The monthly cycle

By the 5th of the following month
Submit EREMs via EPS and the FP34C via MYS by the 5th of the month following supply. Where a bank holiday falls in the first five days, the deadline moves to the 6th.
180 days — the hard stop
EREMs sent later than 180 days after the Dispense Notification are not paid at all. This is the one deadline on this page with no remedy behind it.
After the 5th, before the cut-off
The advance slips a full month: it becomes an estimate for prescriptions submitted one month earlier, dispensed two months earlier. A £25 administrative deduction may apply.
After the published cut-off
No advance at all. Payment waits for reconciliation.

2026 submission cut-offs

Published cut-off dates for 2026, after which no advance is paid for that month:

Worth knowingPut the cut-off in the diary, not the 5th. The 5th is the target; the cut-off is the point at which a month's advance disappears from your cash flow entirely. Those are very different consequences and most rotas are built around the wrong one.

Pharmacy Quality Scheme

11:59pm, 26 February 2027
The PQS declaration deadline. The scheme is worth £20 million across the sector in 2026/27.

Registration and ownership

Within 28 days — a personal duty
Where a superintendent pharmacist ceases to act, the outgoing superintendent must notify the registrar in writing within 28 days. Section 71(8) puts that duty on the individual, not on the company — so it does not disappear because the business forgot.
Worth knowingChange of ownership is the expensive one to miss. Amending the register costs £90. Restoring it after the fact costs £935 — roughly a tenfold swing — and in between there is a period during which the premises cannot lawfully trade as a registered pharmacy.

The tax dates, for completeness

Corporation tax is due nine months and one day after the accounting period ends, with the return due twelve months after. Self assessment is 31 January, with payments on account on 31 January and 31 July. VAT is one month and seven days after each quarter end. None of that is pharmacy-specific, which is exactly why it is at the bottom of this page rather than the top.

The dates that are not on a calendar at all

Concessionary prices — in tranches, after the month
Where no product is available at the Part VIII price, a concession can be granted. It applies for that month only, to all contractors, automatically — NHSBSA is explicit that no endorsement is needed. But the tranches land late: for July 2026 dispensing, DHSC-agreed prices were issued on 22, 29 and 31 July and 4 August — the last of them after the month had been dispensed. Eight July concessions were then rolled into August. Multiple rounds a month is the norm.
Worth knowingConcessions can also be deliberately constrained. Clause 8B2 provides that whenever recouping of over-delivered medicine margin is taking place, the Department may hold concessionary prices down so as not to undermine that recouping — and says the prices granted may therefore be lower than they otherwise would have been. April to June 2024 concessions were constrained to reflect a £16.2m downward adjustment.
Retrospective top-ups — three quarters later
April–June dispensing tops up the following January; July–September in April; October–December in July; January–March in the October of the same year. Applied automatically by NHSBSA on the volume you were paid for. Not paid if the pharmacy ceased trading before the determination is made, even though you were trading in the month it covers.
Category A and M determinations — quarterly
Part VIIIA prices are set monthly and take effect on the 1st, but Category A and M determinations run on a quarterly cycle in January, April, July and October. A mid-month move in what your wholesaler charges is not reflected until a concession is granted, the next determination lands, or an out-of-cycle change is made — and in the meantime the difference sits with you.