Marketplace Form 1095-A: Reconciling on Form 8962

Form 1095-A is the Health Insurance Marketplace statement sent to anyone who had coverage through HealthCare.gov or a state-based exchange during the year. It reports your monthly premiums, the benchmark plan used to size your subsidy, and any advance premium tax credit paid on your behalf. If you received any advance credit, you use the figures on Form 1095-A to complete Form 8962 and attach it to your Form 1040.¹ Starting with tax year 2026, that reconciliation matters more than it used to, because federal law eliminated the caps that previously limited how much excess subsidy you could be required to repay.

Who Sends the Form and When It Arrives

The Marketplace issues Form 1095-A. Your insurance company does not send it, and the IRS does not send it.¹ The Marketplace must furnish it by January 31 following the coverage year.² Paper copies often land by mid-February. A digital version is usually available in your Marketplace account from mid-January through early February.³

If nothing has shown up by mid-February, call the Marketplace directly. The federal exchange number is 800-318-2596.⁴ The IRS can’t help you get the form because it doesn’t originate there. If you received advance subsidies, don’t file without it. Filing with the wrong figures triggers processing delays and an incorrect credit calculation.

What the Form Shows

Form 1095-A has three parts. Part I identifies you, your Marketplace, the insurance company, your policy number, and your coverage dates. Part II lists everyone covered under the policy, with names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and individual coverage dates.⁵ Check those first two parts for accuracy. Part III is where the numbers that drive your credit live.

Part III has a row for each month of the year and three columns:

Column A, Monthly Enrollment Premium: the full cost of your plan before any subsidy, not the amount you actually paid at the register.³
Column B, Second Lowest Cost Silver Plan (SLCSP) premium: the benchmark used to calculate your maximum premium tax credit, based on your geographic area and household rather than the plan you chose.¹
Column C, Advance Payment of Premium Tax Credit: the monthly subsidy paid directly to your insurer. This is the figure that gets reconciled against what you actually qualified for.

All three columns transfer to Form 8962 when you file. A zero or blank in Column C for a given month means no advance credit was paid that month.

If Column B Is Blank or Wrong

The SLCSP figure in Column B is sometimes missing or incorrect, most often when you moved during the year or your household size changed. A blank there is a problem because the IRS needs it to calculate your credit. HealthCare.gov has a tax tool for this: enter your household and coverage details and it returns the correct monthly SLCSP amounts to use on Form 8962.⁶ Don’t guess, and don’t leave the line blank on your return.

Reconciling on Form 8962

If you received any advance premium tax credit during the year, you’re required to reconcile it. Reconciliation compares the advance payments in Column C against the credit you actually qualify for based on your final income. You do it on Form 8962, attached to Form 1040.⁷

The advance amounts were based on the income you estimated at enrollment. Your actual credit depends on your final Modified Adjusted Gross Income and household size as reported on your return. Form 8962 walks the math: monthly figures from your 1095-A, your final income, and it calculates the credit you earned versus what was already paid.

Two outcomes are possible. If your final credit is larger than the advance payments, you get the difference as a refundable credit, which increases your refund or reduces what you owe. That usually happens when income came in lower than you estimated. If advance payments exceeded your actual credit, you received more subsidy than you qualified for and must pay the excess back, added to your tax liability on Form 1040.⁸

Repayment Caps Are Gone for 2026

Through tax year 2025, the IRS capped repayment of excess advance credit for households below 400% of the Federal Poverty Line. Those caps ranged from $375 to $3,250 depending on income and filing status.⁹ Even a large gap between advance payments and actual eligibility could translate into a modest repayment.

Those protections are gone starting with tax year 2026. Federal legislation struck the repayment limitation from the statute, so you repay the full amount of any excess advance credit regardless of income.¹⁰⁸ A household at 180% of the poverty line that previously would have owed back at most $750 could now owe thousands. Keeping your income estimate current with the Marketplace is no longer just tidy housekeeping.

Report Income and Household Changes Within 30 Days

Because your advance credit is based on estimated income and household size, changes in either can throw the calculation off. If your income rises, you marry or divorce, you add or lose a dependent, or your household size shifts for any reason, report it to the Marketplace within 30 days.¹¹ The Marketplace can then adjust your advance payments so you’re not caught out at tax time.

With the repayment caps eliminated, a March raise you don’t report until you file the following spring can produce a repayment for every month of over-subsidy. If you’re past the 30-day window, report the change anyway. A late adjustment beats no adjustment.

Shared Policies After Divorce or Separation

When two people who shared one Marketplace policy file separate returns, the premiums and credits on that single 1095-A have to be divided. This comes up most often with divorce or legal separation, but it applies any time two filers shared one policy and aren’t filing jointly. The split goes in Part IV of Form 8962.⁷

You and the other filer can agree on any allocation percentage, but the same percentage has to apply to all three columns (A, B, and C) for the shared months, and the two percentages have to add up to 100%. If you can’t agree, the default is 50/50. Tax software usually won’t do this math for you, so you’ll multiply the monthly figures from the 1095-A by your percentage and enter the results manually.

If You Skip Reconciliation

Filing without Form 8962 when you owe reconciliation does more than delay a refund. The IRS rejects an electronically filed return when its records show advance payments and Form 8962 is missing.¹² If you filed on paper or the return slipped through, you’ll get Letter 12C asking for Form 8962 and your 1095-A. You have to respond to that letter even if you think the IRS is wrong.¹³

Skipping reconciliation also costs you next year’s subsidies. Taxpayers who don’t reconcile lose eligibility for advance premium tax credit payments and cost-sharing reductions for the following calendar year.¹³ You’d pay full price for coverage until you went back and fixed the prior year. If you’re owed a refund after reconciling, expect it roughly six to eight weeks after the IRS has everything.

Fixing Errors: Corrected and Voided Forms

Only the Marketplace can fix a 1095-A. The IRS can’t change it. Common problems are wrong coverage dates, an incorrect list of covered household members in Part II, or a bad SLCSP in Column B. Contact the Marketplace to request a corrected form. The corrected version is marked “CORRECTED” to distinguish it from the original.¹⁴

If you already filed using the incorrect form and later receive a corrected one, you generally do not need to file an amended return. The IRS has stated this explicitly, even when the corrected form would produce additional tax owed.⁴ You can amend if the correction increases your refund, but it isn’t required. If the changes affect Part III figures, walking through the numbers with a tax professional is worthwhile to see whether amending pays.¹⁴

A 1095-A marked “VOID” is different from a corrected one. Voided means the Marketplace determined the original was issued in error, usually because enrollment was never completed. Do not use a voided form or the original it replaces on your return. If you already filed using the original and then receive a voided version, file an amended return using Form 1040-X.⁴ If you think the form was voided by mistake and you actually did have Marketplace coverage, contact the Marketplace right away to get an accurate replacement.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Health Insurance Marketplace Statements
2
Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Instructions for Form 1095-A
3
HealthCare.gov. How to Use Form 1095-A, Health Insurance Marketplace Statement
4
Internal Revenue Service. Corrected, Incorrect or Voided Form 1095-A
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 1095-A – Health Insurance Marketplace Statement
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HealthCare.gov. Health Coverage Tax Tool
7
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8962
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 36B – Refundable Credit for Coverage Under a Qualified Health Plan
9
Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Instructions for Form 8962
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Internal Revenue Service. Questions and Answers About the Premium Tax Credit
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GOVinfo. Report Life Changes When You Have Marketplace Coverage
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Internal Revenue Service. How to Correct an Electronically Filed Return Rejected for a Missing Form 8962
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Internal Revenue Service. Reconciling Your Advance Payments of the Premium Tax Credit
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Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. What Changes Could My Clients See on Their Corrected Form 1095-A and Will Those Changes Affect Their Federal Income Tax Return