1099-NEC, 1099-MISC or 1099-K: which one you get, and which one you file
January arrives and so does a 1099. Or two. Or a 1099-K for money you thought a client had already reported on a 1099-NEC. The family has more than a dozen members, they share a number, and the IRS expects you to know which ones should land in your mailbox and which ones you are supposed to send.
This guide sorts the three that cause nearly all of the confusion, then covers the rest of the family in a paragraph each, then walks through the filing side for anyone who has to issue them. Every form mentioned is the genuine IRS PDF in the tax forms catalog, fillable in the browser.
The question that sorts them: who moved the money, and for what
Every 1099 is an information return: a payer tells the IRS, and you, that money changed hands. The variant depends on what the money was for and who is doing the telling. Three of them cover most people who are not employees.
- A business paid you for services, and you are not on their payroll: Form 1099-NEC, from the business.
- A business paid you rent, royalties, a prize, a medical payment or settlement proceeds: Form 1099-MISC, from the business.
- A card processor, payment app or online marketplace settled payments to you: Form 1099-K, from the processor or platform, never from the customer.
- You are an employee: none of these. Wages go on a W-2, which is not a 1099 at all.
The first two come from whoever paid you and are about the reason for the payment. The third comes from whoever moved the money and ignores the reason entirely. That difference is what produces the overlaps later in this guide, and it is why a freelancer can legitimately receive both in the same year.
Form 1099-NEC: paid for services as a non-employee
The NEC is the contractor form. If a trade or business paid you for work during the year and you were not their employee, this is what reports it: box 1 carries the total nonemployee compensation, box 4 any backup withholding they took because you never handed over a W-9. Fees paid to an attorney for the attorney's own services belong here too.
$600 in a year has been the long-standing trigger for a payer to file one, and the instructions for the year you are filing confirm the current figure. Whatever the trigger is, it is the payer's reporting threshold and not your tax threshold: income below it is still income, it just does not generate a form.
Both copies are due by January 31: Copy B to you, Copy A to the IRS. Payments to corporations are generally exempt, with attorney fees the well known exception. Purely personal payments, the neighbour who paid you to fix a fence, are not reportable at all; only trades and businesses file.
On your side, NEC income normally flows onto Schedule C with your expenses against it, and Schedule SE computes the self-employment tax. If a 1099-NEC arrives for work where tax was being taken out of your pay, or a W-2 arrives for what you thought was contract work, something was classified wrong; W-9, W-4 or W-8BEN explains how the classification is supposed to go, and Form SS-8 asks the IRS to rule on it.
Form 1099-MISC: rent, royalties, prizes and the narrower boxes
Until 2020 contractor pay went on the MISC, which is why so many people still call every 1099 "a 1099-MISC". It no longer does. The MISC now covers the business payments that are not compensation for services: rent in box 1, royalties in box 2, other income such as prizes and awards in box 3, medical and health care payments, and gross proceeds paid to an attorney in box 10.
Two of its thresholds differ from the NEC's. Royalties are reportable from just $10. And the attorney box is the one people get backwards: a settlement cheque routed through a lawyer is gross proceeds on the MISC, while the lawyer's own fee for handling your matter is nonemployee compensation on the NEC.
Rent has its own trap. If you pay rent to a property management company, the management company gets the MISC, not the owner; the manager reports onward. Rent paid to a corporation is exempt. Landlords receiving a MISC report it on Schedule E, not Schedule C.
The deadlines split too. Recipient copies are due January 31 like the NEC, but the IRS copy is due February 28 on paper or March 31 electronically, a month or two later than the NEC. Mixing the two up is the easy way to file one of them late.
Form 1099-K: the processor's form, and why it can double up
The K is different in kind. It is filed by payment settlement entities, the card processors, payment apps and marketplaces that actually move money to sellers, and it reports the gross amount they settled to you, month by month. It does not know or care whether a payment was for design work, a sofa you sold, or a dinner a friend split with you.
Gross is the word to hold onto. Box 1a is before fees, refunds, chargebacks and the cost of whatever you sold. The form is not a statement of your income; your return is, and Schedule C is where gross turns into profit. A 1099-K for personal reimbursements between friends is a known problem, and the IRS website explains how to note an incorrectly issued one on your return; you can also ask the issuer for a correction.
The threshold for third-party network payments has been changed by Congress more than once in recent years, so rely on the current Form 1099-K instructions rather than any number in an older article. Card transactions are reportable with no minimum at all.
Now the overlap. A client who paid your invoice by card or through a payment app is paying through a settlement entity, and the processor reports that money on a 1099-K. The instructions for the NEC and MISC tell payers not to report such payments themselves. A client who does anyway has double-reported the same dollars, and you have two forms for one payment. Reconcile before you file, keep the invoices that show it was one payment, and ask the client to correct the NEC if they will. You are taxed on what you earned, not on the sum of the forms.
The rest of the family, one line each
Beyond the three above, the 1099 you receive says what kind of payer sent it, and most arrive without any action on your part.
- 1099-INT: interest of $10 or more from a bank or other payer; tax-exempt interest and savings bond interest have their own boxes.
- 1099-DIV: dividends and capital gain distributions from brokers and funds, split into ordinary, qualified and nondividend amounts.
- 1099-R: distributions from pensions, IRAs, annuities and insurance contracts; box 7 carries the code that tells the IRS what kind of payout it was.
- 1099-G: payments from a government agency, most often unemployment compensation and state income tax refunds.
- 1099-C: debt of $600 or more that a lender cancelled, which is generally income to the borrower.
- 1099-S: gross proceeds from a real estate sale, usually prepared by the closing agent.
If the amounts on one of these look wrong, the fix is with the issuer, not with a corrected form from you. Interest and dividend totals that pass $1,500 in a year are itemized on Schedule B, which also asks the foreign accounts questions.
If you are the one filing them
Issuing information returns is mostly a matter of having collected the right details months earlier. The order that avoids a January scramble:
- Collect a W-9 from every contractor, landlord and vendor before the first payment, not after. It supplies the legal name, classification and TIN the return needs, and a mismatch between line 1 and the TIN is what makes the IRS flag the form later.
- Through the year, pay attention to how you pay. Anything paid by card or payment app is the processor's to report on a 1099-K; anything paid by cheque, transfer or cash is yours to report.
- In January, prepare the 1099-NEC for services and the 1099-MISC for rent, royalties and the rest. Recipient copies for both are due January 31.
- File Copy A: January 31 for the NEC, February 28 on paper or March 31 electronically for the MISC. Paper filings go under a Form 1096 transmittal, one per form type.
- Employees get a W-2 instead, with Copy A to the Social Security Administration by January 31.
One warning applies to every form on this page and is printed on each form page in the catalog: Copy A, the IRS copy, has to be filed electronically through IRIS or on the official red-ink scannable stock ordered from the IRS. A Copy A printed from any downloaded PDF is not scannable and can draw a penalty. The PDF is for the recipient copies and your records.
The form pages let you type straight into the official fields, or open the form in the editor to fill it on the actual pages; how to fill out government forms online walks through the mechanics. If you invoice clients yourself and want the paperwork at the other end to come out clean, how to make an invoice that gets paid covers what to put on it so their W-9 request and your 1099 match.
Frequently asked questions
I received both a 1099-NEC and a 1099-K for the same client. Do I report both?
You report the income once. If the client paid you by card or a payment app, the processor reports it on the 1099-K and the client was not supposed to issue a 1099-NEC for it as well. Keep your invoices and payment records showing it was one payment, report your actual income on Schedule C, and ask the client to correct the NEC if they are willing.
Does a 1099-MISC still report contractor payments?
Not since 2020. Contractor service payments moved to the 1099-NEC. The MISC now covers rent, royalties, prizes and awards, medical and health care payments, gross proceeds paid to attorneys and a few specialty boxes.
I earned less than the threshold and got no 1099. Is the income still taxable?
Yes. The threshold decides whether the payer has to file a form, not whether the money is income. Report it on your return the same way you would if the form had arrived.
Do I send a 1099-NEC to a contractor that is a corporation?
Generally no; payments to corporations are exempt. Attorney fees are the well known exception and are reportable regardless of the entity type. Collect a W-9 anyway, because its classification box is what tells you whether the payee is a corporation.
Can I print Copy A from the PDF and mail it to the IRS?
No. Copy A must be filed electronically or on the official red-ink scannable stock from the IRS. The downloadable PDF is for the recipient copies and your records. This applies to the NEC, the MISC, the K and the rest of the family.
What is the 1099-K threshold this year?
Congress has changed the third-party network threshold more than once in recent years, so check the current Form 1099-K instructions at irs.gov for the amount that applies to the year you are filing. Payment card transactions are reported regardless of amount.
