Lowe’s FY2026 runs from early February 2025 through late January 2026
The Lowe’s fiscal year ends on the Friday nearest to January 31. FY2026 covered February 2025 through January 30, 2026, and FY2027 started on January 31, 2026 and runs through January 29, 2027. Lowe’s uses a 4-5-4 retail fiscal calendar with 52 weeks in a standard year, split into four quarters of 13 weeks each.
Lowe’s pays all associates biweekly on Fridays, producing 26 paychecks per year. Your pay stubs, W-2 forms, and direct deposit settings are all accessible through MyLowesLife at myloweslife.com, which has been the main employee portal since 2009.
How to find fiscal calendar info on MyLowesLife
Everything payroll-related at Lowe’s runs through MyLowesLife. Here is how to get to the information that matters:
Pay stubs and pay dates: Log into myloweslife.com with your Sales Number (your employee ID). Go to My Wealth, then Payroll Services. From there, you can view current and past pay stubs, see your next payday, and confirm your direct deposit setup.
W-2 tax forms: Under the same Payroll Services section, click W-2 Services. Current associates can view and download W-2s here. Former employees need to use mytaxform.com with employer code 11116 instead. The Lowe’s W-2 page has the full walkthrough, and the former employee W-2 page covers the Equifax/mytaxform process.
Benefits enrollment: Benefits info lives in a separate section of MyLowesLife. During open enrollment (typically in the fall), you will see a banner or notification directing you to the enrollment portal. Changes take effect at the start of the new fiscal year in February. The Lowe’s employee benefits page covers all available plans including the 401(k) through Wells Fargo.
Schedule and time tracking: Your work schedule is managed through the Kronos integration on MyLowesLife. Shift swaps and time-off requests go through this same system.
One thing to be aware of: new hires at Lowe’s initially go through Workday for onboarding, then transition to MyLowesLife as their primary portal. These are separate systems with separate login credentials. The Lowe’s login portals page explains the two-step process.
Do this / don’t do this: Lowe’s fiscal calendar edition
Do this: Check MyLowesLife at the start of each month to confirm your next two pay dates. While the biweekly schedule is predictable, bank holidays can shift your deposit date.
Don’t do this: Assume that myloweslife.com and lowes.com are the same thing. They are completely separate websites. The employee portal is myloweslife.com. The shopping website is lowes.com. Typing the wrong URL is one of the most common mistakes new Lowe’s employees make.
Do this: Mark the two three-paycheck months on your personal calendar at the start of the year. In a biweekly schedule, two months will have three Fridays that fall on paydays. Use that extra check strategically.
Don’t do this: Wait until January to check your W-2 availability. If you are a former employee, set up your mytaxform.com account (code 11116) before tax season starts. Former employees who wait until the last minute often run into verification issues.
Do this: Review your benefits elections during open enrollment in the fall. Lowe’s benefits reset at the fiscal year boundary in February, not January 1 like at CVS or other calendar-year companies.
Don’t do this: Forget that Lowe’s 401(k) contribution limits follow the IRS calendar year (Jan-Dec), even though benefits enrollment follows the fiscal year (Feb-Jan). These two calendars run on different tracks.
Lowe’s fiscal year timeline for FY2027
Q1 (late January/February – April 2026): Fiscal year begins. New benefits elections take effect. Annual merit increases typically process in early spring. Store managers receive updated labor budgets for the year.
Q2 (May – July 2026): Mid-year review period. Spring and summer are peak selling seasons for home improvement, so expect scheduling intensity to increase. The employee discount (10% off all Lowe’s products) applies year-round. See the Lowe’s employee discounts page for what is covered.
Q3 (August – October 2026): Open enrollment for next year’s benefits typically opens during this quarter. Fall also brings back-to-school and early holiday planning for stores. The BenefitHub portal (benefithub.com) offers additional discounts on travel, movies, and other services outside of the standard 10% store discount.
Q4 (November 2026 – January 2027): Busiest quarter for holiday sales. Fiscal year wraps up in late January. W-2 forms for the calendar year (Jan-Dec 2026) are generated and must be delivered by January 31, 2027. PTO carryover rules apply at the fiscal year boundary.
How Lowe’s compares to Home Depot on the fiscal calendar
Lowe’s and Home Depot are direct competitors, and their fiscal calendars are nearly identical. Both end in late January or early February, both use 4-5-4 retail calendars, and both pay biweekly on Fridays with 26 paychecks per year.
The differences show up in compensation. Lowe’s offers a 10% employee discount on all merchandise, which Home Depot does not offer at all. Home Depot compensates through its Success Sharing bonus program instead, which is tied to fiscal half-year store performance. At Lowe’s, there is no equivalent store-performance bonus for hourly associates, but the 10% discount is immediate and year-round.
On the 401(k), Lowe’s runs through Wells Fargo, while Home Depot uses its own plan with up to 5% matching. Both follow IRS calendar-year limits for contributions.
How the fiscal calendar affects your paycheck math
Because Lowe’s operates on a biweekly pay schedule with 26 paychecks per year, your pay does not divide evenly across calendar months. Ten months will have two paychecks, and two months will have three. If you are salaried, each paycheck reflects 1/26th of your annual salary. If you are hourly, each check reflects the hours you actually worked during that 14-day pay period.
The fiscal year boundary in late January or early February can sometimes cause a pay period to straddle two fiscal years. From a tax perspective, this does not matter because your W-2 follows the calendar year. But from a benefits perspective, your new elections kick in when the fiscal year resets in February, so you might see changes to your deduction amounts on the paycheck that falls right at the transition.
Your spouse can also use the 10% Lowe’s employee discount, which makes it one of the more practical perks in home improvement retail. The discount applies in-store and online and works year-round with no blackout periods tied to the fiscal calendar.
What associates should remember
The Lowe’s fiscal year runs from early February through late January. Benefits enrollment happens in the fall and takes effect in February. Paychecks arrive every other Friday, 26 times per year, and your W-2 follows the standard January-to-December tax year.
Everything payroll-related lives on MyLowesLife at myloweslife.com. Former employees should bookmark mytaxform.com (code 11116) for W-2 access. For HR help, go to corporate.lowes.com/my-hr or check the Lowe’s HR contact guide. For Lowe’s PTO policies and all other topics, start at the Lowe’s employee resource hub.