Your late forms

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Which form?

Tax year

How many forms were late?

Date filed with the SSA (or will be)

Haven't filed yet? Use the date you plan to file.

The copies for workers or payees were late too

Date sent to employees (or will be)

Small business (average annual gross receipts of $5 million or less)

Your estimate appears here

Pick the form, enter how many were late and when they went out, and hit Calculate.

Two penalties for each late form

Late W-2s and 1099s are charged a flat amount per form, based on how late the form was. And there are two separate penalties:

Filing late with the government (IRC 6721). That's the SSA for W-2s and the IRS for 1099s.
Sending copies late to your workers or payees (IRC 6722).

Both use the same per-form amounts, and each has its own caps. So a W-2 that's late to both the SSA and your employee is charged twice.

When the forms are due

Form W-2: January 31, to the SSA and to employees.
Form 1099-NEC: January 31, to the IRS and to recipients.
Form 1099-MISC: February 28 on paper or March 31 if filed electronically. Recipient copies are due January 31, or February 15 if you report amounts in box 8 or 10.
Most other 1099s, like 1099-INT and 1099-DIV: February 28 on paper or March 31 if filed electronically. Recipient copies are due January 31.

A due date on a weekend or legal holiday moves to the next business day. January 31, 2026, was a Saturday, so W-2s were due February 2, 2026. Other federal deadlines are in the deadline tables.

How much per form

For forms due in 2026, which report tax year 2025:

$60 a form if filed within 30 days after the due date
$130 a form if filed after that but by August 1
$340 a form if filed after August 1, or never filed

Forms due in 2027, for tax year 2026, use the same amounts. Forms due in 2025 were $60, $130, and $330, and forms due in 2024 were $60, $120, and $310. The calculator uses the right amounts for your year.

Say you sent 10 W-2s for 2025 to the SSA and to your employees on February 20, 2026. That's 18 days after the February 2 due date. Each penalty is 10 forms at $60, or $600, so you'd owe $1,200. If they went out after August 1 instead, it would be 10 forms at $340, twice, or $6,800.

The yearly caps

Each tier has a yearly cap on the total, across all your late forms. For forms due in 2026, the caps are $683,000, $2,049,000, and $4,098,500. Small businesses, with average annual gross receipts of $5 million or less for the 3 most recent tax years, get lower caps: $239,000, $683,000, and $1,366,000. Check the small business box and the calculator applies them.

Intentional disregard: if the IRS decides a failure was intentional, the penalty is at least $680 a form for forms due in 2026 ($690 for 2027), with no cap. It's often 10% of the amounts that should have been reported, if that's more. The calculator assumes the forms were late, not wrong, and that the failure wasn't intentional.

Getting relief

First Time Abate and the newer Automatic Exemption from Penalty don't cover these penalties. You can still ask for relief for reasonable cause. The first-time abatement guide explains what those programs do cover. If you got a notice, look it up in the IRS notice lookup.

Questions people ask

What is the penalty for filing W-2s late?

For forms due in 2026, it's $60 a form if filed within 30 days after the due date, $130 if filed after that but by August 1, and $340 after August 1 or if never filed. Late copies to employees are a separate penalty with the same amounts.

Is there a penalty for sending a 1099 late to the contractor?

Yes. Getting the recipient's copy out late is its own penalty, with the same per-form amounts and its own caps. A form that's late to both the IRS and the recipient is charged twice.

Can first-time abatement remove these penalties?

No. First Time Abate and Automatic Exemption from Penalty don't cover penalties for late W-2s and 1099s. You can still ask for relief for reasonable cause.

Do I have to fix a small mistake on a W-2 or 1099?

Not if no single amount is off by more than $100, or $25 for tax withheld. The exception is when the recipient asks for a corrected form.

Check a late payroll tax deposit