How to Fill Out and Submit Form 433-F: Collection Information Statement

To fill out Form 433-F, the IRS Collection Information Statement, you work through its lettered sections reporting your accounts, real estate, other assets, credit cards, business and employment details, non-wage income, and monthly living expenses, then attach supporting documents and send the package to the IRS employee or address handling your case. The form is short compared with the IRS’s other financial disclosures, but every line asks for something specific, and skipping or guessing at entries is the fastest way to delay your payment plan or hardship request.

Gather Your Records First

Pull your paperwork together before you open the form. The IRS may ask for documentation to back up what you report, and having everything on hand keeps you from a second round of requests.¹

A recent pay stub. If you attach one, you can skip the employment income section entirely.
Current statements for every bank and investment account, including business accounts.
Mortgage or lease documents showing monthly payment, balance owed, and market value for any real estate.
Loan statements for vehicles, boats, and recreational vehicles.
Any court order requiring you to pay child support or alimony.
Schedule C or a current-year profit and loss statement if you have self-employment income.
Signed copies of any unfiled tax returns. The IRS won’t consider an installment agreement until all required returns are in.

Submit copies, not originals. Keep a full set of what you send for your own records.²

Working Through the Form

Form 433-F is organized into lettered sections that together sketch your full financial picture. If any section runs out of room, use a separate sheet and attach it.

Personal and Household Information

The top of the form asks for your name, address, Social Security number or ITIN, and phone numbers. Report the number of people in your household who can be claimed on the current year’s tax return, including yourself and your spouse. Household size drives your allowable living expenses later on.²

Section A: Accounts and Lines of Credit

List every bank account, investment account, and line of credit you hold, even ones with a zero balance. Include business accounts. For stocks or bonds, if a particular field doesn’t apply, write “N/A” rather than leaving it blank. Don’t put bank loans here; those belong in the sections tied to what the loan financed.

Section B: Real Estate

Report all real estate you own or are purchasing, starting with your home. Include insurance and taxes if they’re rolled into your monthly payment. The form asks for current market value and the amount owed so equity can be calculated. If a property sits in a different county from your home address, note the county and a short description.

Section C: Other Assets

This section covers vehicles, boats, recreational vehicles, whole life insurance policies, and anything else of value: paintings, coin collections, antiques, tools, equipment, inventory. For each item, list make, model, year (for vehicles), current market value, amount owed, and monthly payment. If you lease a vehicle, write “lease” in the year-purchased column. Business assets like equipment, inventory, and intangibles such as domain names, patents, and copyrights go here too. List all digital assets you own or have a financial interest in, including cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.²

Section D: Credit Cards

List every credit card and line of credit, including ones with no outstanding balance. The IRS is looking for a complete picture of your available credit and total debt load.

Section E: Business Information

Complete this section only if you or your spouse are self-employed or receive self-employment income, including income from online sales. Provide the business name, EIN, type of business, and number of employees, then details about accounts receivable and any credit card or digital asset merchant activity.

Section F: Employment Information

Wage earners report their employer’s name and address, pay frequency, and gross and net income. Attach a current pay stub and you can leave this section blank.²

Section G: Non-Wage Household Income

List all monthly non-wage income: Social Security benefits, pensions, rental income, interest, dividends, or any other recurring payment. If any of that includes self-employment income, attach Schedule C or your current-year profit and loss statement.

Section H: Monthly Necessary Living Expenses

This is where most of the detail work happens. Enter monthly amounts for housing, food, transportation, health care, and other necessary expenses. For anything you don’t pay monthly, convert it: divide quarterly payments by three, multiply weekly payments by 4.3, biweekly payments by 2.17, and semimonthly payments by two.¹

Some entries trigger mandatory documentation. If your housing or food expenses exceed the IRS’s published standards, you must submit proof of what you actually pay, such as canceled checks or receipts. Court-ordered payments always require a copy of the court order. Any expense you write into the “other” category needs supporting documentation regardless of the amount.

How the IRS Judges Your Expenses

When the IRS reviews Section H, it doesn’t just accept your numbers. It compares them against published Collection Financial Standards that cap what it will allow in several categories. The standards effective as of April 2025 remain in effect through June 2026.³

Food, clothing, and other items: a flat national standard based on household size. The IRS allows this full amount without questioning what you actually spend.
Out-of-pocket health care: a per-person monthly allowance covering medical services, prescriptions, and supplies, allowed on top of health insurance premiums.
Housing and utilities: local standards that vary by county. You get the lesser of what you actually spend or the local standard. These cover rent or mortgage, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities, phone, internet, and cable.
Transportation: a nationwide ownership cost for loan or lease payments (up to two vehicles, though a single taxpayer normally qualifies for one) plus operating costs that vary by region covering fuel, insurance, maintenance, and registration. No car payment means only the operating cost portion applies.
Public transportation: a single nationwide household allowance for taxpayers with no vehicle.

If your reported expenses exceed the standards, the IRS will typically cap them at the standard amount unless you document why higher costs are necessary. The gap between your income and your allowable expenses becomes what the IRS expects you to pay each month toward the balance.

Where to Send It

You don’t mail Form 433-F to a processing center on your own initiative. It’s submitted in response to an IRS request during the collection process, and the employee or unit working your case tells you where to send it. If you’re submitting it alongside Form 9465, the Installment Agreement Request, the IRS lists mailing addresses by state on its “Where to Send Non-Return Forms, Applications and Payments” page.⁴

Keep a copy of the completed form and every supporting document before you send it. The instructions specifically remind you to retain copies.

What Happens After You Submit

The IRS runs its own numbers against your reported income, expenses, and the allowable standards to determine what you can reasonably pay. You can propose paying the balance within 60 to 120 days or through monthly payments over 60 months, though the IRS isn’t bound by your proposal.¹

If your expenses equal or exceed your income and you have no significant assets, the IRS may classify your account as currently not collectible. Active collection efforts pause under that designation, though the debt doesn’t disappear and interest continues to accrue. The IRS generally files a federal tax lien when the unpaid balance is $10,000 or more on accounts reported as currently not collectible, and it may require that all delinquent returns be filed before granting that status.⁵

Accuracy matters. Willfully making false statements on documents verified under penalties of perjury is a felony carrying fines up to $100,000 and up to three years in prison.⁶

Make Sure 433-F Is the Right Form

Form 433-F is the shortest of the IRS collection information statements, aimed at wage earners and self-employed individuals in the standard collection process. If a revenue officer is working your case in the field, or the IRS is formally determining hardship, you may be asked for Form 433-A instead, which requires deeper financial detail. If you’re proposing an offer in compromise to settle for less than the full balance, sole proprietors file Form 433-A (OIC) and corporations, partnerships, or LLCs file Form 433-B (OIC).⁷ When you apply online for a payment plan, the system tells you which form you need if your proposed payment falls short.

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Internal Revenue Service. Collection Information Statement
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 433-F – Collection Information Statement
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Internal Revenue Service. Collection Financial Standards
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Internal Revenue Service. Where to Send Non-Return Forms, Applications and Payments
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Internal Revenue Service. 5.16.1 Currently Not Collectible
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 7206 – Fraud and False Statements
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 656 Booklet Offer in Compromise