When Do You Have to File a 1099? Deadlines, Thresholds, and Penalties

Recipient copies of most 1099 forms are due January 31. The IRS copy of Form 1099-NEC is also due January 31, whether you file on paper or electronically. Form 1099-MISC gives you more time for the IRS copy: February 28 on paper, March 31 electronically. And for payments made after December 31, 2025, a new $2,000 reporting threshold replaces the old $600 rule for most 1099 categories, so fewer small payments will need reporting in the first place. These are the core 1099 filing deadlines and rules for the 2026 filing season.

The New $2,000 Reporting Threshold

For decades, $600 was the trigger. Pay a contractor or vendor $600 or more during the year, and you owed them a 1099. That changed with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed on July 4, 2025. Starting with payments made after December 31, 2025, the minimum reporting threshold for nonemployee compensation on Form 1099-NEC jumped to $2,000. The same $2,000 threshold applies to rents, prizes, awards, medical and health care payments, crop insurance proceeds, and gross proceeds paid to attorneys on Form 1099-MISC.¹

The $10 threshold for royalties, interest, dividends, and broker payments in lieu of dividends or tax-exempt interest did not change.² Starting in 2027, the $2,000 figure will be adjusted for inflation each year.³

Thresholds are cumulative across the calendar year, not per payment. A contractor you paid $500 in March and $1,600 in October has crossed the $2,000 line and needs a 1099-NEC.³

Deadlines by Form

Form 1099-NEC

January 31 for everything. The copy you furnish to the recipient and the copy you send the IRS are both due the same day, whether you file on paper or electronically. There is no later electronic deadline.⁴

Form 1099-MISC

Recipient copies are due January 31. The IRS copy gets extra time: February 28 for paper filers, March 31 for electronic filers.³ When a deadline falls on a weekend or federal holiday, the due date shifts to the next business day.

Other 1099 Variants

Forms like 1099-INT (interest income) and 1099-DIV (dividends) follow the same schedule as 1099-MISC for IRS copies: February 28 on paper, March 31 electronically. Recipient copies are due January 31. The reporting thresholds for interest and dividends remain at $10 or more.³

Who Gets a 1099 and Who Doesn’t

You file a 1099 when you make certain payments in the course of your trade or business to someone who is not your employee. The typical case is paying $2,000 or more to an independent contractor, freelancer, or other service provider during the calendar year, which goes on Form 1099-NEC, Box 1.⁴

Payments to C corporations and S corporations are generally exempt from 1099 reporting. You don’t need to file a 1099-NEC for an incorporated web development firm, for instance. Two exceptions catch people off guard: payments for legal services and payments for medical or health care services must be reported even when the recipient is a corporation. If your business pays an incorporated law firm $5,000 for contract review, that gets a 1099-NEC.⁵

One rule saves a lot of duplicate paperwork. If you paid a contractor by credit card, debit card, PayPal, Venmo for Business, or another third-party settlement organization, you do not issue a 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC for that payment. The payment processor handles the reporting on Form 1099-K.⁶ The 1099-K reporting threshold returned to $20,000 in gross payments and more than 200 transactions per payee under the same 2025 legislation that raised the 1099-NEC threshold.⁷

Before You File: Collect a W-9

You need a Form W-9 from each payee before you can complete a 1099. The W-9 collects their legal name, business entity type, address, and taxpayer identification number (a Social Security number, ITIN, or EIN).⁸ Best practice is to collect the W-9 before making the first payment, not in January when the deadline is bearing down. A missing or incorrect TIN can trigger backup withholding obligations and penalties.

The IRS offers a free online TIN Matching tool through its e-Services portal. Running your payee list through it before you file catches mismatches that would otherwise generate IRS notices weeks later.⁹

If a payee refuses to provide a TIN, gives you an incorrect one, or the IRS notifies you that the name and TIN don’t match, you must withhold 24% of each payment and remit it to the IRS. Backup withholding applies to nonemployee compensation, rents, royalties, commissions, and most other 1099-reportable payment types. Withheld amounts are reported annually on Form 945. For the 2025 tax year, Form 945 is due February 2, 2026 (or February 10 if you made all deposits on time).¹⁰

How to Submit the Returns

If your business files 10 or more information returns of any type during the year, you must file them electronically. That threshold combines every information return type: 1099-NEC, 1099-MISC, 1099-INT, W-2 forms filed with the Social Security Administration, and every other variety.¹¹ Filing on paper when you’re required to file electronically can be treated as a failure to file, triggering the same penalties as a late return.

The IRS’s primary electronic filing system for 1099 forms is the Information Returns Intake System (IRIS). The IRIS Taxpayer Portal is free and lets you enter or upload returns via CSV file, up to 100 at a time. For high-volume filers, IRIS Application-to-Application accepts uploads of up to 100 MB per transmission.¹²

The older FIRE (Filing Information Returns Electronically) system is still operational for the 2025 tax year filing season, but the IRS has targeted tax year 2026 (filing season 2027) for its retirement. After that, IRIS will be the only intake system.¹³

If you file on paper because you have fewer than 10 returns and choose to, each batch of 1099s must be accompanied by a Form 1096 summary. Group your forms by type and submit each group with its own Form 1096. Your 1099-NEC forms get one 1096; your 1099-MISC forms get a separate 1096.¹⁴ Mail everything flat, not folded, to the IRS service center address shown in the form instructions for your state.

Extensions

Form 8809 lets you request an automatic 30-day extension to file information returns with the IRS. You can submit it electronically through FIRE (while it remains active) or through IRIS.¹⁵

An extension to file with the IRS does not extend your deadline for furnishing copies to recipients. Recipient statements are still due January 31 no matter what.¹⁶

Form 1099-NEC is the exception to the automatic extension rule. Its IRS and recipient deadlines are both January 31, so extensions are nonautomatic. You must demonstrate a qualifying hardship, such as a federally declared disaster, fire, serious illness of the person responsible for filing, or being in your first year of business. NEC extension requests must be submitted on paper.¹⁶

Penalties for Missing the Deadline

Penalties apply per form, so a business with many contractors can rack up significant costs quickly. For returns due in 2026, the IRS assesses penalties in tiers:

Up to 30 days late: $60 per return
31 days late through August 1: $130 per return
After August 1 or never filed: $340 per return
Intentional disregard: $680 per return with no annual cap

¹⁷

Annual maximum caps limit total exposure for the first three tiers, with smaller businesses (average annual gross receipts of $5 million or less) facing lower caps than larger businesses. The intentional disregard penalty has no cap regardless of business size.¹⁸

The same penalty rates apply to incorrect payee statements. Furnishing a contractor a 1099 with the wrong dollar amount or wrong TIN carries the same financial risk as filing late with the IRS.

Correcting Errors After Filing

If you find a mistake on a 1099 you’ve already submitted, file a corrected return. Through the IRIS Taxpayer Portal, corrections are built into the system.¹² On a paper form, do not check the VOID box. That tells IRS scanning equipment to ignore the form entirely, which means your correction won’t be processed.⁴

File corrections as soon as you spot an error. The IRS sends notices when filed forms contain name-and-TIN mismatches, and addressing them promptly keeps you in the earlier, lower penalty tiers rather than letting the clock run past August 1.

State Filing

Many states require their own copies of 1099 forms. The IRS runs a Combined Federal/State Filing program that automatically forwards your electronically filed returns to participating state tax agencies, saving you from filing separately with each state. Returns submitted through IRIS or FIRE are shared with participating states on a regular schedule.¹⁹ Not every state participates, and some participating states still require a separate filing for certain form types, so check your state’s requirements before assuming the federal filing covers everything.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Form 1099 NEC and Independent Contractors
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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Information
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Internal Revenue Service. General Instructions for Certain Information Returns (2026)
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC
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Internal Revenue Service. Information Returns (Forms 1099)
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 1099-K FAQs: Third Party Filers of Form 1099-K
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Internal Revenue Service. IRS Revises and Updates Form 1099-K Frequently Asked Questions
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Internal Revenue Service. Form W-9 (Rev. March 2024)
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Internal Revenue Service. Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) Matching Tools
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 945
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Internal Revenue Service. E-file Information Returns
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Internal Revenue Service. E-file Information Returns with IRIS
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Internal Revenue Service. Filing Information Returns Electronically (FIRE)
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 1096 Annual Summary and Transmittal of U.S. Information Returns
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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 8809, Application for Extension of Time to File Information Returns
16
Internal Revenue Service. Form 8809 (Rev. December 2025) Application for Extension of Time To File Information Returns
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Internal Revenue Service. Information Return Penalties
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Internal Revenue Service. IRM 20.1.7 Information Return Penalties
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Internal Revenue Service. Combined Federal/State Filing (CFSF) Program State Coordinator Information FAQs