Where to mail Form 4868: IRS addresses by state

Where to mail Form 4868 depends on two things: the state you live in, and whether a payment is in the envelope. The table above is copied from page 4 of the IRS form itself, Form 4868 (2025), under "Where To File a Paper Form 4868." The PDF is marked "Created 10/1/25" and is the current revision on the IRS's About Form 4868 page (dated 12 Nov 2026). We read both on 13 Nov 2026.

Which Form 4868 address is yours

• No payment in the envelope. Three IRS centers take the form: Austin, TX 73301-0045, Kansas City, MO 64999-0045 and Ogden, UT 84201-0045. Your state decides which.
• A payment in the envelope. Nine southern states use P.O. Box 1302, Charlotte, NC 28201-1302. Every other state uses P.O. Box 931300, Louisville, KY 40293-1300.
• Arizona, Arkansas, New Mexico and Oklahoma are the mixed row: Austin without a payment, Louisville with one.
• A foreign country, American Samoa or Puerto Rico, an APO or FPO address, and the other cases in that row: Austin, TX 73301-0215 without a payment, P.O. Box 1303, Charlotte, NC 28201-1303 with one.
• Form 1040-NR and Form 1040-SS filers have their own two rows at the bottom of the table. Foreign estates and trusts filing Form 1040-NR use Kansas City, MO 64999-0045 without a payment.

The without-payment addresses have no street and no P.O. box. That is how the IRS prints them: the ZIP+4 code does the routing.

The IRS web page and the form do not match exactly

The IRS also has a web page for these addresses, Where to file addresses for businesses and tax professionals filing Form 4868. It was last reviewed or updated on 17 Jul 2026, yet its first line still says the addresses are for "calendar years 2022 to 2023." We compared it with the 2025 form on 13 Nov 2026:

For the 50 states and the District of Columbia the two agree, address for address. Where they differ, this page follows the form, because it is the newer document and the one you are filling in.

Old addresses are still in the search results

Tables from earlier years are still online, and some rank for this search. One we read on 13 Nov 2026, a software help article marked "Updated 4 years ago," sends Form 4868 to Fresno, CA 93888-0045 and to payment boxes in Hartford, San Francisco and Cincinnati. A template site's page for the 2025 form lists P.O. Box 802503, Cincinnati, OH 45280-2503 as the payment address for several groups of states.

None of those cities is in the IRS table on the 2025 form. Its only payment boxes are Charlotte and Louisville, and its only without-payment centers are Austin, Kansas City and Ogden.

Form 4868 has no signature line

Most IRS forms end with a signature block. This one does not. The 2025 Form 4868 has nine numbered lines:

• lines 1 to 3: your name and address, your Social Security number and your spouse's,
• lines 4 to 7: your estimate of total tax liability, total payments, the balance due and the amount you are paying,
• lines 8 and 9: two checkboxes, for taxpayers who are out of the country and for certain Form 1040-NR filers.

There is no signature line, no date line and no declaration to sign, and the word "signature" does not appear anywhere in the four-page PDF. The IRS does not print a sentence that says so in as many words, the way the Form 7004 instructions say "No signature is required on this form." The form simply has nothing to sign.

So the reason we do not mail this form is different from the one on our pages for Form 1040, Form 941 and Form 940. Those returns must carry an ink signature. Form 4868 has nothing to sign, but it is a slip you cut off the page, as the section "Why Certisent does not mail Form 4868" below explains.

You may not need to mail anything

The form opens with the three ways to request the extension:

1. Pay all or part of your estimated income tax due and indicate that the payment is for an extension.
2. File Form 4868 electronically through IRS e-file.
3. File a paper Form 4868 and enclose payment of your estimate of tax due (optional).

On the first one the form is direct: "You don't need to file Form 4868 if you make a payment using our electronic payment options." On the second: "You'll receive an electronic acknowledgment once you complete the transaction."

Paper is the only route for one group. The form's note says: "If you're a fiscal year taxpayer, you must file a paper Form 4868."

What a paper filer should know before mailing

• The extension is 6 months. The form says it gives 6 more months to file Form 1040, 1040-SR, 1040-NR or 1040-SS, or 4 if you are "out of the country" and a U.S. citizen or resident.
• It is not more time to pay. "Form 4868 doesn't extend the time to pay taxes."
• No approval letter comes. "You don't have to explain why you're asking for the extension. We'll contact you only if your request is denied." When it works, you hear nothing.
• It does not change your address on file. "Showing a new address on Form 4868 won't update your record." The form points to Form 8822 for that.
• Joint filers list both names. If you plan to file a joint return, the form says to include both spouses' names in the order they will appear on the return.
• Do not send it twice. "Don't mail in Form 4868 if you file electronically, unless you're making a payment with a check or money order." And later: "Don't attach a copy of Form 4868 to your return."

One detail about payments. In the 2025 form the section "How To Make a Payment" describes electronic payments only: IRS Direct Pay, your IRS online account, EFTPS, a debit or credit card, or a digital wallet. A check or money order is mentioned once, in the introduction, and the address table still has a with-payment column.

The due date and the postmark

"File Form 4868 by the due date of your Form 1040, 1040-SR, 1040-NR, or 1040-SS," the form says. For a 2025 calendar year return that date was April 15, 2026, and it has passed.

For 2026 returns the IRS has published an early-release draft of the 2026 form (marked "Created 5/13/26" and stamped on every page as a draft that must not be filed). It gives April 15, 2027 as the date for a 2026 calendar year return, and its address table is the same as the 2025 table, row for row. A draft can change. Check the final 2026 form when the IRS posts it.

The IRS page When to file (dated 22 May 2026) says that if the 15th falls on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday, the due date is delayed until the next business day, and that a return "is considered filed on time if your envelope is properly addressed, postmarked and deposited in the mail by the due date."

The rule behind that sentence is 26 U.S.C. 7502, and its regulation, 26 CFR 301.7502-1, says two things about certified mail:

• If the sender's receipt is postmarked by the postal employee to whom the document is presented, the date of the postmark on the receipt is treated as the postmark date of the document.
• For a document, a properly issued, postmarked certified mail sender's receipt and a properly addressed envelope are prima facie evidence that the document was delivered.

Read that closely. The receipt the regulation describes is stamped by a clerk at a post office counter. A letter mailed through an online service, ours included, gets USPS tracking and an electronic return receipt, and the regulation does not address that kind of record. If you are mailing on the last day or two, the counter is the route the rule describes. Our guide to the USPS postmark rule change explains why the date on a postmark may not be the day you dropped the envelope off. This page is general information, not tax advice.

Private delivery services

The form lists the designated services by name: seven from UPS, eight from FedEx and eight from DHL Express. Then it adds a caution: "Private delivery services can't deliver items to P.O. boxes. You must use the U.S. Postal Service to mail any item to an IRS P.O. box address." So a Form 4868 with a payment, which goes to a P.O. box in Charlotte or Louisville, travels by USPS.

For a form without a payment, the IRS gives carriers street addresses (page dated 29 Oct 2026):

• Austin: Internal Revenue Submission Processing Center, 3651 S IH35, Austin, TX 78741
• Kansas City: Internal Revenue Submission Processing Center, 333 W. Pershing, Kansas City, MO 64108
• Ogden: Internal Revenue Submission Processing Center, 1973 Rulon White Blvd., Ogden, UT 84201

Why Certisent does not mail Form 4868

Page 1 of the IRS PDF has instructions on top and the form at the bottom. Between them runs a dashed line marked "DETACH HERE." The form is the slip under that line.

Certisent prints whole pages on letter paper and does not cut them. A Form 4868 sent through us would reach the IRS as a full sheet with the slip still attached. The form does not say what the IRS does with a page that has not been detached, and we found no IRS page that says so either. It may be processed like any other. We cannot confirm that, so we do not mail this form.

What to do instead:

1. Mail the slip yourself. Print page 1, fill in the form, cut along the line and put the slip in your own envelope, addressed to the IRS center for your state from the table above. If the due date is close, take it to a post office counter and ask for Certified Mail, so the clerk postmarks your receipt.
2. E-file Form 4868. The IRS page Get an extension to file your tax return (dated 20 Sep 2026, read 13 Nov 2026) says you can file the form online with an IRS e-filing partner or through a tax professional. It also lists an IRS online filing program that takes extension requests at any income level.
3. Pay online and check the box. The same page says: "Pay what you owe using an online payment option and check the box that you are paying as part of filing for an extension. You don't have to file a separate extension form and you'll receive a confirmation number of your extension for your records." IRS Direct Pay (page dated 17 Sep 2026) is one of those options.

A fiscal year taxpayer has only the first route: the form says that group must file a paper Form 4868.

At a post office the Certified Mail fee is $5.55 and an electronic return receipt is $2.91, plus postage (USPS Notice 123, price list effective 4 Oct 2026, read 13 Nov 2026). Our certified mail guide walks through the counter step by step.