How to File a 1099: Who Needs One, Deadlines, and Steps

Who needs a 1099?

You generally must file a 1099-NEC (nonemployee compensation) for each person or business that meets all of these:

• You paid them $600 or more during the calendar year, and
• The payment was for services (not goods), and
• They are not your employee (contractors, freelancers, gig workers, professional services), and
• They are not a corporation (most C- and S-corps are exempt; attorneys are a notable exception).

The related 1099-MISC covers other payments — rent, royalties, prizes, and legal settlements. Payments made through a payment card or third-party network (e.g., PayPal) are reported by the processor on a 1099-K, so don't double-report those.

Key deadlines

Task	Deadline
Send Copy B to the recipient	January 31
File 1099-NEC with the IRS (paper or e-file)	January 31
File 1099-MISC with the IRS (e-file)	March 31 (Feb 28 if paper)

Miss the date and penalties scale with how late you are. If you're filing 10 or more information returns total, the IRS requires e-filing.

How to file a 1099, step by step

1. Collect a W-9 from every payee before you pay them. It gives you their legal name, address, TIN, and entity type — the exact fields a 1099 requires. Chasing W-9s in January is the #1 cause of filing stress.
2. Identify who crosses $600. Total what you paid each vendor for services during the year. This is where messy records bite — payments scattered across bank statements, cards, and checks have to be added up per vendor.
3. Verify TINs. A name/TIN mismatch triggers IRS notices and potential backup withholding. The IRS TIN Matching program can confirm them.
4. Complete the 1099-NEC for each qualifying payee — payer info, recipient info, and the total in Box 1.
5. File with the IRS by e-file (IRIS or FIRE) or paper, and send each recipient their copy by January 31.
6. Keep records of the forms and the underlying payment detail in case of questions.

Where the time actually goes

Filling out the form is the easy part. The work is steps 1–3: getting clean payee data and totaling payments per vendor. If your contractor payments and W-9s live across PDFs, bank statements, and spreadsheets, that reconciliation is hours of manual entry.

DocuClipper helps on the data side — 1099 data extraction pulls the fields off W-9s and 1099 forms into a structured file, and bank statement analysis totals what you actually paid each vendor across the year. (It organizes the data for filing; it doesn't e-file the return for you.) If you've already received 1099s and need them in a spreadsheet, see how to extract 1099 data to Excel.

The bottom line

Filing a 1099 comes down to three things: know who crosses the $600 services threshold, collect W-9s early, and hit the January 31 deadline. The forms are simple — the accuracy of the payee and payment data behind them is what saves you from IRS notices. Get that data clean first, ideally by pulling it straight from your source documents instead of keying it by hand.