1099-NEC Threshold Rises to $2,000 in 2026 -- But Some States Still Require $600

The federal change: 1099-NEC/MISC threshold jumps from $600 to $2,000

Confirmed directly on IRS.gov's own instructions page for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC, in the "What's New" section: "For tax years beginning after 2025, the minimum threshold amount for reporting certain payments required to be reported on certain information returns and/or perform backup withholding on those payments increased to $2,000 and may be adjusted for inflation beginning in calendar year 2027." In practice, that means payments made during calendar year 2026 -- the forms due by January 31, 2027 -- are the first ones covered by the new $2,000 figure instead of the old $600 one. From 2027 onward, the threshold is scheduled to adjust for inflation rather than sit fixed.

Source: irs.gov/instructions/i1099mec ("Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC"). This is a direct quote from the IRS's own current instructions page, not a restatement from a secondary source.

This is a different form -- and a different threshold -- than the 1099-K

It's easy to mix these up, because both are information returns and both changed recently. A 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC is issued by a business that pays you directly for services (a client paying a freelancer, for example). A 1099-K is issued by a payment processor -- Etsy Payments, PayPal, Venmo's business flow -- for payments it settled on your behalf, regardless of who the underlying payer was. The 1099-K threshold did not change for 2026: it stays at $20,000 and 200 transactions, per two independent IRS.gov newsroom pages (one, two). If you're specifically trying to work out whether you owe tax on income you never got a form for at all, our companion guide on the 1099-K threshold and why the form's absence doesn't change what's taxable covers that question directly -- this article is about the NEC/MISC change and the state-level patchwork underneath it.

Why state thresholds matter even after the federal number went up

A federal 1099-NEC/MISC threshold governs when a payer is required to send you and the IRS a form. Several states run their own, separate information-return filing requirements with their own dollar thresholds -- rules a state tax department enforces independently of what the IRS just changed. A state threshold lower than the new federal $2,000 figure means a payer might still owe your state a copy of a 1099 even in a year where the IRS itself wouldn't have required one. This doesn't change whether your income is taxable -- all income is taxable regardless of any form, the same rule our 1099-K guide covers -- but it does affect whether a form shows up in your mailbox, and whether a business paying you needs to track a lower number than $2,000 to stay compliant with your state specifically.

State 1099-NEC/MISC thresholds we could confirm against a primary source

These seven -- six states plus the District of Columbia -- held up against a direct look at the issuing tax agency's own page or document, specifically for the 1099-NEC/1099-MISC filing rule this article is about (not the 1099-K rule covered separately below). Five carry an asterisk: Wisconsin, Mississippi, California, Arkansas, and New Jersey. The asterisk means the quoted text is the department's own wording, retrieved from its own current page or PDF via a text-extraction reader tool because a direct fetch either failed outright (403, DNS timeout) or returned an unparseable PDF file on our end -- not a sign the content itself is wrong, but worth a quick confirmation on your own before relying on any of the four for a real filing decision.

Missouri: Missouri Department of Revenue, dor.mo.gov — "Reporting Miscellaneous Income" — direct quote, fetched successfully: "payments of any income of $1,200 or more from a Missouri source." · Wisconsin*: Wisconsin Department of Revenue, revenue.wi.gov Tax Practitioner Q&A — department's own wording, via search-indexed text: "The threshold under Wisconsin law remains $600 for certain Form 1099s required to be filed with the department." · Mississippi*: Mississippi Department of Revenue, dor.ms.gov 1099 guidance for recipients (PDF) — department's own wording, via reader-extracted text: "1099-NEC is required to be filed to report income of $600 or more, regardless if there is any Mississippi withholding" (Mississippi states an identical, independent $600 figure for 1099-MISC, 1099-K, and a modified 1099-INT rule too -- it's the one state in this table where the same number happens to apply uniformly across form types). · California*: California Franchise Tax Board, ftb.ca.gov 1099 guidance for recipients — department's own wording, via reader-extracted text (ftb.ca.gov blocked direct fetch attempts): "You may receive a 1099-NEC if you received at least $600 for 2025 tax year (or $2,000 for 2026 tax year)," with an identical sentence for 1099-MISC. The mechanism is California Revenue & Taxation Code §18631, which requires a state copy of any federal information return required under IRC §6041/6041A (the sections OBBBA amended) -- not the SB 711 conformity-date law, which set general conformity to January 1, 2025 and doesn't mention 1099 thresholds or OBBBA at all. · Arkansas*: Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, "Withholding Tax Instructions for Employers" (PDF) — department's own wording, via reader-extracted text: "The dollar threshold for filing provided there is no Arkansas income tax withheld is $100.00 for 1099DIV & 1099INT, and $2,500.00 for all other 1099 types. If Arkansas taxes are withheld, filing is required regardless of the threshold amount." · District of Columbia: DC Office of Tax and Revenue, "2025 Specifications for the Electronic Filing of Forms 1099/W-2G" (PDF) — direct quote, fetched successfully: "Filing is required if income of $600 or more is reported for both District of Columbia residents and nonresidents." This is a general 1099 filing threshold, not a 1099-K-only rule -- the same document lists 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC by name among the accepted form types. · New Jersey*: NJ Division of Taxation, "Form 1099 Information Reporting" (GIT-ER, PDF) — department's own wording, via reader-extracted text: filing is required "when the amount paid or credited is $1,000 or more," described as applying to all Form 1099 information returns, not scoped to any one form type. Of the seven in this table, this is the one we would most want to re-confirm against a second clean pull of the same PDF: the states in the 1099-K table below looked like general thresholds too until a closer read showed they were form-specific, so treat New Jersey as the likeliest of these seven to move if better source text turns up.

State 1099-K thresholds -- a different form, not a NEC/MISC threshold

This is the mix-up the rest of this article warns about, showing up in state law itself: several states set a low, specific dollar threshold for the 1099-K -- the payment-processor form covered above, not the NEC/MISC form this page is otherwise about -- and secondary sources (and an earlier version of this page) sometimes repeat that 1099-K figure as if it were the state's NEC/MISC threshold too. It usually isn't. The five states below have a confirmed state-level 1099-K dollar threshold; what that means for each state's separate 1099-NEC/MISC filing rule is noted individually, because the two states we could check directly (Maryland, Illinois) turned out to have no dollar threshold at all for NEC/MISC -- filing there is triggered purely by the presence of state tax withholding, at any amount, not by a payment total.

Maryland: the $600 figure above is what secondary compliance sources report as Maryland's 1099-K threshold; we could not locate a clean primary Maryland statutory quote for that exact number this pass, so it stays secondary-only. What is primary-confirmed, directly from the Comptroller's own instructions PDF: "Maryland only requires a 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC from the payer (or employer) when there is Maryland withholding greater than zero, regardless of the payment amount." In other words, Maryland has no NEC/MISC dollar threshold to report -- the $600 number, whatever its exact source, does not apply to the form this article is otherwise about. (Maryland Comptroller, "2025 Maryland Employer Reporting of 1099s Instructions and Specifications" (PDF), department's own wording via reader-extracted text.)

Illinois: the Illinois Department of Revenue's own Pub-110 states the $1,000 and 4-or-more-transaction figure specifically as the 1099-K electronic-filing trigger, and the same document goes on to state directly that Illinois imposes no separate dollar threshold for 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC. That's a primary, department-stated fact, not an inference. (Illinois Dept. of Revenue, Pub-110, "Forms Filing and Storage Requirements" (PDF), department's own wording via reader-extracted text.)

Massachusetts: Mass.gov's own 1099-filing-requirements page states $600 only for the 1099-K. It separately says an employer must file if it issued a 1099-MISC or 1099-NEC, but states no dollar amount for that obligation -- only a due date. We did not find a Massachusetts primary source stating a dollar threshold for NEC/MISC this pass, so we're not asserting one; do not assume it mirrors the old $600 federal figure. (Mass.gov, "Massachusetts Form 1099 Filing Requirements", department's own wording via reader-extracted text.)

Vermont: the Vermont Department of Taxes' own page states the $600 figure specifically for third-party settlement organizations -- the 1099-K rule, in effect since tax year 2017. We did not find a Vermont primary source giving a dollar threshold for 1099-NEC/MISC. Multiple independent secondary sources describe Vermont's NEC/MISC filing as triggered by withholding rather than a dollar amount, consistent with Maryland and Illinois's confirmed pattern, but for Vermont that specific claim is secondary-only, not something we verified directly on a Vermont primary page. (Vermont Dept. of Taxes, "New Law Lowers Reporting Threshold for 1099-K Information Reporting", direct quote, fetched successfully.)

Virginia: Virginia Tax Bulletin 20-10 states the $600 figure specifically for 1099-K filing by third-party settlement organizations; the bulletin's title and content are exclusively about the 1099-K. We did not find a Virginia primary source giving a dollar threshold for 1099-NEC/MISC. As with Vermont, several independent secondary sources describe Virginia's NEC/MISC filing as withholding-triggered rather than dollar-triggered, but that specific claim is secondary-only here, not primary-confirmed the way Maryland's and Illinois's no-threshold rules are. (Virginia Tax Bulletin 20-10, "Virginia 1099-K Filing Requirements" (PDF), department's own wording via reader-extracted text.)

What this list doesn't cover

This article covers the federal NEC/MISC and 1099-K rules plus 11 states and the District of Columbia: 7 (6 states plus DC) with a primary-verified state 1099-NEC/MISC threshold, and 5 more states with a confirmed state 1099-K threshold that is a separate form from the one this article is mainly about -- and, for two of those five (Maryland, Illinois), primary-confirmed to carry no NEC/MISC dollar threshold at all. That leaves most of the country unaddressed here. Some states have no separate state income tax and may have no equivalent threshold to report in the first place; others may have rules we simply haven't researched yet. Nothing on this page should be read as a claim that it's a complete 50-state table, and the confidence labels above exist specifically so a partial, honestly-labeled list is more useful than a complete-looking one that overstates how well each number checks out.

How to verify any of these numbers yourself

1. Search "[state] 1099 filing threshold" site:.gov and look specifically for your state's department of revenue or taxation domain, not a payroll-software or CPA-firm summary of it.
2. Confirm the figure is described as the state's own filing requirement, not a restatement of the federal NEC/MISC or 1099-K number -- some state pages describe both, and it's easy to quote the wrong one.
3. Note the page's own last-updated or effective-date language if it has one; a number with no date attached is harder to trust than one that says when it took effect.
4. For a real filing decision, a state's own current guidance (or a CPA licensed in that state) is the source that actually controls -- this article, like any general guide, is a starting point, not the final word.

Sources checked directly for this article: IRS.gov's Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (i1099mec); two IRS.gov newsroom pages on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's 1099-K provisions; and, for the state 1099-NEC/MISC table, the Missouri Department of Revenue's "Reporting Miscellaneous Income" page and the DC Office of Tax and Revenue's 2025 e-filing specifications (both fetched directly), plus the Wisconsin, Mississippi, California, Arkansas, and New Jersey department pages and PDFs cited above (each via reader-extracted text, direct fetch unsuccessful this pass). For the separate state 1099-K table, the Maryland Comptroller's 2025 reporting instructions PDF, Illinois Department of Revenue Pub-110, the Massachusetts and Virginia department pages/bulletins (via reader-extracted text), and the Vermont Department of Taxes' page (fetched directly) -- all cited individually above, alongside the specific claims each one does and does not support for 1099-NEC/MISC.