The 31st carries two things at once. It is the deadline for filing a self-assessment tax return on paper — three months earlier than the online deadline of 31 January — and it is Halloween, which has grown from a minor import into one of the busiest evenings of the British autumn.
October opens the fourth calendar quarter of 2026 and is the seventh month of the tax year, with the paper filing deadline at its far end. Anyone who has left the return to the online deadline in January still has three months, but the money owed is due at the same time either way.
October 2026 closes on Halloween with the clocks already back and the evenings collapsing inwards. November follows with Bonfire Night five days later, Remembrance on the 11th and the Sunday nearest it, and St Andrew's Day at the end for Scotland.
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