Prepare a W-9 Form for Free

Form W-9 is the IRS form a business uses to get your legal name and taxpayer identification number before it pays you. It's one page, it's never filed with the IRS, and it is often the first piece of paper in a contractor relationship. We prepare it free.

What a W-9 does

A business that must file an information return about payments to you asks for a W-9 first. Those returns include Form 1099-NEC for contractor pay and 1099-MISC for rent or prizes. On the form you:

• give your name, tax classification, address and TIN (your SSN or EIN);
• certify, under penalties of perjury, that the TIN is correct and that you're not subject to backup withholding, or say that you are;
• certify that you're a U.S. person.

The requester keeps the form. The current version is the March 2024 revision, which added line 3b for certain partnerships, trusts and estates with foreign owners.

Line by line

Line	What goes there
1	Your name as shown on your tax return. Required. Sole proprietors and disregarded LLCs put the owner's name here
2	Business or disregarded entity name, if different
3a	One federal tax classification: individual/sole proprietor, C corporation, S corporation, partnership, trust/estate, LLC (with C, S or P), or other
3b	Only for flow-through entities with foreign partners, owners or beneficiaries giving the form to an entity they own an interest in
4	Exemption codes. These apply to certain entities, not individuals
5–6	Address
7	Account numbers, optional
Part I	SSN or EIN, matching the name on line 1
Part II	Signature and date

Worked example: three common setups

Payee	Line 1	Line 2	Line 3a	Part I TIN
Freelance writer, no business entity	Her legal name	Blank, or her trade name	Individual/sole proprietor	Her SSN, or an EIN if she has one for the business
Single-member LLC, not electing corporate tax treatment	Owner's legal name	"Rivera Design LLC"	Individual/sole proprietor, the owner's classification	Owner's SSN or EIN
Two-member LLC taxed as a partnership	"Oak & Pine Studio LLC"	Blank	LLC, with code P	The LLC's EIN

The single-member LLC is where most W-9 mistakes happen. A disregarded entity doesn't check "LLC". It checks the box for its owner's classification, and the TIN must match whichever name the IRS associates with it.

Why the requester cares: backup withholding

If a payer doesn't have a correct TIN for you, it may have to withhold 24% of reportable payments and send it to the IRS. For 2026, the backup withholding threshold for payments reported under sections 6041(a) and 6041A(a), which covers most contractor and rent payments, rose from $600 to $2,000 in the aggregate. The rate itself stays at 24%.

That's why many businesses won't release a first payment until a W-9 is on file, and why sending yours promptly gets you paid faster.

How our prepared W-9 works

1. Enter your name, business name, classification, address and TIN.
2. Review the preview of the March 2024 form with your entries in place.
3. Download the PDF and sign Part II. The certification is yours to sign; we don't sign on anyone's behalf.
4. Send it to the business that asked for it, not to the IRS.

Item	Price
Prepared W-9	free
Contractor payment statement	From $6.99
1099-NEC recipient copy	$9.99 per recipient

There's no account to create. Your W-9 is available to re-download for 90 days from order lookup, like any other order.

When to fill out a new W-9

A W-9 stays valid until something on it changes. Send the requester a new one when:

• your legal name changes, for example after marriage or a business name change;
• your tax classification changes, for example a single-member LLC electing to be taxed as an S corporation;
• you start using a different TIN, such as switching from your SSN to a new EIN for the business; or
• your address changes, so year-end forms reach you.

A requester may also ask for a fresh W-9 after the IRS tells it that a payee's name and TIN don't match. The IRS notice explains the steps, which can include backup withholding until the mismatch is fixed. Getting the name on line 1 to match the TIN avoids all of that.

For businesses requesting W-9s

Collect the W-9 before the first payment, keep it with your records, and ask for a new one if a contractor's name, entity type or TIN changes. When January comes, the W-9 gives you everything you need for the payee section of the 1099-NEC. If you're paying several contractors, our contractor payment statement workflow shows how W-9s, per-payment statements and year-end forms fit together.

Foreign individuals and entities don't use Form W-9. They generally give the payer a Form W-8 instead, such as the W-8BEN.