Form 1099-MISC: What Businesses Must Report and When

What Payments Still Go on Form 1099-MISC?

After the 2020 split, Form 1099-MISC covers the following payment types when made in the course of a trade or business. Rent payments of $600 or more go in Box 1. Prizes and awards of $600 or more go in Box 3. Medical and health care payments of $600 or more, typically to providers or insurers, go in Box 6. Payments to an attorney of $600 or more go in Box 10, and attorneys are one of the exceptions to the general rule that payments to corporations don't require a 1099. Crop insurance proceeds, fishing boat proceeds, Section 409A deferrals, and excess golden parachute payments each have their own boxes. Direct sales of $5,000 or more of consumer products to a buyer for resale are also reported on 1099-MISC.

Contractor and freelancer payments for services are no longer reported here. Those belong on Form 1099-NEC.

Form 1099-MISC vs. Form 1099-NEC: What's the Difference?

Before 2020, Box 7 of Form 1099-MISC was used to report nonemployee compensation, covering everything from contractor payments to freelance services. The IRS revived Form 1099-NEC specifically to separate those payments and create a consistent January 31 deadline for contractor reporting.

Since 2020, the split is straightforward. If you paid an independent contractor or freelancer for services, that goes on 1099-NEC. If you paid rent, prizes, medical providers, or attorneys, that goes on 1099-MISC. Using the wrong form for a payment type doesn't eliminate the filing obligation and can create matching issues for the recipient.

Who Must File Form 1099-MISC?

Any business that made qualifying payments of $600 or more to a non-corporate payee during the tax year must file Form 1099-MISC. For royalties, the threshold is $10 or more. Payments to corporations are generally exempt, but two categories override that exemption: payments to attorneys and payments to medical or health care providers must be reported regardless of the payee's corporate status.

The filing requirement applies to payments made in the course of a trade or business. Personal payments, even large ones, don't trigger a 1099-MISC obligation.

Form 1099-MISC Filing Deadlines

The recipient copy of Form 1099-MISC must be furnished by January 31. The IRS copy follows on a different schedule: February 28 for paper filers and March 31 for electronic filers. This is a meaningful distinction from Form 1099-NEC, where both the recipient copy and the IRS copy are due January 31.

If you're filing both 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC forms, the different IRS deadlines apply simultaneously. 1099-NECs go to the IRS by January 31. 1099-MISCs follow in February or March depending on whether you're filing on paper or electronically.

Collecting W-9s Before You Pay

The information needed to complete a 1099-MISC, including the payee's legal name, address, taxpayer identification number, and entity type, comes from Form W-9. The time to collect it is before the first payment is made, not in January when 1099 season arrives.

A vendor or landlord who doesn't provide a W-9 may be subject to backup withholding at 24%, which creates additional complexity for both parties. Building W-9 collection into your vendor onboarding process eliminates that problem entirely and ensures you have everything needed to file accurate 1099s without chasing down information under deadline pressure.

How Slash Helps Businesses Track 1099-MISC Payments Year-Round

Accurate 1099-MISC filing depends on having a complete record of every qualifying payment made throughout the year. Rent paid to a landlord, prizes awarded, payments to medical providers, attorney fees, each of these needs to be captured at the time of payment and retrievable at year end.

A Slash business bank account records every outgoing payment automatically, with the vendor name, date, and amount already documented. When January arrives, pulling the totals for each 1099-MISC payment type is a matter of filtering existing records rather than reconstructing a year of transactions from memory.