1099-MISC form: create recipient copies

1. Say what the payment was for. The tool points you to the box for that kind of payment. Pay for services by a nonemployee is sent to the 1099-NEC tool instead.
2. Say how you paid. Payments by card or through a payment app are reported on Form 1099-K by the payment company, so the tool asks first.
3. Pick the tax year and enter the details. Choose 2026, 2025 and 2024, then enter the payer, the recipient and the amounts. A preview of Copy B updates as you type.
4. Check the preview and create the copies. Confirm the delivery email. The PDF with Copy B, Copy 2 and Copy 1 is sent as an attachment. No sign-in is needed.

• Copy B of Form 1099-MISC: for the recipient.
• Copy 2: also for the recipient, to file with a state income tax return when required.
• Copy 1: for your state tax department, or to keep with your own records.
• The IRS “Instructions for Recipient” page, to hand over with Copy B.
• The official IRS form layout for the tax year you choose: 2026, 2025 and 2024. Each year uses that year’s own revision of the form.
• One PDF per form, sent to the email address you confirm. No sign-in is needed to order. Sign in with this email to download again within 1 year.

PayStubGo does not make Copy A, the red copy that goes to the IRS. The IRS says a Copy A printed from its website cannot be scanned and should not be filed; the black copies are the ones you may print and give to the recipient. One form for tax year 2026 is $5.49, and packs of 1, 3, 5 and 10 bring the price per form down.

Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Information, is the information return a business uses to report certain payments that are not pay for services: rents, royalties, prizes and awards, medical and health care payments, gross proceeds paid to an attorney and a few others. The payer prepares it. One copy goes to the IRS and the recipient gets a copy to use for their own tax return.

It covers payments made in the course of a trade or business; personal payments are not reported on it. One form can carry several kinds of payment to the same recipient, each in its own box.

• Rents (box 1): office space, machine rentals, pasture rentals. Rent you pay to a real estate agent or property manager is not reported by you; the agent or manager reports the rent paid over to the owner.
• Royalties (box 2): gross royalty payments.
• Prizes and awards that are not for services, and other income that fits no other box (box 3).
• Medical and health care payments (box 6): payments to physicians and other providers. These are reported even when the provider is a corporation.
• Gross proceeds paid to an attorney (box 10): amounts paid to an attorney in connection with legal services but not for the attorney’s own services, for example in a settlement.
• Crop insurance proceeds, fishing boat proceeds, fish purchased for resale, and substitute payments in lieu of dividends or interest, each in its own box.

The figure belongs to the kind of payment and to the tax year, so two boxes on the same form can differ, and an earlier year can differ from this one. For rents, by year:

If you withheld federal income tax from a payee under the backup withholding rules, the form is required whatever the amount paid. The tool tells you when an amount is under the figure for its box. It does not stop you: you can still give the recipient a statement.

• Recipient’s copy: by January 31.
• Recipient’s copy when box 8 or box 10 has an amount: February 16, 2027, according to the Publication 1099 (2026).
• To the IRS on paper: by February 28.
• To the IRS electronically: by March 31.

The dates fall in the year after the tax year. If any date shown falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday in the District of Columbia or where the return is to be filed, the due date is the next business day.

The form for tax year 2026 is a new revision. It adds boxes for cash tips, the tipped occupation code and overtime compensation, the FATCA checkbox no longer has a box number, and the payer’s and recipient’s addresses are entered in separate boxes. Forms for earlier years keep the layout of their own year.

Pay for services by someone who is not your employee is nonemployee compensation. It goes in box 1a of Form 1099-NEC, not on Form 1099-MISC. The tool asks what the payment was for and sends that case to the 1099-NEC tool.

Payments made by card or through a payment network are reported by the payment settlement entity on Form 1099-K, not on 1099-NEC/MISC. PayStubGo does not make Form 1099-K.

• Putting a payment in the wrong box. The IRS uses the box to check how the recipient reported the payment.
• Reporting contractor pay here. It belongs on Form 1099-NEC.
• Using one year’s form for another year. Each tax year has its own revision, and the boxes are not the same.
• Typing an amount in box 7. It is a checkbox for direct sales of consumer products for resale, not a money box.
• Including payments made by card or payment app. Those are reported on Form 1099-K by the payment company.
• Trying to fix a form that was already given out by voiding it. A correction is a new form with the CORRECTED box marked.