The Navier–Stokes equations are approximated by means of a fractional step, Chorin–Temam projection method; the time derivative is approximated by a three-level backward finite difference, whereas the approximation in space is performed by a Galerkin technique. It is shown that the proposed scheme yields an error of ${\cal O}(\delta t^2 + h^{l+1})$ for the velocity in the norm of l2(L2(Ω)d), where l ≥ 1 is the polynomial degree of the velocity approximation. It is also shown that the splitting error of projection schemes based on the incremental pressure correction is of ${\cal O}(\delta t^2)$ independent of the approximation order of the velocity time derivative.