Does Shopify send you a 1099-K?

Does Shopify send you a 1099-K, and when does it arrive?

The issuer is Shopify Payments rather than Shopify the platform, and that distinction carries the whole answer. Shopify's tax-reporting page states the rule: "Shopify Payments issues a Form 1099-K to all Shopify Payments users based in the United States that accept payments, regardless of their business type or activity, and that have met that year's criteria." A part-time sole proprietor and an incorporated brand are treated identically — what separates them is the criteria in the two sections that follow, not their legal form.

The timing is fixed too: "If you meet the criteria for Form 1099-K, then the form is delivered in January for the previous calendar year's transactions." You do not have to wait for an envelope to see it. Shopify gives the path in the admin in one line — go to Finance > Documents, then click 1099-K. If the form is already in front of you and the total looks too high for what your bank received, that is the gross-value section further down.

What is the 1099-K threshold for 2025 and 2026?

Shopify states the criteria it applies by tax year, and for tax year 2025 both halves of the federal test have to be met: Shopify gives that year's IRS threshold as processing more than $20,000 USD in funds and processing more than 200 transactions. The federal dollar figure on its own is not the trigger: a store with few large orders can stay under the test. Shopify applies that test per tax ID, not per account: two or more accounts sharing one tax ID have their reporting volume combined to decide whether a form is issued.

Lower numbers circulate for a reason. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 legislated a lower reporting threshold, and the One Big Beautiful Bill undid it after the fact: the IRS says the bill "retroactively reinstated the reporting threshold in effect prior to the passage of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA)". That release is dated October 23, 2025, and the reversal reaches back over the years it covers — so anything written before that date can still be presenting the lower threshold as though it were about to arrive. The IRS page carrying the test above was last reviewed on June 28, 2026, which is how recently that test has been confirmed to stand. Because the reinstatement is retroactive, that is the test behind both the form you are holding for 2025 and the one coming for 2026.

Does your state set a lower threshold?

Staying under the federal test does not guarantee that no form arrives: the federal test is one level, and individual states set their own, lower ones — Shopify publishes that table on the same tax-reporting page it uses for this form. When we read it on August 9, 2026, the lowest figure in its state table for tax year 2025 was $600.

Every state in that table with a $600 line carries no transaction minimum at all, so an ordinary seller can be reported on a year that never came close to the federal test. Two entries are exceptions worth knowing: California's $600 line is written for app-based drivers only — every other California seller follows the federal test — and Illinois is the only state in the table that pairs a transaction count with a dollar figure above those $600 lines, and that count is at least four. Shopify warns that state thresholds can change and tells merchants to verify current requirements with their state's government website, so treat the figures here as read on one date and check yours there before you assume no form is coming.

Why the 1099-K total rarely matches your bank deposits

This is what actually brings merchants to the form: the total printed on it does not match the money that reached the bank. Nothing has gone wrong. The form counts what customers paid, not what survived the trip into your account, and Shopify names exactly what stays in the number:

Every item on that list has already left your deposits by the time you compare the two figures. A refunded order still sits in the form at its full value. A chargeback does too. A bill you settled from Shopify Balance was paid with money the form still counts as received. The gap is the design of the form, not an error in it, which is why matching it line-for-line against your bank statement never resolves.

What that makes practical is the handover to your accountant: bring the form and bring your own record of refunds, chargebacks, processing fees and Shopify Balance bills for the same year, because the tax authority has one of those two documents and only you have the other. If the underlying question is why a payout is smaller than the sales behind it, our Shopify accounting guide takes that apart in detail.

What the form does not cover

The scope sits inside the sentence quoted above — "transactions processed through Shopify Payments". Money that reached you another way is outside this document: a third-party gateway on the same storefront, a marketplace that pays you directly, or a second store running its own Shopify Payments account. The figure summarises one payment account, not your business — so for a merchant selling across several channels this form is a partial record of the year, whatever paperwork the other channels do or do not send. If more than one storefront is involved, start with our guide to running multiple Shopify stores.

Sellers outside the United States ask what the equivalent is for them. The tax-reporting page Shopify keeps for this form is titled for the United States; the sibling tax-reporting pages for Australia, France and Singapore cover GST or VAT on processing fees, and neither they nor the Shopify Payments product page — all read on August 9, 2026 — names an equivalent form.

Where this answer stops

This page explains the document: who issues it, what triggers it, what the number on it means and where to find it. It does not tell you what to do with it. Whether you must file, what belongs on the return, and how the difference between the form and your books is presented are your accountant's calls, and the current, complete threshold for your own state belongs to that state's revenue department rather than to any page that can go stale between visits.

One neighbouring duty is worth keeping separate while you are here: sales tax is a different obligation with different rules, and what Shopify does and does not do about it is answered in does Shopify file sales tax for you.