Only from when the income starts. Your first payment is due at the next quarterly deadline, and Schedule AI shows the IRS that nothing was due before that.
Estimated tax follows the income. If the first invoice cleared in July, nothing was due in April or June, and your first payment is due September 15. From there the rule is the normal one. Pay the tax on what you have earned by each remaining deadline.
The catch is on the return. By default the IRS figures the underpayment penalty as if a quarter of the year's required payment was due on each date, which shows you short in April and June for income you did not have. Form 2210's annualized income method fixes that. Schedule AI takes your income period by period, and a period with no income requires no payment. File it with the return and the early quarters show no penalty.
Check the safe harbor before paying anything. If you were an employee earlier in the year, the withholding from those paychecks counts, and Form 2210 treats it as paid evenly across all four quarters. If that withholding already covers last year's total tax, no estimated payment is required, even with a large freelance balance due in April. The bar is 110% of last year's tax if last year's adjusted gross income was over $150,000.
If safe harbor does not cover you, set aside a share of each payment from the start. For most new freelancers 25% to 30% of profit covers income tax and self-employment tax, and the 1099 tax calculator turns that into your own number for the quarters that remain. The first-year guide covers the whole calendar.
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Sources: IRS Publication 505· Form 2210 instructions