Influencer Tax Forms: W-9s, 1099s and Creators Abroad

If you're a US business paying US creators directly, you collect a Form W-9 before you pay them and issue a Form 1099-NEC in January for anyone you paid over the reporting threshold during the year. If you pay through a third-party processor like PayPal Goods & Services or Stripe, the processor reports it on a 1099-K and you should not also issue a 1099-NEC for the same money.

That's the whole shape of it. The details below are the ones that cost brands money or January panic — and this is general information, not tax advice; your accountant gets the final word.

Collect the W-9 before you pay, not in January

The single change that fixes most of this: make the W-9 part of onboarding, alongside the contract and the brief — not part of invoicing, and not part of year-end.

A creator who has been paid has no incentive to send you anything; one who hasn't been paid yet answers within a day. Every brand that leaves the W-9 to January spends the last week of the month chasing people who did one deal nine months ago, some of whom have changed their handle, their email, or their career.

The W-9 gives you four things: legal name and business name (a handle is not who you're paying, and not what goes on a 1099); the taxpayer ID, an SSN for an individual or an EIN for an entity; the federal tax classification, which tells you whether a 1099 is required at all; and an address for the recipient copy.

Keep the form; don't send it anywhere. The W-9 is yours to retain, and because it carries a full SSN it should live somewhere access-controlled, not in a shared campaign folder or an email thread.

Who gets a 1099, and who doesn't

Three tests, in order.

1. Did you pay them enough? The long-standing threshold was $600 in a calendar year. The 2025 tax law raised the 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC reporting threshold to $2,000 for payments made from 2026 onward, indexed for inflation after that — confirm the current figure against the IRS instructions or your accountant before you rely on it, because this one moved recently and the internet is full of pages that still say $600. The safe operational rule is unaffected either way: collect a W-9 from everyone, then decide in January who crosses the line.

2. How did you pay them? This is the test brands most often get wrong.

Payment method	Who reports it
ACH, bank transfer, check, wire	You, on a 1099-NEC
PayPal Goods & Services, Stripe, Wise, marketplace payouts	The processor, on a 1099-K
Payment card / corporate card	The card network, on a 1099-K

If a third-party settlement organisation processed the payment, you don't file a 1099-NEC for it — doing so double-reports the creator's income. Note that PayPal Friends and Family isn't a Goods & Services transaction and isn't reported by PayPal; it's also the wrong way to pay a contractor.

3. What kind of entity are they? Payments to C and S corporations generally don't require a 1099, and most creators aren't one. An LLC is the case to look at closely: a single-member LLC that hasn't elected corporate treatment is disregarded for tax purposes, so the 1099 goes to the owner's name and TIN — which is what the W-9's classification box is for.

Deadline: the recipient copy and the IRS filing for 1099-NEC are both due 31 January, earlier than most other information returns.

Gifted product is compensation, not a gift

If you send a creator product and they are obliged to post about it, the IRS treats that as barter compensation at fair market value — taxable to them, and it counts toward your reporting threshold. A "gifted" collaboration with a deliverable attached is a paid deal that happens to be paid in goods.

What that means in practice:

• Value it at retail, the price a customer would pay, not your cost of goods.
• Track it per creator across the year. A brand sending a $180 bundle five times to the same creator has paid that creator $900 in product, and it combines with any cash fees.
• Say so in the agreement. Creators who learn the tax treatment from a January 1099 rather than from you do not run a second campaign with you.
• A genuinely unconditional send — no obligation, no deliverable — is murkier. Ask your accountant rather than assuming, and keep seeding records clear enough to tell the two situations apart.

If you run a seeding programme at any scale, our guide to influencer gifting programs covers structuring the "no obligation" version so it stays what it claims to be.

Creators outside the US

Different form, different logic. A non-US creator gives you a W-8BEN (individual) or W-8BEN-E (entity) instead of a W-9. It documents that they are a foreign person, and it's typically valid through the end of the third calendar year after signing, so it's not a once-forever piece of paper.

The core rule for services: compensation for personal services is generally sourced to where the work is performed. A creator in Berlin filming in Berlin is earning foreign-source income, which normally means no US withholding, no 1099 and no 1042-S — but you still want the W-8BEN on file to document why you didn't withhold.

The exception worth knowing: licensing fees can behave differently from service fees. If part of the payment is characterised as a royalty for use of intellectual property in the US — a usage-rights line, say — that portion may be US-source income subject to 30% withholding unless a treaty reduces the rate, reported on Form 1042-S. If your contracts split a fee into "content creation" and "usage rights", raise that split with your accountant before scaling it across a roster of foreign creators.

Going the other way, a UK or EU creator invoices you and charges VAT if they're registered; cross-border B2B services often fall under a reverse charge that puts the VAT accounting on you. There's no 1099 equivalent — the reporting obligation sits with the creator — but you still need the invoice to hold the deduction.

Making the paperwork part of the workflow

This becomes a January problem because the tax record lives apart from the relationship record. The contract is in one place, the invoice is in an inbox, the gifted product is in a shipping spreadsheet, and the W-9 is wherever it was emailed. Reassembling a year-to-date total per creator from those four sources produces a number nobody fully trusts.

CreatorCast keeps deal terms, gifted product, approvals and payouts on one record per creator, so what you have paid someone this year — cash and product together — is a number you read rather than reconstruct. Pair it with our guide to how to pay influencers for the invoicing and payment-timing side of the same workflow.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to send a 1099 to influencers? If you're a US business that paid a US creator directly by bank transfer or check above the annual reporting threshold, yes — a 1099-NEC by 31 January. If you paid through PayPal Goods & Services, Stripe or a card, the processor reports it instead and you should not file one for that money.

What is the 1099 threshold for creator payments? It was $600 for many years and was raised to $2,000 for payments made from 2026 onward, indexed for inflation thereafter. Check the current IRS instructions before you file, and collect a W-9 from every creator regardless so the decision is yours to make in January.

Does free product count toward the 1099 total? Yes, when the creator is obliged to post in exchange for it. Value it at fair market retail price and add it to any cash fees paid to the same creator during the year.

What form do I need from an international creator? A W-8BEN for an individual or W-8BEN-E for a business entity, collected before payment and refreshed roughly every three years. Services performed outside the US generally aren't subject to US withholding, but a payment characterised as a US royalty can be — worth an accountant's read if you license usage rights from creators abroad.