The 2026 1099-K Threshold, Explained

If you sell online and you have tried to find a straight answer to the question "will I get a 1099-K for 2026," you have probably run into a wall of contradictory articles. That is not your fault. The threshold behind this one form changed direction three times in four years, and a great deal of published guidance is frozen at whichever number was current when it was written. This guide gives the current answer, then explains how the rule got here so you can judge any other source you read.

The short answer for 2026

For the 2026 tax year, a marketplace or payment app must issue you a federal Form 1099-K only if your gross payments on that platform exceed $20,000 AND you had more than 200 separate transactions. Both conditions have to be met. If you cleared $30,000 across 150 sales, no federal form is required; if you had 400 sales totalling $9,000, again no federal form. You need to be over the money line and over the transaction line at the same time, on the same platform.

The same rule applies to 2025. For 2024 the rule was different: a flat $5,000 in gross payments, with no transaction minimum at all. For 2023 it was the same $20,000-and-200 standard that now applies again. The checker on the home page applies whichever year you select, which is the safest way to get this right.

How the threshold got so confusing

For more than a decade, third-party payment reporting followed one simple rule: platforms reported sellers who crossed both $20,000 and 200 transactions. In March 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act changed that dramatically, dropping the threshold to a flat $600 with no transaction minimum, effective for the 2022 tax year. On paper, tens of millions of casual sellers, side-hustlers, and people simply reselling used goods would suddenly receive forms.

The practical fallout was enough that the IRS chose not to enforce the new figure right away. Through a series of notices it granted transition relief, keeping the old $20,000-and-200 threshold in place for 2023, then setting an interim $5,000 figure for 2024, with a planned step down to $2,500 for 2025 before the $600 rule finally took full effect. Sellers were left tracking a threshold that was scheduled to change every single year.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, enacted in July 2025, ended the uncertainty. It repealed the $600 rule entirely and restored the original standard: $20,000 in gross payments and more than 200 transactions, made permanent from 2025 onward. So the number that applied before all the turbulence is the number that applies now.

A form is not a tax bill

The most common and most costly misunderstanding is treating the threshold as if it decides whether you owe tax. It does not. The threshold only decides whether the platform files an information return about you. Your income is taxable based on whether you made a profit, not on whether a form was issued. If you buy to resell and sell for more than your cost, that profit is taxable even at $500 in sales with no form in sight. And if you receive a 1099-K, you are not taxed on the gross figure it shows; you subtract what your items cost and your selling expenses first.

State thresholds can be lower

The figures above are federal. A number of states have set their own, considerably lower 1099-K thresholds, some at a few hundred or a couple of thousand dollars. If you live in one of those states, a platform may send you a state 1099-K even when your totals are well under the federal line. The home-page table is the federal rule; check your state tax authority for its own threshold, and do not assume being under $20,000 means no form at all.

What to do with the answer

Whether or not you expect a form, the useful next step is the same: know your profit. Keep a simple record of what each item cost you, what it sold for, and the fees and shipping you paid. That record is what turns a scary gross number on a 1099-K into the much smaller taxable profit you actually owe on, and it is exactly what a business needs to deduct its costs. From there, the hobby-or-business guide covers how that profit is taxed, and the checker on the home page estimates the self-employment tax that a business profit can carry.

This article is general information, not tax advice. Thresholds and figures are verified as of the date shown on the tool page; confirm your own situation with the IRS or a tax professional.