Do Partnerships Get a 1099? Forms, Exceptions, and Deadlines

Yes, partnerships do get 1099s. If your business paid a partnership $600 or more during the calendar year for services, rent, or other qualifying income, you need to send a 1099. Partnerships are treated the same as individuals and sole proprietors for information reporting; the corporate exemption that spares most C corps and S corps from 1099s does not extend to them.¹

Why Partnerships Aren’t Exempt

The IRS requires anyone engaged in a trade or business to file an information return when they pay $600 or more in a calendar year to another person for services, rent, royalties, prizes, or similar income.² For this purpose, “person” includes individuals, partnerships, and estates. Corporations are carved out of most reporting. Partnerships are not. That single distinction is where most of the confusion starts, because business owners often assume every registered entity qualifies for the exemption.

The four conditions that trigger a nonemployee compensation filing all apply cleanly to a partnership vendor: the payee is not your employee, the payment was for services performed in the course of your trade or business, the payee is an individual, partnership, or estate, and total payments reached at least $600 for the year.² Pay a consulting firm organized as a partnership $10,000 for advisory work, and you owe them a 1099.

The $600 threshold is cumulative for the year, not per invoice. Ten payments of $75 add up to $750 and cross the line. And the requirement is tied strictly to business payments; paying a partnership-run contractor for personal home improvements does not trigger a filing, even if you also run a business.¹

Which Form to Use

The type of payment picks the form, not the partnership’s structure.

Form 1099-NEC, Box 1, covers nonemployee compensation: consulting fees, contractor work, professional services, and director fees paid to a partnership.²
Form 1099-MISC, Box 1, covers rent payments of $600 or more.³
Form 1099-MISC, Box 2, covers royalty payments of $10 or more.³
Form 1099-MISC, Box 6, covers medical and health care payments of $600 or more.
Form 1099-MISC, Box 10, covers gross proceeds paid to an attorney of $600 or more in connection with legal services.

Pay a partnership for office cleaning, use 1099-NEC. Pay the same partnership for warehouse rent, use 1099-MISC. If you pay for both, file both forms for the same payee.

LLCs Taxed as Partnerships Count Too

A limited liability company with two or more members is automatically a partnership for federal tax purposes unless it elects corporate treatment on Form 8832.⁴ A multi-member LLC that hasn’t made the election follows the same 1099 rules as any general or limited partnership.

Figure out the classification from Form W-9. An LLC taxed as a partnership checks the “LLC” box and enters “P” in the tax classification field.⁵ When you see that “P,” treat the LLC as a partnership for reporting. An LLC that enters “C” or “S” gets the corporate exemption for most payment types.

Payment Types That Require a 1099 Anyway

A few categories require a 1099 regardless of the recipient’s entity. These are less important to partnership reporting because partnerships already get 1099s, but they matter when you’re paying an incorporated law firm or medical group and mistakenly assume the corporate exemption applies.

Legal Services

Any payment of $600 or more for legal services goes on Form 1099-NEC, Box 1, whether the law firm is a sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, or corporation.⁶ The IRS defines “attorney” broadly to include any law firm or provider of legal services. This is one of the most frequently missed filings because payers assume incorporation shields the firm. It doesn’t.

Attorney Gross Proceeds

Separate from legal fees, settlement checks paid to or through an attorney get reported on Form 1099-MISC, Box 10, for the full amount, even if most of it will pass through to the claimant.⁶ If you also paid that attorney separately for their services, you report the fees on 1099-NEC and the settlement proceeds on 1099-MISC. Two forms, same payee, different boxes.

Medical and Health Care

Payments of $600 or more for medical or health care services go on Form 1099-MISC, Box 6, regardless of the provider’s entity type.⁶ A partnership medical group paid for occupational health screenings, drug testing, or similar services still gets a 1099-MISC.

When You Don’t Have to File

Several situations remove the requirement even when the payee is a partnership:

Total payments to the partnership stayed below $600 for the year ($10 for royalties).
The payment was for merchandise or goods, not services. Buying inventory from a partnership does not require a 1099-NEC.
You paid by credit card, debit card, or a third-party settlement organization like PayPal. Those transactions get reported by the payment processor on Form 1099-K, and you do not also report them on 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC. The 1099-K threshold for third-party settlement organizations is $20,000 and more than 200 transactions after changes enacted by the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act; payment card transactions have no minimum threshold.¹⁷
The payment wasn’t made as part of a trade or business.

The credit card exception catches a lot of businesses. Pay a partnership $8,000 for consulting entirely on a corporate credit card, and you should not file a 1099-NEC; the card issuer handles it. Pay $5,000 by check and $3,000 by credit card, and you file a 1099-NEC for the $5,000 only.

One boundary worth flagging: if the partnership is foreign rather than domestic, none of this applies. Foreign partnerships submit Form W-8 rather than W-9, and payments to them are reported on Form 1042-S under a different withholding regime.⁸

Get the W-9 First

Before you can decide whether a 1099 is required, you need to know the vendor’s entity type, and Form W-9 is how you find out. Every vendor you might owe a 1099 should complete a W-9 before or shortly after the first payment.⁹

A partnership checks the “Partnership” box on line 3a and provides its Employer Identification Number. An LLC taxed as a partnership checks “LLC” and enters “P” in the classification field.⁵ The name and EIN on the W-9 are what you use on the 1099.

If a partnership refuses to provide a W-9 or the TIN comes back as incorrect, backup withholding applies. You must withhold 24% of every reportable payment and send it to the IRS.¹⁰ A $5,000 payment becomes $1,200 withheld and $3,800 out the door. The partnership can claim credit later, but nobody wants that cash flow disruption. Once backup withholding kicks in, the $600 threshold no longer matters; you must file a 1099 no matter the amount.¹

Guaranteed Payments to Partners Don’t Go on a 1099

If the partnership issuing the 1099 is your own, one exclusion matters. Guaranteed payments and profit distributions to partners are not reported on a 1099. They go on Schedule K-1 (Form 1065), which the partnership files as part of its annual return.¹¹ The 1099-NEC instructions explicitly exclude profits distributed by a partnership to its partners.⁶ A partner is an owner, not an independent contractor. The K-1 is the reporting document.

Expense reimbursements to outside contractors deserve attention too. If your partnership reimburses a contractor’s travel without requiring receipts and a business purpose, those reimbursements go on the 1099-NEC as part of total compensation. Reimbursements made under an arrangement where the contractor accounts for the expenses are generally excluded from the 1099 total.⁶

Deadlines and E-Filing

Two dates apply: getting the form to the recipient, and filing with the IRS.

Form 1099-NEC: both recipient copy and IRS filing due January 31, whether you file on paper or electronically.²
Form 1099-MISC: recipient copies due January 31, IRS filing due February 28 on paper or March 31 electronically.²

When a deadline falls on a weekend or legal holiday, it shifts to the next business day.

If your business files 10 or more information returns of any type during the year, you must file them electronically.¹² The 10-return count is an aggregate across all form types, including W-2s. A partnership that issues five 1099-NECs and six W-2s has hit 11 returns and must e-file everything. The IRS Information Returns Intake System (IRIS) is a free, web-based portal that handles manual entry and CSV uploads of up to 100 returns at a time.¹³

Penalties for Missing or Late Filings

Penalties are assessed per return and escalate the longer you wait. For returns due in 2026:¹⁴

Corrected within 30 days of the due date: $60 per return.
Corrected after 30 days but by August 1: $130 per return.
Filed after August 1 or not filed at all: $340 per return.

Intentional disregard is a different category. The penalty jumps to the greater of $630 per return (adjusted for inflation) or 10% of the amount that should have been reported, with no annual cap. A partnership that skips 1099s on purpose for $500,000 in vendor payments could face a $50,000 penalty from that provision alone. The IRS treats honest mistakes and deliberate noncompliance differently, and the numbers reflect it.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Am I Required to File a Form 1099 or Other Information Return
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (04/2025)
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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Information
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Internal Revenue Service. LLC Filing as a Corporation or Partnership
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Internal Revenue Service. Form W-9 Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (Rev. April 2025)
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Internal Revenue Service. IRS Issues FAQs on Form 1099-K Threshold Under the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Dollar Limit Reverts to $20,000
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1042-S
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for the Requester of Form W-9 (03/2024)
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Internal Revenue Service. Backup Withholding
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Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 801, Who Must File Information Returns Electronically
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Internal Revenue Service. E-File Information Returns With IRIS
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Internal Revenue Service. 20.1.7 Information Return Penalties