Gig work

Never got your 1099? You can still file

A missing 1099 doesn't delay your taxes, and below the reporting lines one may never come. You file from your own numbers. Here's where they already are.

Updated September 2026 · 5 min read

It's February, everyone around you has their forms, and the company that paid you all year has sent nothing. So you wait, because it feels like you can't file without it. Here's the truth: you can, and sometimes you have to, because for a lot of people no form is ever coming.

The form was never the point

A 1099 is not your income. It's a copy of what a payer told the IRS about you. Your taxes are owed on what you actually earned, form or no form, and a return filed from your own records is exactly as valid as one filed from a stack of 1099s.

And often no one was required to send you anything. For 2025, a business only has to issue a 1099-NEC if it paid you $600 or more. Payment apps and marketplaces only have to issue a 1099-K above $20,000 and 200 transactions for 2025, a line most casual sellers and part-time drivers never cross. Below the line, the income is still taxable. The paperwork just skips you.

Where your real numbers already are

1. 01Open the earnings tab. Every gig app publishes a yearly summary of what it paid you, sitting in the app right now, no January mail required.
2. 02Total the deposits. Search your bank account for the payer's name and add up the year. For invoice work, your sent invoices plus the deposits that paid them are the whole story.
3. 03Count your deductions while you're in there. For drivers, miles matter more than the income form does; our guide on writing off miles for DoorDash and Uber covers rebuilding a log.
4. 04File on the real number. There is no penalty for filing accurately without the form. The risk runs the other way: leaving income off because no form arrived is what triggers the mismatch letter.

Want to see what the IRS was told?

Every 1099 that was filed under your Social Security number lands in your IRS Wage & Income transcript, free. Pull it and you're reading the same list the IRS will check your return against. Our guide on getting old W-2s and 1099s shows the three ways in.

If the form shows up later

If it matches what you filed, you're done; keep it with your records. If it says more than you filed, amend and pay the small difference before a letter does it for you. If it's flat wrong, ask the payer for a corrected one, and file from your true numbers either way.