dates. Check which list holds the county; Escambia and Washington are on both.
• Oct. 7 and Oct. 9, 2026. Start dates. The April 15, 2026, payment falls before both.
• 120 and 122 days. Window lengths by count; Florida's 120th day is Saturday, Feb. 6.
• Oct. 22 and Oct. 26, 2026. Deposit penalty cutoffs, 15 and 17 days in.
• Feb. 7, 2027. The one Alabama sentence that disagrees with Feb. 4.
• Nov. 2, 2026, and Feb. 1, 2027. Quarterly payroll return dates that move; Alabama lists only the first.
• 295 and 299 days. How long an unpaid April balance has run by Feb. 4 and Feb. 8.
• 60 against 120 days. Regulation and statute on the mandatory period; recheck eCFR for an update.
• 40 and 27 counties. Counted from the lists.

Where This Doesn't Apply

The postponement covers federal tax deadlines only; state deadlines in Alabama and Florida sit outside both releases. It reaches only the regulation's nine categories of affected taxpayer in paragraph (d)(1): (i) individuals whose principal residence is in a covered disaster area; (ii) businesses and sole proprietors whose principal place of business is there; (iii) relief workers assisting there; (iv) individuals or businesses outside the area whose needed records are kept inside it; (v) estates and trusts whose needed records are kept there; (vi) the spouse of an affected taxpayer, for a joint return only; (vii) any individual, business or sole proprietorship outside the area whose needed records are located there; (viii) visitors killed or injured in the disaster; and (ix) any other person the IRS determines to be affected. Those not tied to an address on the county lists are the ones sent to the 866 number.

Several items sit outside the windows entirely: payments due April 15, 2026; payroll and excise deposits, which get only the penalty waiver; and a 2026 individual return due in April 2027, after both windows close. The option to claim a disaster loss on the prior year's return appears in the Florida release, tied to “a federally declared disaster area”; the Alabama release contains no casualty-loss paragraph, so Alabama readers should not treat that option as part of this relief.

The record has limits: the declaration type behind 3655-EM was not confirmed from a FEMA or Federal Register notice, and a corrected release, a later major-disaster declaration, or an updated regulation would change the dates above.