Form 1042-T: Instructions, Deadline, and Penalties

Form 1042-T is the paper transmittal cover sheet you send to the IRS with a batch of paper Forms 1042-S. It summarizes how many forms are in the batch and the total gross income and federal tax withheld they report, giving the IRS one reconciliation point against your Form 1042. For the 2025 tax year, the package is due at the Ogden Service Center by March 16, 2026.¹

When You Actually Need Form 1042-T

You only use Form 1042-T if you are filing Forms 1042-S on paper. If you file through the IRS Filing Information Returns Electronically (FIRE) system, you do not file Form 1042-T at all.²

Most filers no longer have the paper option. Starting with tax year 2023, the mandatory electronic filing threshold dropped from 250 returns to 10. If you file 10 or more information returns of any type combined during the calendar year, your Forms 1042-S must go through FIRE.³ Five Forms 1099-INT plus six Forms 1042-S puts you over the line, and everything has to be filed electronically. Financial institutions must e-file regardless of volume, and so must partnerships with more than 100 partners.⁴

So Form 1042-T is really for small-volume filers who stay under the 10-return threshold, or for filers who have an approved waiver from electronic filing on Form 8508. First-time waiver requests are automatically granted; after that, you need to show undue financial hardship (with two third-party cost estimates for the required software or programming) or another qualifying reason.⁵

One more boundary worth stating: Form 1042-T does not replace Form 1042. Form 1042 is your annual withholding tax return, reporting your total liability for the year. Form 1042-T is just the cover sheet riding on top of the paper Forms 1042-S that support it.¹

Deadline and Mailing Address

Form 1042-T, together with Copy A of every paper Form 1042-S it transmits, is due March 15 of the year following the calendar year the income was paid.⁶ When that date falls on a weekend or legal holiday, the deadline shifts to the next business day. March 15, 2026 is a Sunday, so the 2025 tax year deadline is Monday, March 16, 2026.¹

Mail the package flat, without folding, to:

Ogden Service Center
P.O. Box 409101
Ogden, UT 84409¹

How To Fill Out The Form

The form itself is short. Start with the withholding agent’s name, address, and Employer Identification Number. Qualified intermediaries use their QI-EIN. This identifying information has to match exactly what appears on your Form 1042 and on every Form 1042-S in the batch. Include a contact name and phone number for IRS follow-up.

File a separate Form 1042-T for each type of Form 1042-S you are transmitting. If you are sending both original and amended Forms 1042-S on paper, each batch gets its own transmittal.¹

The numbered lines ask for four things:

Line 1b: check either “Original” or “Amended” to describe the Forms 1042-S in the batch. Not both.
Line 1d: the total number of paper Forms 1042-S attached.
Line 2: the combined gross income from every attached Form 1042-S, which is the sum of each form’s box 2.
Line 3: the combined federal tax withheld, totaling the amounts in boxes 10 and 11 of each attached form.

Before you enter any totals, add up the columns across every Form 1042-S in the batch and reconcile them against your internal records. Mismatched totals are one of the fastest ways to trigger IRS correspondence.

If You Need More Time

If you can’t make the March deadline, file Form 8809 for an automatic 30-day extension of time to file your Forms 1042-S. No explanation is required for this first request.⁷

A second 30-day extension is available only if the first was granted and you file the additional request before it expires. You also have to meet one of the IRS’s specific criteria: a federally declared disaster affecting operations, the death or serious illness of the person responsible for filing, a fire or natural disaster, being in your first year of business, or not receiving a payee statement in time to prepare an accurate return.⁷

Correcting a Filed Form 1042-T

To fix a previously filed Form 1042-T, prepare a new one for the same tax year, check “Amended” on Line 1b, and enter the corrected totals. The amended transmittal covers the amended Forms 1042-S even when they change the gross income or tax withheld you originally reported.¹

If the corrections also change the amounts reported on Form 1042 (specifically lines 62c or 63e), you must file an amended Form 1042 as well.¹ Skipping that step is a common oversight that produces IRS notices months later.

Penalties for Late or Incorrect Filings

Penalties apply per Form 1042-S, so they scale fast when you are reporting dozens or hundreds of foreign payees. The tiers reward faster corrections. For the 2026 filing year, the per-return amounts are:⁸

$60 per return if corrected within 30 days of the due date.
$130 per return if corrected after 30 days but on or before August 1.
$340 per return if filed after August 1 or not at all.
$680 per return for intentional disregard, or 10% of the total amount required to be reported, whichever is greater, with no annual cap.

Annual maximums apply outside the intentional disregard tier. Withholding agents with average annual gross receipts above $5 million face a ceiling of $3,000,000 for general failures. Smaller filers, those averaging $5 million or less over the prior three tax years, get lower caps: $1,397,000 for failures not corrected by August 1, $698,500 for failures corrected between 30 days and August 1, and $244,500 for failures corrected within 30 days.⁹

A separate penalty of up to $340 per statement applies for failing to furnish a correct Form 1042-S to the recipient on time.¹⁰ The IRS can waive these penalties for reasonable cause not due to willful neglect, but the bar is high. You generally need to show you took meaningful steps to comply and that circumstances genuinely beyond your control prevented timely, accurate filing.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Form 1042-T, Annual Summary and Transmittal of Forms 1042-S
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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 1042-T, Annual Summary and Transmittal of Forms 1042-S
3
Internal Revenue Service. 2023 Electronic File Requirement
4
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1042 (2025)
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 8508, Application for a Waiver from Electronic Filing of Information Returns
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Internal Revenue Service. Discussion of Form 1042, Form 1042-S and Form 1042-T
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 8809, Application for Extension of Time to File Information Returns
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Internal Revenue Service. Information Return Penalties
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6721 – Failure to File Correct Information Returns
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Internal Revenue Service. Penalties Related to Form 1042-S