Part II: what your signature certifies
Part II is the reason the form is titled a certification. One signature carries four distinct statements, each made under penalties of perjury, and each with its own consequences if it is wrong.
The four certifications
The line above the signature does real work. Signing under penalties of perjury means you are not simply returning paperwork; you are making four statements of fact and agreeing to answer for each of them. Nobody at the IRS reads your W-9 on the day you sign it, so the block above the signature line tends to get skimmed. The form goes to your client, lands in a vendor file, and surfaces a year or three later when something fails to reconcile: a 1099 the agency cannot match, an examination of the payer, a question about whether withholding should have applied all along. By then the document is speaking on your behalf, and all it says is that on a particular date you certified these four things. You do not get to walk that back by explaining that you skimmed it, or that a bookkeeper filled the form in and you signed where the arrow pointed. Read the four items once, slowly. The rest of this page is then a formality.
The number in Part I is yours
You are asserting that the number in Part I belongs to the name on Line 1. The IRS matches that pair when your payer files a 1099. Most mismatches are honest: a married name never updated with the Social Security Administration, a business name typed where a personal name belonged, a transposed digit at the end of a long afternoon. Your signature moves responsibility for the pair from the payer to you. If you have applied for a number and not received it, item 1 already accommodates you. Write Applied For in Part I and sign.
Backup withholding does not apply to you
Item 2 is the only line on the form you are ever invited to cross out, and it is the line readers misread most often. Its scope is narrow: interest and dividend income, plus one specific notice from the IRS. It has nothing to say about back taxes, an audit, or a client who withheld because your paperwork was late.
Cross it out only if the IRS has told you that you are currently subject to backup withholding because you failed to report all your interest and dividend income. If that has happened, you know: it arrives as a written notice. Absent such a notice, leave the certification intact.
| Situation | Strike out item 2? |
|---|---|
| You have never had an IRS notice about under-reported interest or dividends | No. Sign as printed |
| You received a notice and it has not been resolved | Yes, for interest, dividend and broker accounts |
| The IRS has told you the withholding no longer applies | No. Item 2(c) covers exactly this |
| A client withheld 24% because you were slow returning the form | No. That is not IRS-notified backup withholding |
| You owe back taxes but have had no interest or dividend notice | No. Item 2 is specifically about interest and dividend reporting |
The form states two different rules here, and they are easy to merge by mistake:
- Item 2 does not apply to real estate transactions. You still sign the form.
- No signature is required at all for mortgage interest you paid, acquisition or abandonment of secured property, cancellation of debt, contributions to an IRA, and generally for payments other than interest and dividends. For those you must still give your correct TIN.
So a real estate seller signs but may strike item 2, while a contractor receiving nonemployee compensation is not obliged to sign at all. The full signature table
You are a U.S. person
A U.S. person means a U.S. citizen or resident alien, a partnership, corporation, company or association created or organized in the United States or under U.S. law, a domestic estate, or a domestic trust.
If you are not a U.S. person, the W-9 is the wrong form and signing it is a false certification with a $500 civil penalty under IRC 6682. It can also cost you a reduced treaty withholding rate you were entitled to. Foreign individuals use Form W-8BEN; foreign entities use W-8BEN-E. The difference
Residency for tax purposes runs on its own rules and has little to do with immigration status. A visa holder who meets the substantial presence test is a resident alien for tax purposes and does complete a W-9. If your status changed during the year, or you cannot tell which side of the test you fall on, get advice before you sign rather than after.
The FATCA code is correct
Leave the FATCA box blank and this certification has nothing to bite on. Enter a letter and you are certifying that the letter is right. Unless you know precisely which code applies to you and why, the box stays empty.
Who signs, and how
Signing stays a personal act even when the taxpayer is an entity. Whoever puts a pen to Part II is the person making the perjury statement, so authority to bind the taxpayer matters more than who happens to be at the desk that afternoon. For an individual or a sole proprietor the question does not arise. For a corporation it means an officer, or an agent holding written authority. A trust is signed for by its trustee in that capacity, and adding the word Trustee after the name costs nothing and forecloses an argument later. An office manager who signs a client’s W-9 because the controller is traveling has just certified four statements about a taxpayer whose affairs they may barely know. If somebody asks you to sign for them, confirm first that you are entitled to; if you are the one asking, tell your signer what they are attesting to.
| Filer | Signer |
|---|---|
| Individual or sole proprietor | The individual |
| Single-member LLC, disregarded | The owner |
| Multi-member LLC | A member or manager with authority |
| Partnership | A general partner or authorized representative |
| Corporation | An officer, or an agent with written authority |
| Trust | The trustee, signing as trustee |
| Estate | The executor or personal representative |
| Nonprofit | An officer or the executive director |
Under the form’s signature requirements, interest and dividend accounts opened before 1984 need a TIN but no signature, and so do other payments, the category that covers rents, royalties, medical payments and nonemployee compensation. Real estate transactions are the opposite: those you must sign.
These are exceptions the requester may apply, not a reason to send an unsigned form. Most requesters reject one, and for an interest or dividend account opened after 1983 an unsigned certification does trigger backup withholding. The full table
- Date it. An undated certification is incomplete, and many requesters send it straight back.
- Sign by hand or with a genuine digital signature. The requirements
- Leave the printed language alone, apart from striking item 2 where the rules require it.
- Keep a copy of what you signed and the date you signed it.
Frequently asked questions
What am I actually signing?
Four statements, under penalties of perjury: that the TIN is correct, that you are not subject to backup withholding, that you are a U.S. person, and that any FATCA code you entered is correct.
When do I cross out item 2?
Only if the IRS has notified you that you are currently subject to backup withholding because you failed to report all interest and dividends. It reaches interest, dividend and broker accounts. Ordinary contractor payments are outside it entirely.
Is a typed name a valid signature?
Generally not. Typing your name into a PDF field is not an electronic signature in the sense the rules require. Print and sign, apply a real digital signature, or use the requester electronic system. Detail
Can somebody sign on my behalf?
An authorized agent or officer can sign for an entity. An individual should sign personally unless a power of attorney authorizes somebody else. The signer is making a perjury statement, so authority matters.
What if I sign and something later changes?
The certification was true when made. Send a fresh W-9 when your name, entity type or TIN changes. Recertification events
General information, not tax advice. This page explains a federal tax form in plain English. It is not legal, tax, or accounting advice, and W9Form.org is not affiliated with the IRS. Verify everything against the official Form W-9 page on IRS.gov and speak to a licensed professional about your own situation. How we source and review these pages.