Form 1099-NEC

1099-NEC or 1099-K

Two forms show up around Stripe, and they face opposite directions. A 1099-K reports payment transactions a business received. A 1099-NEC reports compensation a business paid to someone else.

The IRS draws a hard line between them. Its instructions say payments "made with a credit card or payment card and certain other types of payments, including third-party network transactions, must be reported on Form 1099-K by the payment settlement entity" and "are not subject to reporting on Form 1099-MISC or Form 1099-NEC." Paying a contractor with your company card does not create a 1099-NEC for you. The card network side reports it.

Stripe’s Connect documentation describes the same split from the platform’s side. Stripe issues 1099-K forms where Stripe controls the pricing for a connected account. Where the platform controls the pricing, the platform is responsible for any 1099 forms, and the right form depends on what the payments were for. Stripe recommends consulting a tax advisor on which form applies, and so do we.

Who files when contractors are paid through Stripe Connect

A platform that pays contractors through Connect is the payer, so the 1099-NEC is the platform’s form to file. Stripe’s 1099 tax reporting product lets the platform create, file and deliver the forms from the Tax reporting view in the Stripe Dashboard.

By default, Stripe fills in the payer tax identity with the platform account’s legal business name and taxpayer identification number, along with its address and phone number. You can change the payer identity, for example when the legal entity on the form should differ from the one on the Stripe account.

Stripe’s own eligibility rules for a 1099-NEC match the IRS ones. The connected account must be based in the US or be a US taxpayer, and must have received $2,000 or more in payments in the previous calendar year. Non-US contractors are outside the form, which is one of the reasons a platform’s total contractor spend and its 1099-NEC totals rarely match.

How Stripe works out each contractor’s total

A 1099-NEC carries one number per payee, and Stripe lets the platform choose how to compute it. For Form 1099-NEC there are three calculation methods: payments including fees, payments excluding fees, and payouts only.

The choice changes the number. Including fees reports the gross charges and transfers, fees included, and under that method refunded charges are not deducted. Excluding fees removes Stripe and platform fees, which suits a platform that passes its fee through to the end customer. Payouts only reports what was paid out to the connected account’s bank account, minus any payout reversals, and leaves out payments made directly from the connected account’s Stripe balance.

Whichever method you use, Stripe lets you edit amounts or import a CSV before filing, for example to add payments made outside Stripe. Pick the method with your tax advisor, set it as the default before forms are generated, and write down why.

Dates for the 2026 tax year

Section 6071(c) requires Form 1099-NEC to be filed on or before January 31. When that date falls on a weekend or legal holiday, the IRS moves the due date to the next business day. January 31, 2027 is a Sunday, so forms for 2026 are due Monday, February 1, 2027.

Stripe’s tax season checklist for 2026 lists February 1 as the IRS deadline to postmark forms to connected accounts. It recommends e-filing from the Dashboard by January 22 and names January 12 as the tentative first e-filing date. Missing names, addresses and taxpayer IDs show up as forms in a Needs attention state, so the work that decides whether you hit February 1 happens in December.