Who must file Form 1099-DIV
File Form 1099-DIV for each person to whom you paid $10 or more in dividends and other distributions on stock (including capital gain distributions and exempt-interest dividends), for whom you withheld and paid any foreign tax on dividends, from whom you withheld federal income tax under the backup withholding rules, or to whom you paid $2,000 or more as part of a liquidation. Brokers and other nominees file for the beneficial owners of stock held in street name.
Exempt recipients include corporations, tax-exempt organizations, IRAs and other retirement trusts, governments and securities dealers; no 1099-DIV is required for them. Section 404(k) dividends paid by an ESOP are reported on 1099-DIV but follow the statement rules for Form 1099-R.
Threshold: $10, $10 or more in dividends and distributions; liquidation distributions at the section 6041 amount ($2,000 for 2026, previously $600); any amount if foreign tax or backup withholding was withheld.
What is reported, box by box
| Box | What it reports | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1a | Total ordinary dividends | Includes qualified dividends and short-term capital gain distributions. |
| 1b | Qualified dividends | The portion of 1a eligible for capital gain rates. |
| 2a to 2f | Total capital gain distributions and their components | Unrecaptured section 1250 gain, section 1202 gain, collectibles gain, section 897 amounts for foreign persons. |
| 3 | Nondividend distributions | Return of capital. |
| 4 | Federal income tax withheld | Backup withholding; Form 945. |
| 5 | Section 199A dividends | REIT dividends eligible for the qualified business income deduction. |
| 6 | Investment expenses | Non-publicly offered RICs. |
| 7 and 8 | Foreign tax paid and country | If you withheld and paid foreign tax. |
| 9 and 10 | Cash and noncash liquidation distributions | Liquidations at the $2,000 amount. |
| 11 | FATCA filing requirement | Checkbox for FFIs and U.S. payers reporting under the chapter 4 election. |
| 12 and 13 | Exempt-interest dividends and specified private activity bond interest dividends | Mutual fund tax-exempt distributions. |
| 14 to 16 | State information | Convenience boxes. |
Box titles follow the current revision of the form. The IRS reads the payer and recipient name, TIN, address, account number and the money boxes; the state boxes are for the state copy only.
Payments that are not reported on Form 1099-DIV
- Distributions to exempt recipients: corporations, tax-exempt entities, IRAs, governments, dealers.
- Dividends paid to a nonresident alien or foreign entity, which are reported and withheld on Form 1042-S.
- Distributions from a partnership or S corporation (Schedule K-1), and undistributed capital gains of a RIC or REIT (Form 2439).
- Substitute payments in lieu of dividends received by a broker's customer during a securities loan (1099-MISC box 8).
Due dates and extensions
| Copy | Due | For 2026 returns |
|---|---|---|
| To the IRS, paper | February 28 | Monday, March 1, 2027 (February 28 is a Sunday) |
| To the IRS, electronic | March 31 | Wednesday, March 31, 2027 |
| To the recipient | January 31 | Monday, February 1, 2027 (January 31 is a Sunday) |
An automatic 30-day extension is available on Form 8809, filed by the due date on paper or through IRIS; a second 30 days requires a hardship showing. Recipient statements can be extended 30 days on Form 15397, online or by fax only. 10 or more information returns of any type in aggregate must be e-filed (T.D. 9972); IRIS is the only IRS intake system from filing season 2027, FIRE having been retired. A payer who e-files the originals must e-file the corrections.
For 2026 forms filed in 2027: January 31 falls on a Sunday, so that deadline moves to Monday, February 1, 2027; February 28 also falls on a Sunday, so the paper deadline moves to Monday, March 1, 2027. March 31 (electronic) and March 15 are weekdays. February 28 does not become February 29 in a leap year. The compliance calendar has every date with the weekend shifts applied.
Backup withholding and TIN matching
Dividends are section 6042 payments and carry the full set of backup withholding triggers: missing TIN, TIN not certified for post-1983 accounts, CP2100 notice, C-Notice for under-reporting, and failure to certify not being subject to backup withholding. The 60-day awaiting-TIN exemption applies. Closely held corporations paying dividends to a shareholder who never provided a W-9 are the case that surprises people: the corporation is a payer and must withhold 24%.
Form 1099-DIV filers may use the IRS TIN Matching program.
Name and TIN errors on this form
Every information return is matched by the IRS on the first four characters of the payee's name (the name control) against the TIN. A mismatch produces a CP2100 line the following autumn and, unless the solicitation record is in order, a 972CG penalty the year after: $340 per return for 2026 forms filed in 2027 that are late or wrong, $690 for intentional disregard, with annual maximums of $4,191,500 ($1,397,000 for small filers) under Rev. Proc. 2025-32. The errors that recur on Form 1099-DIV:
- Street-name holdings. The broker, not the issuer, files to the beneficial owner. The issuer files to the record holder, which is the broker's nominee (Cede & Co. is an exempt recipient).
- Shareholder records of closely held companies. Stock ledgers carry names from incorporation; the shareholder may have changed names or moved shares into a trust since. Solicit a fresh W-9 before the first 1099-DIV.
- Joint and custodial accounts follow the same first-name-line rule as 1099-INT.
- Liquidation distributions to an estate or a trust use the estate's or trust's EIN.
The name control calculator shows what the IRS will derive from a name line, and the CP2100 guide covers what to do when the notice arrives.
Recipient statements and substitutes
Form 1099-DIV is subject to the statement mailing rules: the mailing may contain only the statement, a W-9 or W-8, a check or a letter explaining why there is none, the year-end account statement and a letter of tax consequences, with no advertising, and the envelope must carry the legend Important Tax Return Document Enclosed unless it contains only tax statements. A substitute Copy B must use the official box captions and numbers, show the OMB number and the tax year, form number and form name together in one place, bold the federal income tax withheld caption, and include a direct-access telephone number (Publication 1179, section 4.1). Statements may be furnished electronically only to a recipient who has affirmatively consented in a way that shows they can access the format, after the disclosures in Pub 1099 part M, and must stay posted through October 15. Copy B may show a truncated TIN (xxx-xx-1234); the IRS copy never may.
Corrections and state copies
A wrong amount, code or checkbox is a Type 1 correction: one corrected return with the CORRECTED box checked. A wrong or missing payee TIN, a wrong payee name, or the wrong form type is a Type 2 correction: a zeroed-out copy of the original plus a new original, in that order. Publication 1099 also says you are not required to file a correction for a missing or incorrect TIN if you meet the reasonable-cause standard, only to use the right TIN on the next return, although the IRS encourages the correction. Details and the paper error charts are on the 1099 corrections page.
Form 1099-DIV is a Combined Federal/State Filing program form: e-file it with the CF/SF election and the IRS forwards it to participating states. Whether that satisfies a given state, or the state wants a direct filing with its own transmittal, is on each state pages.
Questions people ask about Form 1099-DIV
Our S corporation makes distributions. 1099-DIV?
No. S corporation distributions are reported to shareholders on Schedule K-1, not 1099-DIV, unless the distribution is a dividend from accumulated C-corporation earnings and profits.
Do we report a $5 dividend?
Not required unless tax was withheld. Aggregate all dividends paid to the same shareholder during the year to apply the $10 test.
A foreign shareholder received dividends.
Report and withhold on Form 1042-S under chapter 3, based on the W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E on file, not on 1099-DIV. See the W-8 guide.
Which statement rules apply?
1099-DIV is subject to the 'statement mailing' rules: the envelope must be marked Important Tax Return Document Enclosed unless the mailing contains only tax statements, and no advertising may be enclosed.
Other federal forms
1042-S · 1097-BTC · 1098 · 1098-C · 1098-E · 1098-F · 1098-Q · 1098-T · 1098-VLI · 1099-A · 1099-B · 1099-C · 1099-CAP · 1099-G · 1099-INT · 1099-K · 1099-LS · 1099-LTC · 1099-MISC · 1099-NEC · 1099-OID · 1099-PATR · 1099-Q · 1099-QA · 1099-R · 1099-S · 1099-SA · 1099-SB · 3921 · 3922 · 5498 · 5498-ESA · 5498-SA · W-2G · 1099-DA · Comparison table
Sources: IRS Publication 1099 (2026), General Instructions for Certain Information Returns, which replaced the separate General Instructions starting with tax year 2026; Instructions for Form 1099-DIV (Rev. January 2024); Pub 1099 (2026), Guide to Information Returns and part M; IRC 6042, 3406. Threshold amounts are indexed for inflation from calendar year 2027; check IRS.gov/InflationAdjustment for the current year.