How to Get and Complete Form 8962 From the Marketplace

To get Form 8962 from the Marketplace, you actually need two documents from two different places: Form 8962 is an IRS form you download from IRS.gov, and Form 1095-A is the Marketplace statement you download from your HealthCare.gov account or your state exchange. The Marketplace does not issue Form 8962. It issues the 1095-A that supplies the numbers you plug into Form 8962. If any advance premium tax credit was paid toward your coverage, you must file Form 8962 with your federal return, even if you would not otherwise have to file.¹

Why You Need Both Forms

When you enrolled, you estimated your annual income and the Marketplace used that estimate to pay part of your premium directly to your insurer each month. Form 1095-A is the year-end record of what was actually paid: your monthly premiums, the benchmark plan premium in your area, and the advance credit amounts. Form 8962 is where you compare those advance payments to the credit your real income entitled you to.²

If your income came in lower than you estimated, extra credit flows back to you as part of your refund. If it came in higher, you may owe some of the advance payments back. Either way, the IRS will not finish processing your return until Form 8962 is on file.³

Downloading Form 1095-A From HealthCare.gov

The Marketplace has to send you Form 1095-A by January 31 after the coverage year, either by mail or electronically if you chose paperless.⁴ To pull it from HealthCare.gov:

Sign in to your HealthCare.gov account.
Open the application for the coverage year you’re filing for, not the current enrollment year.
Select “Tax Forms” from the menu, then click “Download PDF” under “Your Form 1095-A.”
If a version is marked “Corrected,” use that one instead of any earlier copy.

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If you can’t get into your account, the Marketplace call center at 1-800-318-2596 can help locate your form or confirm when a mailed copy was sent.

If You Enrolled Through a State Exchange

Not every enrollee uses HealthCare.gov. For the 2026 plan year, 21 states and the District of Columbia run their own exchanges: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.⁶ If you enrolled through one of those, log in to that state’s portal to download your 1095-A. The form itself carries the same information regardless of which exchange produced it.

Getting the Blank Form 8962

Form 8962 lives on the IRS site as a free PDF. Search “Form 8962” on IRS.gov, or go to the About Form 8962 page for the current version.⁷ Check the header: the revision year should match your tax year. If you’re filing a 2025 return in 2026, the form should say “2025.”

Most people never touch the blank PDF. Tax software generates Form 8962 automatically once you enter your 1095-A figures, and the completed form travels with your return when you e-file.

What to Transfer From 1095-A to 8962

Form 8962 draws from two sources: your 1095-A and your own return. From Part III of the 1095-A, you’re moving three monthly columns onto Form 8962:⁸

Column A, enrollment premiums: the total monthly premium for your plan.
Column B, the second-lowest-cost Silver plan (SLCSP): the benchmark premium in your area, which is the reference figure the IRS uses to size your credit, not your plan’s actual cost.
Column C, advance payments: what the government sent to your insurer each month.

From your return, you’ll need your tax family size and your household income.⁸ Household income here means modified adjusted gross income: your regular AGI plus any tax-exempt interest, nontaxable Social Security benefits, and foreign earned income.⁹ Income that doesn’t show up on your usual tax lines can still count, which surprises people.

If your coverage was identical every month, you can use the annual totals on line 11. If anything changed during the year, go month by month on lines 12 through 23.⁸

Corrected or Voided 1095-A

Errors on 1095-A are not unusual, and wrong numbers on Form 8962 produce the wrong credit. A form marked “CORRECTED” replaces the original. If you haven’t filed yet, use the corrected version. If you already filed, compare the two and see whether the changes hit monthly premiums, the benchmark, advance payment amounts, or covered months. Changes limited to your name or identifying details generally won’t move your figures.¹⁰

If the correction would raise your refund or lower your tax, you can file an amended return on Form 1040-X. The IRS does not require you to amend if the correction would increase what you owe, though you can if you want to.¹⁰

A form marked “VOID” was issued in error, usually because enrollment never went through. Don’t use a voided form to claim the credit. If you already filed with one, amend. If you think the void itself is a mistake, contact the Marketplace right away.

When You Have More Than One 1095-A

You can end up with multiple 1095-As if you switched plans mid-year, if family members enrolled in separate policies, or if you moved between states. All of them still feed into one Form 8962. Add together the column A enrollment premiums and the column C advance payments across the forms for each month. Column B, the benchmark, works differently:⁸

Policies in different states: add the column B amounts together.
Separate policies in the same state: use column B from only one form. Don’t add them, because the benchmark already reflects your whole coverage family in that state.

Filing Form 8962 and What Happens If You Skip It

Form 8962 attaches to your federal return. E-filing sends it through as part of the package; paper filers include it with the 1040. Tax software handles the mechanics once your 1095-A data is entered.

If IRS records show you received advance credit but your e-filed return arrives without Form 8962, the return is rejected automatically under business rule F8962-070.¹¹ Adding the form and resubmitting fixes it. Paper filers won’t get an instant rejection but will usually receive IRS Letter 12C asking for the missing information. You have 20 days from the date of the letter to respond, and a refund typically arrives six to eight weeks after the IRS gets your response. Ignoring the letter can lead the IRS to adjust your return in a way that raises your tax or shrinks your refund.¹²

There’s a longer-term consequence too. Skipping the reconciliation makes you ineligible for advance premium tax credit payments and cost-sharing reductions the following calendar year.² Monthly premiums can jump sharply until you go back, file the missing form, and clear the hold. When premiums spike unexpectedly at the next open enrollment, a missing Form 8962 from the prior year is often the cause.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Premium Tax Credit (PTC) Overview
2
Internal Revenue Service. Reconciling Your Advance Payments of the Premium Tax Credit
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Internal Revenue Service. Health Insurance Marketplace Statements
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Internal Revenue Service. Questions and Answers About Health Care Information Forms for Individuals
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HealthCare.gov. How to Use Form 1095-A, Health Insurance Marketplace Statement
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Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. States by Marketplace Type for Plan Year 2026
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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 8962, Premium Tax Credit
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8962
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Internal Revenue Service. Modified Adjusted Gross Income
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Internal Revenue Service. Corrected, Incorrect or Voided Form 1095-A
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Internal Revenue Service. How to Correct an Electronically Filed Return Rejected for a Missing Form 8962
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Internal Revenue Service. Understanding Your Letter 12C