1099-NEC: what it is, who sends it, and where to find it
By Arthur Teboul, DokuTrak · Published
In short
A 1099-NEC (Nonemployee Compensation) is the form a business sends to an independent contractor it paid during the year, by January 31. It shows what you were paid for your services, with no tax withheld in most cases. You get one from each client that has to report you, so a freelancer often receives several.
What is a 1099-NEC?
Form 1099-NEC reports payments a business made to someone who is not its employee: freelancers, consultants, independent contractors. Box 1 shows the nonemployee compensation. Box 4 shows federal income tax withheld, which is usually empty unless backup withholding applied.
The payer files Copy A with the IRS and sends you Copy B. Since tax year 2020, contractor pay sits on the 1099-NEC; before that it was in a box of the 1099-MISC.
Who sends it, and when
Each business client that paid you for services in its trade or business issues a 1099-NEC, using the details from the W-9 you gave it. It must furnish your copy by January 31 of the following year, by mail or electronically if you agreed to receive it that way.
Where to get a 1099-NEC
- Your email inbox, around the end of January: many clients send it as a PDF or through their accounting software.
- The mail, at the address you wrote on your W-9.
- The vendor or contractor area of a client’s payroll or accounts payable portal, if they gave you a login.
- The client’s bookkeeper or accounts payable contact, who can resend a lost copy.
- For a past year, the IRS Wage and Income transcript in your IRS Online Account.
Wrong files people send instead
- An invoice or payment summary instead of the 1099-NEC itself.
- Only the forms from big clients, leaving out the smaller ones.
- A 1099-K from a payment app, sent as if it replaced the 1099-NEC: they report different things.
- Last year’s form, downloaded from the same email thread.
- No form at all for a client that never sent one: the income still has to be reported, so send your own records instead.
Questions people ask
What is the 1099-NEC deadline?
The payer must send your copy and file with the IRS by January 31. If that date falls on a weekend or holiday, it moves to the next business day.
Do I have to report income if I did not get a 1099-NEC?
Yes. The income is taxable whether or not a form was issued. Keep your invoices and bank deposits as your record of what each client paid.
What is the difference between a 1099-NEC and a W-2?
A W-2 is for employees, with tax withheld by the employer. A 1099-NEC is for contractors, who usually pay their own income and self-employment tax.
Ask once. DokuTrak does the chasing.
- Your client uploads from one link, with no account and no password.
- Reminders go out on a schedule, by default 2, 5, 10 and 14 days after the request, until the file arrives.
- With AI review switched on in your workspace (it is off by default), each upload gets a first pass that flags a file that is not a 1099-NEC, an unreadable or blurry scan or a copy where one of these is missing or cut off: the recipient’s name, the recipient’s TIN. It says so when it is not sure.
- You accept every file or mark it for re-upload, and your client gets the note by email. The AI never accepts a file.