IRIS 1099 Filing: How to E-File Your 1099-NECs, and Why to Start in November

The IRS’s old e-file system for 1099s, FIRE, takes its last returns at 3 p.m. Eastern on November 19. From January, IRIS is the only way to e-file a Form 1099 with the IRS. If you’ll file 10 or more information returns for 2026, W-2s included, you have to e-file. The free way to do it yourself is the IRIS Taxpayer Portal, which needs an access code the IRS says can take up to 45 days to issue. Some IRS documents say 45 business days. With 1099-NECs due on Monday, February 1, 2027, the safe month to apply is November.

Here’s how to tell whether you’re in, which filing route suits a small contracting business, and what to set up between now and January.

Do you have to e-file your 1099s?

The rule comes from Treasury Regulation 301.6011-2, as changed by T.D. 9972 in 2023. If you must file at least 10 information returns in a calendar year, you have to file them electronically. The count is across all types together: W-2s, 1099-NECs, 1099-MISCs and the rest. Corrected returns don’t count.

Take a hypothetical remodeling contractor with four employees on W-2s. In 2026 it paid seven sole-proprietor subcontractors at least $2,000 each for their work. That’s four W-2s plus seven 1099-NECs, 11 returns in all, so everything has to be e-filed. The W-2s go to the Social Security Administration. The 1099-NECs go to the IRS, through IRIS or software that files through it.

Three things can change that count. The 1099-NEC threshold rose from $600 to $2,000 for payments made in 2026, which our article on the $2,000 1099 threshold explains. A sub you paid $1,800 drops out. Payments to a corporation, including an LLC taxed as an S or C corporation, generally don’t need a 1099-NEC either, though payments to lawyers still do. And anything you paid by credit card or a payment app is reported by the payment processor on a 1099-K, not by you.

What IRIS is, and three routes for 1099 filing

IRIS, the Information Returns Intake System, is the IRS’s system for receiving 1099s and other information returns electronically. E-filing at 10 returns is a legal requirement; how you get the returns into IRIS is up to you. There are three common routes:

• The IRIS Taxpayer Portal yourself. It’s free and web-based. You type each form in or upload a spreadsheet, up to 100 forms per submission, and download the payee copies. You need your own IRIS Transmitter Control Code (TCC), the five-character code that identifies your business.
• Payroll or accounting software that files 1099s for you. These services transmit through IRIS’s application-to-application channel, usually under their own code, so you may not need a TCC. Ask your provider before you rely on it.
• Your accountant or bookkeeper, filing under their code. Check they have your 1099s on their January list, and what they’ll charge.

If you used FIRE yourself last year, your old code doesn’t carry over. The IRS’s FIRE retirement page says current FIRE users must complete an IRIS application and move to IRIS for the 2027 filing season.

How to apply for the IRIS TCC

The application is online, on the IRS’s IRIS Application for TCC page. You don’t have to finish it in one sitting, but a saved application that isn’t submitted within 90 days is deleted. In order:

1. Have an EIN. Publication 5717, the IRS’s guide to the Taxpayer Portal, says the application won’t accept a Social Security number for the business. A sole proprietor filing under an SSN needs a free EIN first.
2. Get everyone an IRS account. Each Responsible Official and contact on the application verifies their identity through ID.me before you add them. Most businesses need at least two of each. A sole proprietor, single-member LLC or single-member S corporation can list one.
3. Fill in the application. Choose the Issuer role, if you’re filing only for your own business, and the Portal as the transmission method. Use a physical business address, not a P.O. box. You can also opt into the Combined Federal/State Filing program here (more on that below).
4. Sign and submit. Each Responsible Official signs with the five-digit PIN they set up.
5. Watch the status. Your code is issued when the application shows Completed. The IRS also mails an acceptance letter, but you can use the code before it arrives.

The timing is why November matters. Publication 5717 says to allow up to 45 calendar days, which points to mid-December at the latest. Publication 1099, the IRS’s 2026 general instructions for information returns, says a typical application is processed within 45 business days. Counting that way, an application made after about November 24 may not be back before February 1. Applying in the first half of November covers both readings, and the Thanksgiving and year-end holidays.

Getting each payee’s details right

Every 1099-NEC needs the payee’s correct name and taxpayer identification number, which you get on Form W-9. The payee fills it in and you keep it; it isn’t sent to the IRS. Chase any missing W-9 in November, while the sub is still on your jobs. If a payee won’t give you a TIN, you must hold back 24% of reportable payments as backup withholding. A payee you withheld from gets a 1099-NEC whatever the amount.

The IRS’s TIN Matching tool lets you check names and numbers before you file. It’s only open to payers who filed 1099s in the last two years, so a first-time filer may not qualify yet. If you want to email payee copies instead of mailing them, each payee has to agree in advance, electronically, under the consent rules in the IRS’s Publication 1099.

Filing your 1099s through IRIS in January

You can type forms in one by one, or upload a CSV file built from the IRS’s template. The template for 2026 returns wasn’t posted yet in late October, so download it from the portal in January. Set the spreadsheet cells to Text before you save. Excel otherwise strips the leading zeros from TINs and ZIP codes, and the file fails. Then:

• submit no more than 100 forms at a time, and allow up to seven days for processing;
• download the payee copies from the portal, 100 per download, and send them out yourself, because IRIS doesn’t deliver them;
• file your W-2s separately with the Social Security Administration, due the same day.

States are the part to check separately. If you opted into Combined Federal/State Filing, the IRS forwards your 1099-NECs to the participating states. Publication 5717 lists 32 of them, but says it’s your responsibility to check each state’s own requirements. Many states want a direct filing anyway, especially if you withheld state tax.

Corrections, penalties and waivers

A wrong amount, name or TIN is corrected in IRIS with a one-step correction. Filing the wrong form type takes two steps: zero out the wrong one, then file the right one. Send the payee a corrected copy too.

Late or wrong returns cost $60 each if fixed within 30 days of the due date, $130 if fixed by August 1, and $340 after that, under the amounts for 2027 in Rev. Proc. 2025-32. A missing payee copy carries its own separate penalty at the same rates. Intentional disregard starts at $690 a return. Filing on paper when you had to e-file also counts as a failure to file, for every return over the first 10.

There’s no automatic extension for 1099-NEC. If e-filing genuinely isn’t possible, Form 8508 asks the IRS for a waiver to file on paper. File it at least 45 days before the due date. The IRS automatically grants a business’s first request.

Your dates from now to February

Here’s the whole sequence for a business filing through the portal itself:

• Early November: count your 2026 returns, W-2s included, and pick your route. If it’s the portal, get an EIN if you need one, set up everyone’s ID.me account and submit the TCC application.
• November 19: FIRE closes for good at 3 p.m. Eastern.
• November and December: chase missing W-9s, start backup withholding where there’s no TIN, and get consent for any emailed payee copies.
• By December 18: the last day the 45-calendar-day allowance still works, and the target for any Form 8508 waiver.
• Early January: confirm your TCC shows Completed and download the 2026 CSV template.
• Mid-January: submit, allow up to seven days for processing, and send out payee copies.
• Monday, February 1, 2027: 1099-NECs due to the IRS and to payees, and W-2s due to the SSA.

The W-2 side of the same deadline changed this year too: our guide to reporting overtime on W-2s covers it. And if your per-payee totals are hard to pull together, start with our bookkeeping basics for contractors.