The reporting threshold moved, and most of the advice online did not

For a long time the answer to “do I have to file a 1099 for this person?” was one number, and everybody knew it. That number was raised for payments made from 2026 onward — and the increase did not reach every kind of payment. The result is that a business can be correct about one payee and wrong about the next, using the same rule.

What the figure is now

For nonemployee compensation — the ordinary case, a subcontractor you paid for work — the threshold for 2026 is $2,000.00, where two years earlier it was $600.00. The test is “equals or exceeds”: a payee who lands exactly on the figure is over it, not under it.

The boxes it did not reach

This is the part that catches people. The amendment reached the general information-return rules. It did not touch the separate rules for gross proceeds paid to an attorney, for royalties, or for payments settled through a card or a third-party network. Each of those still has its own figure, and two of them are far lower than the headline one.

• Gross proceeds paid to an attorney: $600.00. If you settled a matter and paid a law firm, this is the number that applies, not the headline one.
• Royalties: $10.00. It has always been low and it did not move.
• Card and third-party network settlements are reported by the processor under a different rule with a transaction-count test as well as a dollar test. That is covered in its own guide.

What to do about it

Go through this year’s payees once and sort them by what you paid, largest first. For each one at or over the figure that applies to their kind of payment, you need a W-9 on file. The ones near the line matter more than the ones far over it, because you may still be able to collect the form before the next invoice takes them across.