Form 4868 Instructions, Line by Line

Which form this covers

This page follows the 2025 Form 4868 (created October 1, 2025, Cat. No. 13141W). Form 4868 is dated by tax year, and its instructions are printed on pages 1 to 4 of the form. There's no separate instructions booklet. When the IRS posts the next year's form, we check every line again.

Header: calendar or other tax year

If your tax year is the calendar year, leave the header blank. If you're on a fiscal year, write the start and end dates. Fiscal-year filers must file Form 4868 on paper, by the due date of their fiscal-year return.

Line 1: your name(s) and address

• Joint return: both spouses' names, in the order they'll appear on the return.
• Correspondence can go to an address other than yours, or to an agent; include the agent's name (as well as your own) and address.
• Changed your name? Report it to the Social Security Administration before you file Form 4868.
• Moved? File Form 8822 to change your IRS address; Form 4868 won't update it.
• APO or FPO addresses go in the city and state boxes (for example APO and AE).

Lines 2 and 3: Social Security numbers

On a joint return, line 2 is the SSN shown first on your return and line 3 the other one. A foreign estate or trust filing Form 1040-NR enters its EIN on line 2 and writes "estate" or "trust" in the left margin next to it.

If you have an ITIN, enter it wherever an SSN is asked for. If you don't have an SSN or ITIN, and aren't eligible for an SSN, write "ITIN TO BE REQUESTED." You don't need an ITIN to file Form 4868, but you'll need one to file your return (see Form W-7).

Line 4: estimate of total tax liability

Enter the total tax you expect to report: Form 1040, 1040-SR or 1040-NR, line 24, or Form 1040-SS, Part I, line 7. If you expect it to be zero, enter -0-.

Make it as accurate as you can with what you know. The form warns that if the IRS later finds the estimate wasn't reasonable, the extension is null and void. How to estimate it.

Line 5: estimate of total payments

Enter the total payments you expect to report: Form 1040, 1040-SR or 1040-NR, line 33 (not counting Schedule 3, line 10), or Form 1040-SS, Part I, line 12 (not counting Part I, line 9). In practice: federal tax withheld from pay and other income, estimated tax payments, and refundable credits. Don't include what you're paying with this Form 4868.

Line 6: balance due

Subtract line 5 from line 4. If line 5 is more than line 4, enter -0-.

Line 7: amount you're paying

What you're sending with the form. If you can't pay all of line 6, you can still get the extension, but pay as much as you can: interest and the late-payment penalty run on the unpaid part from April 15, 2027.

Line 8: out of the country

Check it if you're a U.S. citizen or resident and, on the due date of your return, you live outside the United States and Puerto Rico and your main place of work is outside them too, or you're in military or naval service on duty outside them. More for Americans abroad.

Line 9: Form 1040-NR filers

Check it if you file Form 1040-NR, didn't receive wages subject to U.S. income tax withholding, and your return is due June 15. More for nonresident aliens.

Rounding to whole dollars

You can round cents to whole dollars. If you do, round every amount. Drop amounts under 50 cents and raise 50 to 99 cents to the next dollar, so $1.39 becomes $1 and $2.50 becomes $3. If you add several amounts for one line, add them with cents and round only the total.

The confirmation number line on page 3

Page 3 has a spot to write the confirmation number from an electronic payment. It's for your records, not part of the form you mail.