1099 filing deadlines

Form 1099-NEC is due to both the recipient and the IRS by January 31. Everything else on the 1099 series splits: the recipient copy goes out in late January or mid-February, and the IRS copy is due February 28 on paper or March 31 electronically.

The 2026 calendar, for tax year 2025 forms

Every date in that table is a shifted date. January 31, 2026 was a Saturday. February 15 was a Sunday and February 16 was Washington’s Birthday, so the mid-February deadline landed on Tuesday the 17th. February 28 was a Saturday and May 31 a Sunday.

The three statutory dates underneath

Once you know which of three buckets a form sits in, you can work out its deadline in any year without looking anything up.

When a due date falls on a weekend

The rule is plain: if a due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday in the District of Columbia or where the return is filed, file by the next business day. It applies to the recipient statements, to the IRS filing, and to the extension requests themselves.

In practice this shifts something almost every year, and the mid-February date is the worst offender because Washington’s Birthday is the third Monday of February. Whenever February 15 falls on a Sunday, the holiday is the next day and the deadline slides to Tuesday the 17th. That happened in 2026. In 2027 the 15th is itself the third Monday, so the same thing happens for a different reason.

The next season: tax year 2026 forms

The 10-return e-file threshold

This one catches small businesses that have filed on paper for twenty years. The threshold used to be 250 returns, which almost nobody hit. It is now 10.

• The count is aggregate. Information returns of every type go into one total, so eight 1099-NECs plus two W-2s is ten and you are required to e-file.
• The authority is Treasury Decision 9972, published February 23, 2023, effective for information returns required to be filed on or after January 1, 2024.
• Filing on paper when you were required to e-file is treated as a failure to file, which puts the whole batch inside IRC 6721.
• Free e-filing is available through the Information Returns Intake System, which the IRS built for exactly this population of small filers.
• A hardship waiver exists. Form 8508, Application for a Waiver from Electronic Filing of Information Returns, has to reach the IRS at least 45 days before the due date of the returns, and an approved waiver covers one tax year only.

Form 1096, for paper filers only

Form 1096 is the Annual Summary and Transmittal of U.S. Information Returns. It sits on top of a stack of paper Copy A forms, one Form 1096 per form type, and reports how many returns are in the stack and what they total. It is due at the same time as the returns it transmits, so March 2, 2026 for the 2025 season and March 1, 2027 for the next one.

If you e-file, forget it exists. The transmittal function is handled by the electronic submission itself, and sending a 1096 alongside an electronic filing does nothing except create a record the IRS has to reconcile. Paper Copy A also has to be the scannable red-ink original from the IRS or an approved substitute; a copy printed off a website is not filable, and the penalty for filing an unscannable form is the same as for filing nothing.

Extensions

There are two separate extensions, on two separate forms, and each one only covers its own deadline. An extension of time to file with the IRS does nothing for your recipient statements.

1. Form 8809 extends the IRS filing deadline

   For most forms in the series the initial 30-day extension is automatic and requires no justification. File Form 8809 by the due date of the returns, through the Information Returns Intake System, through FIRE, or on paper, and it is granted. You cannot file it before January 1 of the year the return is due.

2. Forms W-2 and 1099-NEC get no automatic extension

   Nothing is automatic here. The request must be submitted on paper, must be signed, and must state one of five circumstances: a catastrophic event in a federally declared disaster area; death, serious illness or unavoidable absence of the person responsible for filing; fire, casualty or natural disaster; the filer being in its first year of establishment; or not receiving data on a payee statement such as a Schedule K-1 in time to prepare an accurate return. No additional 30-day extension is allowed for either form. Forms 1099-QA and 5498-QA are shut out of the automatic extension too, though few payers ever file one.

3. A second 30 days is never automatic

   For the forms that do get an automatic first extension, an additional 30 days can be requested on paper with a justification, using the same five criteria. Check the box on line 5 so the IRS knows it is a second request.

4. Form 15397 extends the recipient deadline

   A one-time extension of up to 30 days to furnish recipient statements. It has to be completed, signed and submitted no later than the date the statements were due, and the IRS is explicit that an extension cannot be granted on a request that arrives after the deadline. Submit it online through the mobile-friendly forms page or by fax to the Extension of Time Coordinator at Technical Services Operation. Where you are covering several form types with different due dates, file by the earliest of them or file one request per form type.

Working backward from January 31

The filing season is short and none of the useful work can be done inside it. A payables function that treats January as a data-entry month rather than a discovery month gets through it in an afternoon.

Frequently asked questions

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