Form 1099-G: The Complete Guide for Government Filers (2026)

Form 1099-G, Certain Government Payments, is the information return government agencies file for unemployment compensation, state and local income tax refunds, taxable grants, agricultural payments, and, new for tax year 2026, family leave benefits. This guide covers it from the filer's side: who files, every box, the thresholds, the 2027 deadlines, state filing, corrections, and how 1099-G reaches the IRS once FIRE closes on November 19, 2026.

Looking for your own 1099-G? The agency that paid you issues it, usually through its claimant or tax portal. This guide is for the agencies that file them.

Key Takeaways

• The tax year 2026 form is new. The December 2026 revision adds Box 10, Family leave benefits, renumbers the state boxes to 11a, 11b, and 12, and splits the address fields (IRS Instructions for Form 1099-G).
• Two thresholds, not one. $10 for unemployment compensation and tax refunds, set by statute. $2,000 for RTAA payments, taxable grants, and family leave benefits, under P.L. 119-21. Anything that still says "$600" is out of date for tax year 2026.
• Refunds are filed with the IRS for everyone. The non-itemizer exception only lets a state skip the recipient copy, and only when it verifies non-itemizer status a specific way.
• FIRE closes November 19, 2026, at 3 p.m. ET. After January 1, 2027, IRIS is the only IRS e-file system for information returns, including corrections and prior-year filings (IRS FIRE page).
• Publication 1220 is frozen at tax year 2025 and has no field for Box 10. Systems will keep writing it; something has to convert it to IRIS XML.
• Identity theft corrections are routine. The IRS fix for unemployment benefits paid to an impostor is a corrected 1099-G showing $0, and in IRIS that is a one-step correction.

What Is Form 1099-G?

Form 1099-G reports payments a government unit makes that the recipient may owe federal tax on. It is one of the largest information return families: the IRS counted 80.6 million Forms 1099-G filed in calendar year 2024 and projects 84.7 million for calendar year 2027, the season that carries tax year 2026 (IRS Publication 6961).

Volume concentrates in a few filers. A small state's unemployment agency issues tens of thousands of 1099-Gs in a normal year, and a mid-size state issues 100,000 to 250,000. In a crisis year the count multiplies: Ohio's unemployment agency reported about 1.7 million Forms 1099-G in 2021, up from about 200,000 the year before. State revenue departments add refund 1099-Gs on top.

Who Must File Form 1099-G?

The IRS instructions put it on a person, not just an agency: "The officer or employee of the government unit having control of the payments, received or made, (or the designated officer or employee) must file Form 1099-G."

Interest paid on a tax refund is not a 1099-G item. It goes on Form 1099-INT.

What's New on Form 1099-G for Tax Year 2026

• Box 10, Family leave benefits. Added because Rev. Rul. 2025-4 requires states to report family leave benefits from state paid family and medical leave programs.
• State boxes renumbered. The old 10a, 10b, and 11 are now 11a, 11b, and 12.
• Address fields split into individual entry boxes for payer and recipient.
• Continuous-use revision. The IRS says to "continue to use these revisions for subsequent years until we issue a superseding revision."
• $2,000 threshold for RTAA, taxable grants, and family leave, replacing $600 (P.L. 119-21, §70433), indexed for inflation after 2026.
• Publication 1099 replaces the General Instructions for Certain Information Returns for 2026.
• IRIS only. Tax year 2026 returns are filed in early 2027, after FIRE has closed.

Form 1099-G Thresholds at a Glance

The $10 thresholds come from the statutes themselves (§6050B and §6050E), which P.L. 119-21 did not touch. The $2,000 figure comes from the change to §6041 and is listed in IRS Publication 1099 (2026).

How to Complete Form 1099-G: Box by Box

Two more fields matter at volume. The account number is required when you file more than one 1099-G for the same recipient, and the IRS encourages one on every form, because corrections key off it. The payer's TIN may never be truncated; the recipient's TIN may be truncated on recipient copies.

Unemployment Compensation: Box 1 Rules

• Report the gross. Box 1 is "the total amount before any income tax was withheld." Withholding goes in Box 4.
• Voluntary withholding is 10%. A claimant who files Form W-4V with the paying office has 10% of each payment withheld (IRC §3402(p)(2)). The agency reports it in Box 4 and on Form 945.
• One form per program. An agency paying from more than one contributory program deemed to be unemployment compensation files a separate 1099-G for each.
• Railroad unemployment benefits paid by the Railroad Retirement Board are Box 1 payments too.
• Repayments are the claimant's to handle. A claimant who repays benefits deducts or claims the repayment on their own return under IRS Publication 525.

Box 2 State and Local Refunds: When a Recipient Copy Is Not Required

Revenue departments get this wrong in both directions. The rules, from Treas. Reg. §1.6050E-1:

• File with the IRS in all cases. "An information return must be made even if the refund officer is not required to furnish a statement." Every refund, credit, or offset of $10 or more goes to the IRS.
• Skip the recipient copy only on verified non-itemizers. The state may skip furnishing if it verifies the taxpayer did not itemize for the year of the refund, using only the state return or an information exchange agreement with the IRS.
• Business-only taxes never qualify. If the tax applies exclusively to trade or business income (Box 8 checked), always furnish.
• One form per tax year. A refund that covers two tax years is two Forms 1099-G.
• Offsets count. An overpayment applied to another debt, credited to next year's estimated tax, or donated is still a reportable credit or offset.

Several revenue departments no longer mail refund 1099-Gs and offer an online lookup instead; New York's Department of Taxation and Finance, for one, says "We do not mail Form 1099-G information." Electronic furnishing under the IRS rules still requires recipient consent (see below), so confirm how your furnishing practice fits those rules with counsel.

Paid Family and Medical Leave: Box 10 and Rev. Rul. 2025-4

Rev. Rul. 2025-4 settled how state paid family and medical leave benefits are taxed and reported. Box 10 is the result.

Transition relief is narrow. Notice 2026-6 extends relief through calendar year 2026 only for the employer-funded medical leave portion. There is no relief for family leave: 2026 family leave benefits are reported on Form 1099-G, Box 10.

New programs, new filers. Several state programs, including Minnesota's and Delaware's, began paying benefits in 2026. Their first Form 1099-G season is also the first IRIS-only season.

Form 1099-G Deadlines for Tax Year 2026

E-filing is mandatory at 10 returns. Anyone filing 10 or more information returns in aggregate, across all form types, must file electronically (T.D. 9972). Virtually every government filer clears that bar.

Furnishing Form 1099-G Electronically

Form 1099-G may be furnished electronically only if you meet the IRS requirements in Publication 1099:

• Affirmative consent. The recipient consents electronically, in a way that shows they can access the statement, and has not withdrawn consent.
• Disclosures first. Before consent: that paper is the default, the scope and duration of consent, how to get paper later, how to withdraw, the conditions for ending electronic delivery, and the hardware and software needed.
• Post on time, keep it up. Post by the furnishing due date, keep it available through October 15, and notify the recipient electronically or by mail that it is posted.

Without consent, the statement goes on paper.

Filing Form 1099-G Through IRIS

Form 1099-G has been accepted in IRIS, through both the Taxpayer Portal and A2A, since tax year 2022. From January 1, 2027, IRIS is the only route.

Sources: IRS Publication 5717 (Portal) and Publication 5718 (A2A).

TCC roles matter for government. An IRIS TCC with the Issuer role files only for the EIN on its application. Filing for more than one business requires the Transmitter role; IRIS rejects the submission otherwise (business rule S1H048). A comptroller filing for every agency, or a county office filing for every district, is transmitting. The IRS has also said that entities sharing one state TIN do not each need their own TCC, though each issuer's TIN and name must match IRS records.

Each A2A submission carries one form type and one tax year, and a transmission cannot mix originals and corrections. A large 1099-G file may span more than one transmission.

What filing yourself takes. An IRIS TCC (FIRE TCCs do not carry over; up to 45 days), ID.me for each Responsible Official and user, certificates and key hosting for A2A, the annual schema, and ATS testing. A transmitter that files under its own production TCC carries that stack for you.

Publication 1220 and Form 1099-G: The Frozen Layout

Most government systems produce 1099-G as a Publication 1220 file. The IRS says Pub 1220 "will be made obsolete when the FIRE system retires," and its last edition (Rev. 5-2026) is labeled "For Tax Year 2025."

For 1099-G, the A record carries Type of Return code F, and the B record maps amounts like this:

Three B-record positions are 1099-G specific: 547 is the trade or business indicator (Box 8), 548 to 551 is the tax year of refund (Box 3), and 747 to 748 is the CF/SF state code.

Two gaps follow from the freeze:

• Box 10 has no amount code. A paid leave program cannot carry family leave benefits in a Pub 1220 file.
• The Box 3 field's valid range ends at 2024 in the tax year 2025 spec, so refund years after that fall outside the published layout.

Your system can keep writing the file. Whatever converts it to IRIS XML has to handle both gaps.

State Filing for Form 1099-G

CF/SF. Form 1099-G is a Combined Federal/State Filing form, and IRIS supports CF/SF. For tax year 2026, participating jurisdictions are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Wisconsin (IRS Publication 5717). Missouri and Oregon no longer participate. The filer must be approved for CF/SF.

Direct state filing. States are moving off Pub 1220 at different speeds. Indiana will accept Pub 1220 files for tax year 2026 until September 2027 and IRIS XML from January 1, 2027. Montana has said it will accept only IRIS XML. Check each state you file with.

Corrections and Identity Theft Claims

Fraudulent unemployment claims. The IRS says that if benefits were paid to an identity thief in someone else's name, "the payments should not be reported on Form 1099-G." If they were, "a corrected Form 1099-G reporting $0 should be issued to the identity theft victim and filed with the IRS as soon as possible after the error is discovered" (IRS guidance). GAO estimates pandemic-era unemployment fraud at $100 billion to $135 billion (GAO-23-106696).

How corrections work in IRIS:

• One-step correction for a wrong amount, name, TIN, or code, or a form that should not have been filed (enter 0 for all amounts). Mark it corrected, send the complete record, and reference the original record.
• Two-step correction for the wrong form type: zero out the original, then file a new original.
• FIRE originals. After January 1, 2027, corrections to returns first filed through FIRE go through IRIS, flagged with the original intake system as FIRE.
• Payer name or TIN errors cannot be fixed with a correction. The issuer writes to the IRS instead.

Extensions and Penalties

Extensions. Form 8809 gives an automatic 30-day extension to file with the IRS, and can be filed through IRIS. Form 15397 requests more time to furnish recipient copies.

Penalties for returns and statements due in 2027 (Rev. Proc. 2025-32):

The IRS penalty page says the maximums differ "for small businesses and large businesses including government entities" (IRS). Penalties apply separately to the IRS return and the recipient statement.

What Recipients Will Ask

Your call center hears these every February. Short, accurate answers:

• Is unemployment taxable? Yes, federally (IRC §85). Box 1 shows the gross amount. State treatment varies.
• Is my state refund taxable? Only if the recipient itemized and deducted state income tax for the year the refund relates to, and only to the extent of the tax benefit (IRS Publication 525).
• Why didn't I get a 1099-G for my refund? The agency may skip the recipient copy for verified non-itemizers, but it still files with the IRS.
• I got a 1099-G for benefits I never received. Report it to the agency, which issues a corrected $0 form. The IRS tells recipients not to report the incorrect income.
• Why is paid family leave on a 1099-G now? Rev. Rul. 2025-4 made state family leave benefits reportable on Form 1099-G, in the new Box 10.
• Where is my 1099-G? From the agency that paid you, usually through its claimant or tax portal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who must file Form 1099-G?

A unit of a federal, state, or local government that makes certain payments: unemployment compensation, state or local income tax refunds, credits, or offsets, RTAA payments, taxable grants, USDA agricultural payments, CCC loan market gain, and, starting with tax year 2026, family leave benefits from a governmental paid family and medical leave program. The officer or employee who controls the payments, or a designee, files the form.

What is the minimum amount that triggers a Form 1099-G?

$10 for unemployment compensation (Box 1) and for state or local income tax refunds, credits, or offsets (Box 2). For tax year 2026, $2,000 for RTAA payments, taxable grants, and governmental paid family leave benefits, per IRS Publication 1099 (2026); that figure replaced $600 under P.L. 119-21 and is indexed for inflation after 2026. Energy grants and grants administered by an Indian tribal government are reported at any amount, and any payment with backup withholding is reported regardless of size.

When is Form 1099-G due for tax year 2026?

Recipient copies are due February 1, 2027, because January 31 falls on a Sunday. Electronic filing with the IRS is due March 31, 2027. Paper filing, allowed only with an e-file waiver, is due March 1, 2027. Anyone filing 10 or more information returns in total must e-file, and after January 1, 2027 IRIS is the only IRS e-file system for information returns.

What changed on Form 1099-G for 2026?

The December 2026 revision adds Box 10, Family leave benefits, renumbers the state boxes to 11a, 11b, and 12, and splits the payer and recipient address fields into separate boxes. It is a continuous-use revision. For tax year 2026, the reporting threshold for RTAA payments, taxable grants, and family leave benefits is $2,000, and IRIS is the only e-file route once FIRE closes.

How do we report paid family leave benefits on Form 1099-G?

Family leave benefits paid by a state paid family and medical leave program go in Box 10, under Rev. Rul. 2025-4. They are taxable income but not wages. Medical leave benefits are treated differently: the portion attributable to employee contributions is excluded from income, and the portion attributable to employer contributions is third-party sick pay, reported under the employment tax rules rather than on Form 1099-G. Notice 2026-6 extends transition relief through 2026 for that employer-funded medical leave portion only, not for family leave.

What is the difference between Box 2 and Box 6 on Form 1099-G?

Box 2 reports refunds, credits, or offsets of state or local income tax, including refundable state tax credits administered by the taxing agency. Box 6 reports taxable grants. The IRS instructions say grants, subsidies, and individual assistance belong in Box 6, not Box 2.

Do we have to send a 1099-G for a state tax refund if the taxpayer didn't itemize?

You must file with the IRS in all cases. You may skip the recipient statement only if you verify, from the state return or through an information exchange agreement with the IRS, that the taxpayer did not itemize deductions for the year of the refund (Treas. Reg. 1.6050E-1). The exception never applies to a tax that falls only on trade or business income, where Box 8 is checked.

Should a 1099-G report the gross benefit or the net deposit?

The gross benefit. Box 1 reports the total unemployment compensation paid before any income tax was withheld, and the withholding goes in Box 4. A claimant who later repays benefits handles the repayment on their own return under the rules in IRS Publication 525.

Can we still file Form 1099-G with a Pub 1220 file?

Not directly with the IRS after FIRE closes. FIRE's last filing day is November 19, 2026, at 3 p.m. ET, and IRIS accepts XML through A2A or CSV through the Taxpayer Portal, not Pub 1220 files. Your system can keep writing its Pub 1220 file if a transmitter converts it: Morado ingests it, validates it against the IRIS rules, and transmits it through IRIS A2A. Some states still accept Pub 1220 files for state filing.

Is Form 1099-G part of the Combined Federal/State Filing Program?

Yes. Form 1099-G is a CF/SF form, and IRIS supports CF/SF. For tax year 2026, 31 states and the District of Columbia participate (IRS Publication 5717). Missouri and Oregon no longer participate. The filer must be approved for CF/SF before the IRS forwards returns to a state.

Can we furnish Form 1099-G electronically?

Yes, with the recipient's affirmative consent and the required disclosures. The electronic statement must be posted by the furnishing due date and kept available through October 15, and the recipient must be notified that it is posted. Without consent, the statement is furnished on paper.

How should an agency correct a 1099-G issued for a fraudulent unemployment claim?

Issue a corrected Form 1099-G showing $0 to the identity theft victim and file it with the IRS as soon as the error is discovered, per IRS guidance. In IRIS that is a one-step correction: mark the record as corrected, include the complete record with every amount at zero, and reference the original record. After January 1, 2027, corrections to returns originally filed through FIRE also go through IRIS.

Is unemployment compensation reported on Form 1099-G taxable?

Yes, for federal income tax. Unemployment compensation is included in gross income under IRC section 85, and Box 1 shows the gross amount. Recipients can ask the paying agency to withhold 10% for federal income tax by filing Form W-4V. State treatment varies.

How do we get an extension for Form 1099-G?

File Form 8809 by the due date for an automatic 30-day extension to file with the IRS; it can be submitted on paper or through IRIS. An extension to furnish recipient copies is requested separately on Form 15397, online or by fax, no later than the furnishing due date.

Does Morado file Form 1099-G?

Yes. Morado is a fully certified IRIS A2A transmitter filing under its own production TCC. Agencies upload the Pub 1220 file their system already writes, or XLSX and CSV exports, and file under Morado's TCC. You skip: the TCC application · ID.me proofing · X.509/JWKS cert setup · annual ATS testing.

How Morado Handles Form 1099-G

Morado files Form 1099-G directly to the IRS through IRIS A2A as a fully certified IRIS A2A transmitter under its own production TCC. What that means for an agency:

• You upload what your system writes. The Pub 1220 file from your benefits system, revenue system, or ERP, or XLSX and CSV exports. No re-keying and no vendor template.
• Box 10 has a home. Paid leave programs bring family leave amounts in from a spreadsheet column, mapped and confirmed by your team, since the frozen Pub 1220 layout has no position for them.
• Preflight before anything transmits. Every batch is checked against the IRS schema and the IRIS business rules, with issues in a report your team can fix at the source.
• One season, many issuers. Comptrollers, county offices, and shared-service centers file for every agency or district, each under its own EIN, with per-payer configuration.
• You file under Morado's TCC. You skip: the TCC application · ID.me proofing · X.509/JWKS cert setup · annual ATS testing.
• Corrections in the same pipeline, including $0 identity theft corrections and corrections to returns first filed through FIRE.
• Recipient copies. Copy B PDFs through a secure portal, printed and mailed by Morado, or both.
• State filing. CF/SF for participating states, and Pub 1220 exports where a state still accepts them.
• An audit trail. Six artifacts per batch and a user-level record of who uploaded, approved, and transmitted.

Production proof: Morado filed 94,000+ W-2Gs through IRIS A2A in tax year 2025 with a 0% IRS rejection rate. The same pipeline carries your 1099-Gs. Read the full case study →

By Industry

• Government agencies → (1099-G, 1099-NEC, 1099-MISC, 1099-INT, and filing for many agency EINs)
• Public pension and retirement systems → (1099-R at membership scale)

Form 1099-G Preparation Checklist

Before November 19, 2026

• Confirm your IRIS path. FIRE takes nothing after November 19, 2026, at 3 p.m. ET, including corrections to prior years. If you file through a transmitter, confirm it files under its own production TCC and takes the file your system writes.
• Know your TCC role if you file yourself. Filing for more than one EIN takes the Transmitter role.

December

• Confirm your extract's data lineage. For unemployment and revenue agencies, check that the 1099-G file is built from your own payment records and carries no IRS- or SSA-sourced fields before it goes to any vendor.
• Map every payment program to its box. Unemployment by program in Box 1, grants in Box 6 (not Box 2), family leave in Box 10, employer-funded medical leave out of 1099-G entirely.
• Apply the right threshold. $10 for Boxes 1 and 2; $2,000 for Boxes 5, 6, and 10 in tax year 2026.
• Split refunds by tax year. One form per year, with Box 3 filled when required.
• Clean TINs and names. IRS TIN Matching covers Form 1099-G. Fix mismatches at the source.
• Run your identity theft list. Suppress forms for confirmed fraudulent claims, and plan the $0 corrections for any already issued.

January to March 2027

• Decide paper or consented electronic delivery, and furnish by February 1, 2027.
• File with the IRS by March 31, 2027, or file Form 8809 by then for 30 more days.
• Send state copies through CF/SF or each state's direct filing format.

What Comes Next

Tax year 2026 stacks three changes on the same filers: a new box for family leave, a new threshold for grants and leave, and a new intake system that validates every record. The agencies that file cleanly in February will be the ones that settled their IRIS path before November 19.

To walk through your 1099-G file against the IRIS rules, using a sample of your real data or an anonymized one, book a demo with a Morado engineer.

---

Sources: IRS Instructions for Form 1099-G (Rev. December 2026), IRS Form 1099-G (Rev. December 2026), IRS Publication 1099 (2026), IRS Publication 1220 (Rev. 5-2026), IRS Publication 5717, IRS Publication 5718, IRS Publication 6961, IRS FIRE page, IRS E-file information returns with IRIS, IRIS Working Group, August 12, 2026, IRIS Working Group, January 15, 2025, IRIS Working Group, July 9, 2025, Rev. Rul. 2025-4, Notice 2026-6, Rev. Proc. 2025-32, 26 CFR 1.6050E-1, 26 U.S.C. 6050B, IRS identity theft guidance for unemployment compensation, GAO-23-106696, IRS information return penalties, T.D. 9972, Indiana DOR IRIS 2026 Tax Year Guide, Montana DOR IRIS requirements.