Can You File a 1099 Without a Tax ID Number? Backup Withholding Rules

Yes, you can file a 1099 without a tax ID number, and if you made the reportable payment you’re required to file even when the payee refuses to hand one over. Leave the recipient’s TIN box blank on the form and submit it on schedule. What changes when the number is missing is everything around the form: you have to start backup withholding at 24 percent, you take on penalty exposure of up to $340 per return for 2026 filings, and you need a paper trail showing you asked for the number more than once.

What To Put on the Form When the TIN Is Missing

The IRS instruction is simple. Leave the recipient’s TIN field blank. Do not invent a number, and do not enter all zeros unless your filing software specifically requires it for processing.¹ Fill in every other field the way you normally would: payer information, recipient name and address, the amount paid, and the box that matches the type of income.

If you’re filing on paper, include Form 1096 as the transmittal cover sheet summarizing the batch, with a separate 1096 for each type of 1099 you’re submitting.² If you’re filing 10 or more information returns of any type combined during the year, paper is not an option: you must file electronically through the IRS FIRE system, which follows the technical formatting rules in Publication 1220 for how a missing TIN field is transmitted.³

Start Backup Withholding Immediately

The moment a payee refuses to give you a TIN, or gives you something obviously invalid — not nine digits, or containing non-numeric characters — you’re required to withhold 24 percent from every reportable payment going forward.⁴ You don’t keep that money. You deposit it with the IRS on the same schedule you use for other withheld federal income taxes. The withholding continues until the payee gives you a valid, certified TIN on a completed W-9.⁵

Skipping this step is where payers get into real trouble. If you don’t withhold, you become personally liable for the full 24 percent that should have come out of the payee’s checks. The IRS collects that from you, not from the uncooperative contractor. Payers commonly delay withholding because they assume the W-9 is on its way, and then find themselves paying the tax out of their own pocket.

One narrow variation: if the payee returned a W-9 with “Applied For” written in the TIN field and signed it, they’ve given you an awaiting-TIN certificate. They have 60 days to send you the actual number. If day 61 arrives without it, backup withholding starts.¹

Reporting What You Withheld

Any backup withholding you collect during the year is reported on Form 945, the annual return for withheld federal income tax from nonpayroll payments. The total goes on Line 2. If your total withheld taxes for the year reach $2,500 or more, you also reconcile deposits using a monthly summary or Form 945-A.⁶ On the individual 1099 itself, the withheld amount goes in Box 4, so the payee gets credit for the tax already paid on their behalf when they eventually file their own return.

Document Every Request You Made for the TIN

Form W-9 is the tool the IRS expects you to use to collect a payee’s name, tax classification, and TIN. The payee certifies the information under penalty of perjury.⁷ Keep every completed W-9 permanently.

More importantly for your situation: keep every attempted W-9. The IRS expects repeated solicitations when a payee ignores your request. The initial request should go out when the relationship starts, ideally before the first payment. Follow-up solicitations come after that. When the IRS decides whether to impose or waive penalties, it looks at the solicitation history. A payer who can show emails, dated letters, and delivery confirmations for multiple requests stands in a very different position from one who asked once and stopped.

The Penalty Tiers You’re Trying To Avoid

A missing TIN is treated the same as an incorrect TIN, and the IRS never treats a TIN error as inconsequential. There is no de minimis exception — each return with a TIN problem counts on its own. For information returns due in 2026, the inflation-adjusted amounts per return are:⁸

$60 per return if corrected within 30 days of the filing deadline.
$130 per return if corrected after 30 days but before August 1.
$340 per return if not corrected by August 1.
$680 per return for intentional disregard, with no annual cap.

Annual caps limit total exposure for good-faith errors. Businesses with average gross receipts over $5 million face a maximum of $4,098,500 at the top tier. Smaller businesses, defined as those with gross receipts of $5 million or less, top out at $1,366,000.⁸ Those caps mostly matter to companies filing thousands of returns. For a small operation, the arithmetic bites hard well before the cap: fifty uncorrected returns at $340 each is $17,000.

What Happens After You File

Expect a notice. The IRS sends a CP2100 to payers who filed 50 or more returns with missing or incorrect TINs, and a CP2100A to those with fewer than 50. The content is the same.⁹ The notice triggers the “B Notice” process: you send the payee a specific IRS-prescribed letter asking for the correct TIN, and if they still don’t respond, backup withholding continues or begins.¹⁰

2026 Filing Deadlines

Late filing stacks on top of a missing-TIN penalty, so the calendar matters. For most 1099 forms, including 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC, the 2026 deadlines are:

January 31 to furnish copies to recipients.
February 28 to file paper returns with the IRS (with Form 1096).
March 31 to file electronically through FIRE.

If a date falls on a weekend or legal holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day.³

Asking for a Penalty Waiver

The IRS may waive information return penalties entirely if you show reasonable cause. You need to demonstrate two things: that you acted responsibly both before and after the failure, and that significant mitigating factors applied. Helpful evidence includes being a first-time filer of the form, a strong prior compliance record, documented attempts to obtain the payee’s TIN, and, in some cases, economic hardship that prevented electronic filing.¹¹

Two arguments that do not work: claiming you didn’t know the rules, and claiming you relied on someone else to handle it. The IRS holds the person with filing authority responsible. Written waiver requests use Form 843, and the supporting documentation should include copies of your W-9 solicitation letters and any correspondence showing your attempts to get the payee’s information. This is where the paper trail you built during the year pays off.

1
Internal Revenue Service. General Instructions for Certain Information Returns (2025)
2
Internal Revenue Service. Form 1096 Annual Summary and Transmittal of U.S. Information Returns
3
Internal Revenue Service. General Instructions for Certain Information Returns
4
Internal Revenue Service. Backup Withholding
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Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 307, Backup Withholding
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Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Instructions for Form 945 – Annual Return of Withheld Federal Income Tax
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for the Requester of Form W-9 (03/2024)
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Internal Revenue Service. 20.1.7 Information Return Penalties
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Internal Revenue Service. Backup Withholding “B” Program
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Internal Revenue Service. Understanding Your CP2100 or CP2100A Notice
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Internal Revenue Service. Penalty Relief for Reasonable Cause