Do I Need to Issue a 1099 to My Landscaper?

You need to issue a 1099 to your landscaper if you paid them $600 or more during the calendar year for work tied to a trade or business you run, and they aren’t set up as a corporation. A rental property counts as a business for this purpose. If the landscaper just mows the lawn at your personal home, no 1099 is required no matter how much you paid.

The specific form is the 1099-NEC, which replaced the old 1099-MISC for reporting nonemployee compensation.

The Three Conditions That Trigger the Form

All three of these have to be true in the same calendar year before you owe anyone a 1099-NEC.

The payment relates to a trade or business. You’re in a trade or business if you operate for gain or profit. A rental property qualifies. A side hustle qualifies. Maintaining your personal yard does not, even if the bill is large.
The landscaper isn’t your employee. If they run their own operation, set their own schedule, and bring their own equipment, they’re an independent contractor rather than someone you’d put on a W-2.
Your total payments for the year hit $600 or more. The IRS looks at the full calendar year, so $100 a month for six months crosses the line.

Miss any one of these and the obligation goes away. The most common reason homeowners don’t need to file is that the work is purely personal.

When You Don’t Owe a 1099 Even if You Paid More Than $600

The Landscaper Is a Corporation

Payments to corporations are generally exempt from 1099-NEC reporting. If the landscaper operates as a C-corporation or S-corporation, no form is required even if you paid thousands.¹ Corporations report their income directly, so the 1099 would be redundant.

Don’t guess at the business structure. Have the landscaper fill out a Form W-9 before you pay them, and the entity classification box will tell you whether the corporate exception applies. Sole proprietors and partnerships don’t get the exemption.

You Paid by Credit Card, Debit Card, or a Payment App

Payments made by credit card, debit card, or through a payment app like PayPal or Venmo Business are excluded from 1099-NEC reporting. The payment processor handles the IRS notification on Form 1099-K instead.²³

Mixed payment methods take some math. If you paid $400 by check and $800 by credit card, only the $400 counts toward the 1099-NEC threshold, and since that’s below $600, no form is needed. Flip the numbers to $800 by check and $400 by card, and you owe a 1099-NEC reporting the $800.²

How LLCs Fit In

Many landscaping businesses operate as LLCs, and the 1099 question depends on how the LLC is taxed, not on the “LLC” label. The W-9 asks LLCs to enter a code next to the LLC box: “C” for C-corporation, “S” for S-corporation, or “P” for partnership.⁴

An LLC taxed as a C-corp or S-corp falls under the corporate exception. An LLC taxed as a partnership follows the $600 rule. Single-member LLCs are the most common setup for small landscaping outfits, and unless the owner elected corporate tax treatment, the IRS treats them as “disregarded entities,” essentially the same as a sole proprietor.⁵ You absolutely need a 1099-NEC if payments hit $600. On the W-9, a disregarded entity won’t check the LLC box at all; the owner checks the box matching their own status, usually “Individual/sole proprietor.”

What Counts Toward the $600

Landscaping invoices often bundle labor with materials like mulch, plants, or fertilizer. When supplying those materials is incidental to the service, you report the entire payment on the 1099-NEC, not just the labor portion.² Most landscaping work falls into that category; the service is the main event and the materials support it.

The same applies to reimbursements. If you repaid a contractor for travel or supplies and they didn’t give you receipts or a formal accounting, those reimbursements get added to the total you report in Box 1.¹

Get a W-9 Before You Pay

You can’t file anything without the landscaper’s tax information. Form W-9 captures their legal name, address, taxpayer identification number (SSN or EIN), and business structure.⁶

Ask for it before the first check goes out. Chasing a contractor for tax paperwork in January, when the filing deadline is a week away, is one of the most common headaches in small-business bookkeeping. Most landscapers who work with commercial customers hand over a completed W-9 without blinking.

If the landscaper refuses to provide a W-9, or gives you an obviously wrong taxpayer ID, you’re required to withhold 24% of every payment and send it to the IRS as backup withholding.⁷ That means less money for them and extra reporting for you. Collecting the W-9 upfront heads off the whole situation.

Filing the 1099-NEC

Once you’ve confirmed the $600 threshold is met, the landscaper isn’t incorporated, and you have a valid W-9, you report the total paid in Box 1 of Form 1099-NEC.² Leave out anything you paid by card or app.

The deadline is January 31 of the following year. That single date applies to both the copy you send to the landscaper and the copy you file with the IRS, and there’s no automatic extension for the 1099-NEC the way there is for some other information returns.²

Paper or Electronic

If you file 10 or more information returns of any kind in a year (W-2s and other 1099s count toward the total), electronic filing is mandatory.⁸ Most landlords or small-business owners filing just one or two forms can still mail paper, with Form 1096 as the transmittal cover sheet.⁹

The IRS also offers a free online portal, the Information Returns Intake System (IRIS), that lets you key in up to 100 returns at a time or upload a spreadsheet.¹⁰ You’ll need to register for a Transmitter Control Code before you can use it, so don’t wait until January 30 to set up access.

State Filing

Many states have their own 1099 requirements. If you e-file federally, the Combined Federal/State Filing Program may forward your 1099-NEC data to participating state agencies automatically.¹¹ Some participating states still want a separate notification. Check your state tax agency’s site.

Penalties if You Skip or File Late

The IRS charges per-return penalties that climb the longer you wait. For returns due in 2026:¹²

Filed within 30 days of the deadline: $60 per return
Filed between 31 days late and August 1: $130 per return
Filed after August 1, or not at all: $340 per return
Intentional disregard: $680 per return with no annual cap

Those per-return amounts apply separately to the IRS copy and the recipient copy, so a single missed form can cost double what you’d expect.

If you missed the deadline but acted in good faith, the IRS may waive or reduce the penalty under its reasonable cause standard. You generally need to show you acted responsibly before and after the failure and that the delay was outside your control.¹² “I forgot” won’t cut it; a genuine administrative mix-up corrected quickly has a better shot.

Fixing a 1099 You Already Sent

If you entered the wrong amount or an incorrect taxpayer ID, you can file a corrected 1099-NEC. The procedure depends on how you filed: paper filers follow the General Instructions for Certain Information Returns, while IRIS and FIRE filers follow the procedures in IRS Publications 5717, 5718, or 1220.² One thing to watch on paper: don’t check the “VOID” box when correcting. That tells IRS scanners to ignore the form, and the correction won’t register.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (Rev. April 2025)
2
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (04/2025)
3
Internal Revenue Service. Understanding Your Form 1099-K
4
Internal Revenue Service. Form W-9 Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification
5
Internal Revenue Service. Single Member Limited Liability Companies
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Internal Revenue Service. About Form W-9, Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification
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Internal Revenue Service. Backup Withholding
8
Internal Revenue Service. E-File Information Returns
9
Internal Revenue Service. Reporting Payments to Independent Contractors
10
Internal Revenue Service. E-File Information Returns With IRIS
11
Internal Revenue Service. Combined Federal/State Filing (CFSF) Program State Coordinator Information FAQs
12
Internal Revenue Service. Information Return Penalties