# US year end and 1099 reporting

Who you paid, how much, and by which payout method, for the US tax year. Why we do not tell you which form to file.

Every January the same question arrives: what do I file for my affiliates. This page is the
answer, and the short version is that the filing is yours, the data is here, and the form depends
on how the money was sent.

<Callout type="warn">
Tax management features are provided for informational administrative purposes only. AffiliateRail
is not a tax adviser. Customers must independently evaluate 1099/1099-K filing requirements with
qualified professionals based on their chosen payment processors.
</Callout>

## Why it is yours and not ours

Payouts are non-custodial. Your own PayPal, Wise or Payoneer account pays your partner, using
credentials you connected, and the money never passes through us. That makes you the payer of
record. We were never in the flow of funds, so we have nothing to report and you have everything
to report.

That is not a limitation of the product. It is the same fact that keeps our fee at zero on the
money you move.

## The threshold

**$2,000 for payments made in 2026**, per person for the year rather than per payout. It was
raised from $600 by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act with effect from 1 January 2026. Most articles
you will find still say $600, because most of them were written before the change.

From 2027 the figure is adjusted for inflation each year and is published annually. Where we do
not know it, the dashboard says so rather than showing you last year's number.

## Why there is no "box" column

There is a real trap here and it is worth thirty seconds.

Money sent over a third-party settlement network, which includes PayPal, is reported by that
processor on a 1099-K. Money sent by direct ACH or wire is not, and is where a 1099-NEC from you
normally applies. A merchant who files a 1099-NEC for a payment the processor has already reported
on a 1099-K has reported the same money twice, and the affiliate is the one who has to sort it out.

Our own payout methods land on both sides of that line. PayPal is likely the processor's report. Bank
transfer and wire are likely yours. Wise and Payoneer depend on how your account with them is set
up, and only you can find that out.

So the export tells you **what you paid, to whom, and by which payout method**, and stops there. Naming a
form for you would be us making a classification we are not qualified to make and you would be the
one who carries it.

## The export

**Tax forms**, then **US payouts**. Pick a tax year and download the CSV.

It has one row per person **per payout method**, because a partner paid half by PayPal and half by
wire is two different reporting questions and one combined total hides the fact that decides them.

| Column | What it is |
| --- | --- |
| `partner_id` | The partner in your program |
| `legal_name`, `business_name`, `tax_classification` | From their W-9 |
| `tin_type`, `tin` | The number they certified, in full |
| `address_line_1` to `postal_code` | Their W-9 address |
| `payout_method` | The payout method. This is the column your accountant needs |
| `payouts` | How many payouts made up the amount |
| `amount_paid`, `currency` | What you actually paid them that calendar year |
| `form_readable` | `no` when the stored form could not be decrypted, so blanks are explained rather than silent |

The file opens with four comment lines carrying the year, the threshold and the notice above. If
your filing service wants a bare header, delete them.

## Who is in it

Everyone with a **submitted W-9** who you paid in that calendar year. The W-9 is the declaration
that makes someone a US person for this purpose, so it is the test, not their country: a US citizen
living abroad still files a W-9, and a non-US person files a W-8 and is not in this export.

Partners are listed whatever they were paid, not only those over the threshold, because you
usually want to see the whole picture and add the methods up yourself. The dashboard tells you how
many crossed it.

A partner who asked to be erased under a data request stays in this export, under the legal name
on their sealed tax form. This is the one place they still appear, because the export answers the
tax authority whose retention period the form is kept under: see [privacy and your
data](/guides/privacy-and-data#what-happens-to-a-deleted-partners-tax-form).

## What we never do

- We never file anything, for you or for anyone.
- We never check a TIN against the IRS and never run identity checks.
- We never tell you which form applies.
- We never see the money.

Collect, store, export. Your accountant does the rest.