If you sell on Shopify, late January is 1099-K season. Every ranking guide tells you the date and stops there. This one gives you the date, the exact place to click, the threshold that decides whether you get one, and — the part almost everyone skips — why the number on that form is not what you owe tax on.
This is general information, not tax advice. Rules change and vary by situation — consult a licensed CPA or tax professional before acting.
When exactly does Shopify send the 1099-K?
Shopify furnishes Form 1099-K by January 31 for the previous tax year. That deadline is not Shopify being generous — payment settlement companies are required to furnish 1099-K forms to payees by January 31, per the IRS. So for the 2025 tax year, expect your form by January 31, 2026.
In practice the form usually appears in the last week or two of January. You do not have to wait for a mailed copy: Shopify posts the digital version in your admin and emails a notification to the account owner at roughly the same time.
If your store runs a second payment gateway alongside Shopify Payments — PayPal is the common one — that processor issues its own separate 1099-K on its own schedule. Do not add the two forms together as if they were one; each reports only the volume that flowed through it.
Where to find your 1099-K inside Shopify
The digital copy is the fastest way to get it. From your Shopify admin:
- Go to Settings.
- Open Payments.
- Find the Documents area (top of the Shopify Payments section).
- Download the 1099-K PDF for the tax year you need.
If you do not see a document there and you expected one, the most likely reason is simple: you did not cross the reporting threshold, so no form was generated. That is normal for smaller stores and does not change what you report — more on that below.
The threshold: who actually gets a 1099-K
For the 2025 and 2026 tax years, a processor must issue a 1099-K only when both of these are true across the year:
- Gross payments exceed $20,000, and
- Transactions exceed 200.
This reverted to the older, higher bar under the One Big Beautiful Bill; the widely publicized $600 rule does not apply for these years, according to the IRS. Both conditions must be met — a store with $40,000 in sales across 150 orders is over the dollar bar but under the transaction bar, and would not trigger a federal form.
One trap: some states set lower 1099-K thresholds than the federal one, so a seller can receive a state-driven form even while staying under the $20,000 federal bar. Check your own state's rule.
The part every guide skips: that number is not your profit
Here is the mistake that costs Shopify sellers real money. Box 1a on your 1099-K reports gross payment volume — the total that ran through the processor before a single fee, refund, or product cost is removed. It is a reporting figure, not an income figure.
If you type Box 1a straight into your tax software as "income," you overstate your taxable profit dramatically. Your actual taxable number is net profit, which is far lower. Understanding how gross sales become real profit is the whole point of a clean ecommerce P&L.
Worked example: bridging Box 1a down to profit
Say your 1099-K shows $60,000 in Box 1a for the year. Walk it down:
- Box 1a gross volume: $60,000
- Less sales tax you collected and remitted (money you only held for the state): $60,000 − $4,500 = $55,500
- Less refunds issued to customers: $55,500 − $2,800 = $52,700
- Less Shopify payment processing fees: $52,700 − $1,750 = $50,950
- Less cost of goods sold (product + supplier shipping): $50,950 − $21,000 = $29,950
- Less operating expenses (ad spend, apps, tools, contractor pay): $29,950 − $18,000 = $11,950
Your taxable profit is roughly $11,950, not the $60,000 the form shouts at you. Tax on the difference between those two numbers is exactly what sloppy books cost. (The arithmetic above is illustrative; your fee, refund, and COGS lines will differ.)
Two of those deductions deserve a callout because sellers forget them. Sales tax you collected was never your revenue — it flowed to the state — yet it sits inside Box 1a. And the processing fee on the illustrative example above is a real expense even on orders you later refunded, because the original transaction fee generally is not returned to you when you refund a customer.
No 1099-K? You still owe tax
This is the single most expensive misconception in the space. The 1099-K threshold governs reporting, not taxability. If your store cleared under $20,000 or under 200 transactions, no form is generated — but every dollar of profit is still taxable income you must report.
Not getting the paperwork does not make the income invisible or tax-free. You calculate your income from your own transaction records regardless of whether a form shows up. If you want the deeper mechanics of who gets one and why, our companion guide on whether Shopify will send you a 1099 walks through the edge cases, and the piece on when your Shopify 1099 will be available covers timing if you are still waiting on yours.
While you are thinking about taxes: two more
A 1099-K is about income reporting, but a Shopify store usually owes on two fronts that no form withholds for you.
Self-employment tax. Sole proprietors and single-member LLCs pay self-employment tax of 15.3% — 12.4% for Social Security up to the annual wage base plus 2.9% for Medicare on all net earnings — on top of ordinary income tax, per the IRS. First-year sellers are blindsided by it most.
Quarterly estimated taxes. Because nothing is withheld from your store's profit, the IRS expects four estimated payments across the year rather than one lump sum in April. The 2026 due dates are April 15, June 16, September 15, 2026, and January 15, 2027, per Kiplinger. Sales tax is a separate obligation again — if you have crossed economic nexus in other states, our Shopify sales tax and nexus guide explains where you owe.
How PodVector fits
The reason 1099-K season is stressful is that the gross number on the form and your real profit live in two different worlds — and most stores never reconcile them until a form forces the question.
PodVector connects your Shopify, Meta Ads, Google Ads, Printify, and Printful accounts and computes your true per-order profit — revenue minus processing fees, product cost, supplier shipping, and ad spend, order by order. So the bridge from gross volume down to actual profit is already built before tax season arrives. Victor, the AI operator inside PodVector, analyzes that live data and proposes profit moves you approve; he reads your ad performance but does not touch your ad account, and the actions he executes are Shopify-side with your sign-off. PodVector is not a dashboard you have to read — it does the reconciliation for you.
Start with PodVector and know your real numbers before the 1099-K shows up.
If you would rather understand the bookkeeping system underneath all of this, our guide to automated ecommerce bookkeeping covers how reconciled books turn a scary Box 1a into a defensible tax return.
FAQs
When does Shopify release the 1099-K each year?
By January 31 for the prior calendar year, which is the furnishing deadline that applies to payment settlement companies under IRS rules. The digital copy typically posts in your admin in the last week or two of January, with an email notification sent to the account owner at about the same time.
How do I download my 1099-K from Shopify?
Go to Settings → Payments in your Shopify admin, then open the Documents area at the top of the Shopify Payments section and download the PDF for the year you need. If no document appears and you expected one, you most likely did not cross the reporting threshold.
Why didn't I get a 1099-K from Shopify?
Because you did not meet both federal conditions — more than $20,000 in gross payments and more than 200 transactions in the year, per the IRS. Missing the form does not make your income tax-free; you still report profit from your own records. Note that some states use lower thresholds, so you might receive a state-driven form even under the federal bar.
Is the amount on my 1099-K what I pay tax on?
No. Box 1a is gross payment volume before sales tax, refunds, processing fees, product cost, and operating expenses. Your taxable income is net profit, which is much lower. Copying Box 1a into your return as income means paying tax on money you never kept, including sales tax you merely collected for the state.
I use both Shopify Payments and PayPal — will I get two 1099-K forms?
Yes. Each payment processor issues its own 1099-K for the volume that ran through it. Keep them separate and reconcile each against your records rather than adding the two gross figures together.
This is general information, not tax advice. Rules change and vary by situation — consult a licensed CPA or tax professional before acting.