1099 season · checked against the IRS on
Do I need a 1099 for 2026 payments?
For payments you make in 2026, you file a Form 1099-NEC for each non-employee you paid at least $2,000 for services, up from $600 for 2025 payments. Leave out what you paid by card or through PayPal, Venmo or another payment network as a business payment (the network reports it on the 1099-K), payments to a corporation unless it is a law firm or a medical provider, and merchandise. On the 1099-MISC, rents, other income and medical payments moved to $2,000 too; royalties stay at $10 and an attorney's gross proceeds at $600.
“File Form 1099-NEC, Nonemployee Compensation, for each person in the course of your business during the year to whom you have paid at least $2,000 in: 1. Services performed by someone who is not your employee (including parts and materials) (box 1a); or 2. Payments to an attorney (box 1a).”
Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (Rev. December 2026) (for 2026 information filed in early 2027; read 8 Oct 2026)
“For tax years beginning after 2025, the minimum threshold amount for reporting certain payments required to be reported on certain information returns and/or perform backup withholding on those payments increased to $2,000 and may be adjusted for inflation beginning in calendar year 2027.”
Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (Rev. December 2026) (for 2026 information filed in early 2027; read 8 Oct 2026)
Prepared for your review, not tax advice.
2025 payments and 2026 payments, side by side
The threshold follows the year you paid, not the year you file. The 1099s you file in early 2026 cover 2025 payments at $600; the ones you file in early 2027 cover 2026 payments at $2,000. A payee reaches it with the total you paid them in the year, net of refunds.
| What you paid | At least, for 2025 payments | At least, for 2026 payments |
|---|---|---|
| Services by a non-employee, and attorney fees (1099-NEC) | $600, box 1 | $2,000, box 1a |
| Rents, other income, medical and health care (1099-MISC) | $600 | $2,000 |
| Royalties (1099-MISC box 2) | $10 | $10 |
| Gross proceeds paid to an attorney (1099-MISC box 10) | $600 | $600 |
| Federal income tax withheld | any amount | any amount |
The new amount “may be adjusted for inflation beginning in calendar year 2027”, so check again before you close out 2027. The December 2026 forms also add boxes for cash tips and overtime (1b to 1d on the 1099-NEC), which most small businesses paying contractors leave empty.
What you leave out
- Card and payment-network payments. What you paid by credit or debit card, or through PayPal, Venmo or another network as a business payment, is the network's to report on the 1099-K, not yours. See 1099-NEC or 1099-K for PayPal, Venmo and card.
- Corporations. “Generally, payments to a corporation (including a limited liability company (LLC) that is treated as a C or S corporation)” are not reported, except attorney fees and an attorney's gross proceeds (“The exemption from reporting payments made to corporations does not apply to payments for legal services”) and medical and health care payments, which are reported even to a professional corporation.
- Merchandise. “Payments for merchandise, telegrams, telephone, freight, storage, and similar items” are not reported.
- Tax-exempt organizations and governments, and wages, which go on the W-2.
Do I need to send a 1099 to an LLC?
It depends on how the LLC is taxed, which its Form W-9 says on line 3. A single-member LLC that is disregarded, or an LLC taxed as a partnership, gets a 1099 like any other payee; for a single-member LLC the IRS has you put “the owner’s name only on the first name line and the LLC’s name on the second name line” (Publication 1099). An LLC taxed as a C or S corporation is exempt like a corporation, unless it is a law firm or a medical provider. Without a W-9 you cannot tell, and you also have no TIN for the form: ask for the W-9 before you pay, because a payee without a TIN can make further payments subject to backup withholding at 24%.
What the IRS asks you to file, and by when
1099-NECs for 2026 payments are due to the IRS and to each payee by 1 February 2027 (31 January is a Sunday); 1099-MISCs filed electronically by 31 March 2027. If you file 10 or more information returns in the year, you must e-file, and from 1 January 2027 that means IRIS: FIRE ends on 19 November 2026.
Check your own payees, on your machine: export your QuickBooks or Xero 1099 or vendor-payments report as CSV and run
npx --allow-git=root github:agentwares/iris-1099 vendor-payments.csvIt decides who needs a 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC and why, citing the IRS sentence for each, lists missing W-9s, and writes IRIS Taxpayer Portal CSVs in batches of 100. It makes no network request; TINs stay in the files on your disk and are shown as the last four digits. No file yet? npx --allow-git=root github:agentwares/iris-1099 --demo runs it on invented vendors. Source (MIT).
For bookkeepers: Keep every client's 1099 season — W-9 status, decisions, IRIS batch receipts — in one place.
Not built yet: $15 per client per season, $49 minimum, built only if enough bookkeepers ask by 1 December 2026.
Count me in ($15 per client per season, $49 minimum)Sources
- Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (Rev. December 2026) (for 2026 information filed in early 2027; read 8 Oct 2026)
- Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (Rev. April 2025) (the revision for 2025 information; read 8 Oct 2026)
- Instructions for Form 1099-K (Rev. December 2026) (read 8 Oct 2026)
- Publication 1099 (2026), General Instructions for Certain Information Returns (read 8 Oct 2026)