Filing 1099-NEC Forms: A Florida Business Owner's Guide
By Timothy LeGendre, CPA · Florida License #AC62625 · Published 2026-07-23
A Florida CPA's guide to filing Form 1099-NEC, who gets one, the new $2,000 threshold, the January 31 deadline, W-9s, and late-filing penalties.
The Short Answer
If your business pays an independent contractor for services, you generally have to send them a Form 1099-NEC and file a copy with the IRS by January 31. For payments made in 2026, you only owe a 1099 once you have paid that person $2,000 or more for the year, a jump from the old $600 floor, thanks to the 2025 tax law. The rule has three moving parts most owners get wrong: the dollar threshold, who is actually exempt (most corporations are, but not attorneys), and the deadline, which is unusually early and carries a per-form penalty of up to $340 for a return that is late or never filed. The whole job gets easy or hard based on one habit: collecting a W-9 before you pay anyone.
What a 1099-NEC is, and why it lands on you
A 1099-NEC is the form your business uses to tell the IRS how much you paid an independent contractor during the year. "NEC" stands for nonemployee compensation, fees, commissions, and payments for services performed by someone who works for you but isn't on your payroll. If you hired a bookkeeper, a subcontractor, a graphic designer, a cleaning crew, or a consultant and paid them as a business, you are the one who has to report it.
The logic is simple: the IRS wants a paper trail on income that doesn't already run through W-2 payroll. When you file the 1099-NEC, you're confirming to the government what the contractor earned, so their return can be matched against it. Miss it, and the contractor's income is invisible to the IRS, which is exactly why the penalties for skipping it are steep.
The obligation only attaches to payments made in the course of your trade or business. Paying a handyman to fix your own kitchen is a personal expense, no 1099. Paying that same handyman to repair a rental you own, or a job site your company runs, is a business payment, and the reporting rule kicks in. This is the first place I see sole proprietors trip: the form follows the purpose of the payment, not who you happen to be.
The threshold jumped to $2,000, and 2026 is the switch year
For as long as most business owners can remember, the magic number was $600: pay a contractor $600 or more in a year, and you owed them a 1099. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in 2025, raised that floor to $2,000 for payments made on or after January 1, 2026, and set it to adjust for inflation each year after that. Here's how the transition actually plays out, because the year you made the payment is what controls:
| When you paid | 1099 required at | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Payments made in 2025 (filed Jan 2026) | $600 | The old rule, the 1099s you already sent this past January |
| Payments made in 2026 (filed Jan 2027) | $2,000 | The new floor from the 2025 tax law, what you track now |
| Payments made in 2027 and after | Indexed | The $2,000 is adjusted for inflation each year going forward |
One thing the higher threshold does not change: your contractor still owes tax on every dollar. If you pay a subcontractor $1,500 in 2026, you don't have to send a 1099, but they are still required to report that $1,500 as income. Fewer forms crossing in the mail doesn't mean the income disappeared, and it doesn't get you off the hook for keeping a clean record of what you paid, which is what a 1099 is built from in the first place.
Who gets a 1099-NEC, and who doesn't
Not every contractor you pay over the threshold gets a form. The biggest carve-out is for corporations: if a company you hired is taxed as an S-Corp or C-Corp, you generally don't send it a 1099-NEC. The two exceptions that catch people are attorneys, legal services always get a 1099-NEC, even if the firm is incorporated, and payments you made by card or third-party app, which the processor reports on a 1099-K so you don't double-report.
| You paid… | Do you file? |
|---|---|
| A sole proprietor or single-member LLC you paid for services | Yes 1099-NEC |
| A partnership or multi-member LLC (default tax status) | Yes 1099-NEC |
| An LLC or company that elected S-Corp or C-Corp status | No, corporations are generally exempt |
| An attorney or law firm, for legal services | Yes, even if incorporated |
| A contractor you paid entirely by credit card or PayPal | No, the processor files a 1099-K |
| A vendor you paid only for goods, parts, or merchandise | No, goods are not reportable |
| An employee | No, that is a W-2, not a 1099 |
| A person you paid for personal, non-business reasons | No, only trade-or-business payments count |
You'll notice the whole table turns on facts you can't guess: is the vendor a corporation? Did you pay for services or goods? Was it by check or by card? You find every one of those answers on a single document you should be collecting anyway, the W-9.
The one habit that makes 1099 season painless: the W-9
A Form W-9 is a one-page request you send a contractor before you pay them. It gives you their legal name, their taxpayer identification number (their Social Security number or EIN), and, critically, how the business is taxed, which tells you whether the corporation exemption applies. Get it signed before the first check goes out, and filing a 1099 in January is a five-minute pull from your records instead of a frantic chase for people who have moved, gone quiet, or don't want to hand over a number after they've already been paid.
The W-9 also protects you from a rule with real teeth. If a contractor won't give you a valid TIN, you are supposed to start backup withholding, holding back 24% of what you pay them and remitting it to the IRS on their behalf. Miss that, and if the number turns out to be missing or wrong, the shortfall can land on you rather than the contractor. Collecting the W-9 up front is how you avoid ever being in that position.
My rule: no W-9, no check.
Make the signed W-9 a condition of the first payment, the same way you'd want a signed contract. A contractor who is happy to be paid but won't complete a W-9 is telling you something. Once you have it on file, you never have to think about it again unless their information changes.
Paying subs and dreading 1099 season?
When I keep your books, every contractor payment and W-9 is tracked as it happens, so January is a clean export, not a scramble. A discovery call is the place to see what that looks like for your business.
Book a Discovery CallPick a time on my calendar. No obligation.
The deadline and how to actually file
The 1099-NEC deadline is January 31, and it's unusual in two ways. First, it's early, a month before most tax deadlines. Second, the same date applies to both copies: the one you send the contractor and the one you file with the IRS are both due January 31 (when that date falls on a weekend, the deadline shifts to the next business day, for 2026 payments, that's February 1, 2027). There's no built-in grace period between getting the form to your contractor and getting it to the government.
On the mechanics: if you're filing 10 or more information returns of any kind combined 1099-NECs, 1099-MISCs, W-2s, all of it added together. You're required to file electronically. That aggregate 10-return threshold took effect for returns filed in 2024 and it's low enough that most active businesses land inside it. The IRS runs a free filing system (IRIS) for this, and most payroll and bookkeeping platforms will e-file the forms for you as part of the service.
The step people skip: a 1099-NEC is only as accurate as the total behind it. If your books don't cleanly separate what you paid each contractor for services, versus reimbursed materials, or payments you ran through a card, the number on the form is a guess. Reconciled books are what turn 1099 filing from a reconstruction project into a report you run. That's the same reason clean books make your quarterly estimated taxes and your year-end return easier, too.
What it costs to get it wrong
The IRS charges a penalty per form for each 1099 that's late, missing, or filed with the wrong information, and the amount climbs the longer you wait. These are the amounts for returns required to be filed in 2026; they're adjusted for inflation each year:
| How late | Penalty per form |
|---|---|
| Filed within 30 days of the deadline | $60 |
| Filed after 30 days but by August 1 | $130 |
| Filed after August 1, or not filed at all | $340 |
| Intentional disregard (you knew and skipped it) | $680+ |
The number that surprises people is that the penalty can apply twice for the same contractor, once for failing to file the copy with the IRS, and again for failing to give the copy to the contractor. Ten missed forms handled late isn't one problem; it can be twenty penalties. There's an annual maximum that caps the total, and that cap is lower for small businesses (those averaging $5 million or less in gross receipts), but the per-form math adds up fast well before you get anywhere near it.
The good news: these penalties are almost entirely avoidable, and they reward getting close even when you slip. Filing a corrected or late form within 30 days keeps you at the lowest tier. The expensive outcomes come from ignoring the obligation, not from an honest mistake caught quickly.
One thing that's easier in Florida
Because Florida has no state personal income tax, there's no separate state 1099 filing to worry about the way there is in many states. A business in California or New York often has to file its 1099s a second time with the state's revenue department, on the state's schedule. In Florida, the 1099-NEC is a purely federal obligation. You file with the IRS and you're done. One filing, one deadline.
That's a genuine simplification, but it's the only Florida-specific wrinkle here. The threshold, the January 31 deadline, the corporation and attorney rules, the backup withholding, and the penalties are all federal and apply to my Mount Dora clients exactly as they do everywhere else. If someone tells you Florida has some special 1099 workaround, it doesn't, the state just spares you the extra copy.
How I handle 1099s for clients
For the contractors and trade businesses I work with, the ones paying a rotating cast of subs, and the S-Corp owners paying specialists 1099 filing isn't a January event. It's a byproduct of doing the books right all year. When I keep your books, every payment to a contractor is categorized and tied to a W-9 as it happens. By the time January comes, the list of who needs a 1099, for how much, is already sitting there. I run the forms, not a reconstruction.
That's the real reason I'd rather do both the books and the filings than parachute in at deadline. The same CPA who watched the money go out is the one preparing the form, no handoff, no "what was this payment for," no guessing whether the vendor was a corporation. It's the same reason I prefer to keep the books for clients whose returns I prepare: the accuracy compounds when one person sees the whole picture.
If you're paying contractors and want to walk into next January with nothing to scramble for, that's a conversation worth having now, while there's still a full year of payments to capture cleanly. I'm in Mount Dora and work with businesses across Lake County, Seminole County, and remotely throughout Florida. The figures in this guide are current as of the 2025 and 2026 tax years, confirm any specific number against the IRS instructions or with me before you file.
Frequently asked questions
- Do I have to send a 1099-NEC to an LLC?
- It depends on how the LLC is taxed, which is exactly why you need a W-9 on file. A single-member LLC or a partnership-taxed multi-member LLC is treated like an individual for this purpose, so you do send a 1099-NEC if you paid it $2,000 or more for services in 2026. But an LLC that elected S-Corp or C-Corp status is treated as a corporation, and corporations are generally exempt. The one exception is legal services: an attorney or law firm gets a 1099-NEC even when it is incorporated.
- What is the 1099 reporting threshold for 2026?
- For payments made in 2026, you must file a 1099-NEC once you have paid a contractor $2,000 or more for the year. That is a change from the long-standing $600 threshold, raised by the 2025 tax law and effective for payments made on or after January 1, 2026. The $2,000 floor will be adjusted for inflation in future years. Note the timing: the 1099s you sent in January 2026 covered 2025 payments and still used the old $600 rule.
- When is the 1099-NEC deadline?
- January 31. Unlike most tax forms, the same date applies to both copies, the one you give the contractor and the one you file with the IRS are both due January 31. When that date falls on a weekend the deadline moves to the next business day, so 1099-NECs for 2026 payments are due February 1, 2027. It is an early, firm deadline, which is why I get my clients set up months ahead rather than in the last week of January.
- What happens if I file a 1099-NEC late or not at all?
- The IRS charges a penalty per form that grows with time. For returns due in 2026, it is $60 per form if you fix it within 30 days, $130 if by August 1, and $340 after that or if you never file, plus a heavier penalty for intentional disregard. The penalty can apply twice for the same contractor: once for the IRS copy and once for the recipient copy. There is an annual cap, lower for small businesses, but the per-form amounts add up quickly, so filing on time or correcting fast is what keeps the cost near zero.
- Do I file a 1099 for a contractor I paid through PayPal or a credit card?
- No. Payments made by credit card, debit card, or a third-party payment network like PayPal or Venmo are reported by the payment processor on a Form 1099-K, not by you on a 1099-NEC. Sending a 1099-NEC for those payments would double-report the same income. This is one more reason to track how you pay each contractor: only your check, cash, and direct-transfer payments for services count toward the $2,000 threshold that triggers a 1099-NEC from you.
- Does Florida require me to file 1099s with the state?
- No. Florida has no state personal income tax, so there is no separate state-level 1099 filing the way there is in states like California or New York. Your 1099-NEC obligation is purely federal. You file with the IRS and you are finished. Every other rule, though, the $2,000 threshold, the January 31 deadline, the corporation and attorney exceptions, and the penalties, is federal and applies to Florida businesses exactly as it does anywhere else.