How to Invoice as a 1099 Contractor (2026 Guide and Example)

How to invoice as a 1099 contractor: what goes on the invoice, a worked example, Form W-9, the new $2,000 Form 1099-NEC threshold and the records to keep.

By Clodou TeamNovember 7, 202611 min read

On this page

What a 1099 contractor is
1099 vs invoice: what is the difference?
What to put on a 1099 contractor invoice
A simple 1099 invoice template
Worked example: a 1099 contractor invoice
Form W-9: what your client asks for before paying you
Form 1099-NEC threshold by year
Report all your income, 1099 or not
Self-employment tax and estimated tax
Records to keep
Do 1099 contractors charge sales tax?
How Clodou helps
Frequently asked questions
Do I send a 1099 to my client?
Should my SSN or EIN be on my invoices?
A client paid me less than $2,000 in 2026. Do I still report it?
When should my 2026 Form 1099-NEC arrive?
What if a 1099 shows the wrong amount?
Sources

There is no special "1099 invoice". As a 1099 contractor, you bill clients with an ordinary invoice: your name and business, the client, an invoice number, the dates, the work, the amount and how to pay. The "1099" is a separate document: Form 1099-NEC, an information return your client may file with the IRS after the year ends, with a copy to you.

So invoicing as a contractor comes down to three habits: a clear invoice for every job, a Form W-9 for clients who ask, and records that let you report every dollar, 1099 or not. This guide covers each, with a template, a worked example in US dollars and the 1099-NEC thresholds by year, including the new $2,000 threshold for 2026.

Every rule here comes from IRS pages we read on November 7, 2026, listed at the end. This is general information, not tax or legal advice. Check the linked page, or ask a tax professional, before you rely on a figure.

What a 1099 contractor is

"1099 contractor" is a nickname for an independent contractor. The IRS says a business owner or contractor who provides services to other businesses is generally considered self-employed, and it treats an LLC owned by one individual as a sole proprietorship for federal income tax purposes unless the owner elects corporate treatment.

Businesses generally do not have to withhold or pay any taxes on payments to independent contractors, the IRS says, so the taxes on what you invoice are yours to handle.

1099 vs invoice: what is the difference?

Three documents get mixed up. Only the invoice is yours to write from scratch.

	Invoice	Form W-9	Form 1099-NEC
Who fills it in	You	You	Your client (the payer)
Who gets it	Your client	Your client, not the IRS	The IRS, with a copy to you
When	Each job or billing period	When the client asks	By January 31 after the year ends
What it shows	Work, amount, due date	Name, tax classification, taxpayer ID	What the client paid you that year

Payers file Forms 1099-NEC with the IRS and give a copy to the person or business they paid. You never send a 1099 to a client for your own work; filing them only becomes your job for people you pay in your business, such as subcontractors.

What to put on a 1099 contractor invoice

The IRS publishes no invoice template, and its recordkeeping guidance says that, except in a few cases, the law does not require any special kind of records. It also says a business's expense records should show the payee, amount, proof of payment, date and a description: a good invoice covers most of that.

Field	Example
"Invoice" and a unique number	INV-0018
Invoice date	November 7, 2026
Your legal name and business name, as on your W-9	Dana Ortiz, Ortiz Web Works
Your address, email and phone	100 Example Avenue, Anytown, USA
Client's legal name and billing address	Bluefield Outdoor Co., Accounts Payable
PO or project reference, if the client uses one	PO 4471
The work and when it was done	Milestone 2, delivered November 6, 2026
Quantity, rate and amount for each line	6 hours at $95.00 = $570.00
Billable expenses, on their own lines	Stock photo license, $45.00
Sales tax, only if your state requires it	Rate and amount
Total due	$4,570.00
Payment terms and the due date	Net 30, due December 7, 2026
How to pay	ACH details, check address or payment link

Two things are not needed: a "1099" label, and your taxpayer ID. No IRS page we read requires a Social Security number or EIN on an invoice; the client gets your number from your W-9 (see below).

Write the due date as a date, not only "net 30". Our invoice due date calculator turns net 15, net 30, EOM or 2/10 net 30 into one, and invoice payment terms explained helps you choose terms. For line items by pricing model (hourly, day rate, fixed fee), see how to make an invoice as a freelancer.

A simple 1099 invoice template

Copy this layout into your own document and replace everything in brackets.

INVOICE [INV-0018]
Date: [November 7, 2026]          Terms: [Net 30]          Due: [December 7, 2026]

From: [Your legal name], [business name], [address], [email], [phone]
Bill to: [Client legal name], [Accounts Payable contact], [billing address]
Reference: [PO number or project name]

Description                                  Qty     Rate        Amount
[Work done, with dates]                      [1]     [$0.00]     [$0.00]
[Billable expense]                           [1]     [$0.00]     [$0.00]

Subtotal                                                         [$0.00]
Sales tax (only if your state requires it)                       [$0.00]
Total due (USD)                                                  [$0.00]

How to pay: [ACH details, check address or payment link]. Please quote [INV-0018].

Worked example: a 1099 contractor invoice

Dana Ortiz is a freelance web developer working as a sole proprietor under the name Ortiz Web Works. Her client, Bluefield Outdoor Co., is rebuilding its online store and agreed to net 30 terms. All names, addresses and bank details are made up.

From: Dana Ortiz, Ortiz Web Works, 100 Example Avenue, Anytown, USA, dana@example.com
Bill to: Bluefield Outdoor Co., Accounts Payable, 200 Sample Road, Anytown, USA
Invoice: INV-0018, dated November 7, 2026, PO 4471
Terms: Net 30. Due date: December 7, 2026

Description	Qty	Rate	Amount
Store rebuild, milestone 2: product pages and checkout, delivered November 6, 2026	1	$4,000.00	$4,000.00
Extra support requested by email, October 26 to November 6, 2026	6 hours	$95.00	$570.00
Total due			$4,570.00

How to pay: ACH to Ortiz Web Works, routing 000000000, account 0000000000, quoting INV-0018.

There is no sales tax line because Dana checked with her state's revenue department that her services are not taxable there. Yours may differ.

At year end. Bluefield also paid Dana $3,500 by ACH in June 2026. If it pays this invoice by ACH before December 31, its 2026 payments to her reach $8,070, above that year's $2,000 threshold. As a business paying an unincorporated contractor for services, it then generally files Form 1099-NEC for $8,070 and sends Dana a copy by February 1, 2027 (January 31, 2027 is a Sunday, so the deadline moves to the next business day). Two things can change that figure:

The payment date. Form 1099-NEC counts what the client paid during the calendar year. Paid on January 5, 2027, the $4,570 would count toward 2027. That is one reason a 1099 can differ from your invoice total for the year.
The payment method. Payments by credit card or payment card, and through payment apps (third-party network transactions), are reported on Form 1099-K by the payment company, not on Form 1099-NEC.

Either way, Dana reports the income herself.

Form W-9: what your client asks for before paying you

Once a business decides someone is an independent contractor, the IRS tells it the first step is to have the contractor complete Form W-9. The form gives the client your correct taxpayer identification number (TIN), so it can file information returns such as Form 1099-NEC. The form says to give it to the requester and not to send it to the IRS.

From the Form W-9 instructions (Rev. March 2024):

Sole proprietor: your individual name, as shown on your Form 1040, on line 1, and your business or "doing business as" name on line 2. For the TIN, your SSN; if you have an EIN, you may enter either.
Single-member LLC disregarded as separate from its owner: the owner's name on line 1, the LLC's name on line 2, the box for the owner's tax classification, and the owner's SSN (or EIN, if the owner has one). An LLC classified as a corporation or partnership enters its own EIN.

If you don't send it. When a contractor has not provided a TIN as required, the IRS says the client must withhold 24% (backup withholding) from reportable payments of nonemployee compensation.

Where your TIN goes. On the W-9, and from there on the client's 1099. None of the IRS pages listed below requires it on invoices, and we would leave your SSN off them: the W-9 tells you to protect your SSN, and the client already has it. A sole proprietor with an EIN can give that instead; the IRS issues EINs online, free of charge.

Form 1099-NEC threshold by year

The 2025 law the IRS calls the One, Big, Beautiful Bill (Public Law 119-21) raised the threshold from $600 to $2,000, with yearly inflation adjustments after that. What counts is the year the client paid you, not the date of your invoice.

Payments made in	Threshold for the client's total payments to you	Where the IRS says it
2025 or earlier	$600	"Am I required to file a Form 1099" page
2026	$2,000	Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC
2027	$2,100	Revenue Procedure 2026-35, published Nov. 5, 2026
Later years	Adjusted for inflation every year	Publication 1099

No Form 1099-NEC is filed for:

Personal payments. Only payments made in the course of the client's trade or business are reportable, so a family that hires you for portraits files none.
Payments to corporations, in general, except for legal or medical services.
Card and payment app payments, which go on Form 1099-K.

Form 1099-K. If clients pay you directly by credit, debit or gift card, the IRS says your card processor sends you a Form 1099-K no matter how many payments or how much. Payment apps and online marketplaces must send one when your payments for goods or services total over $20,000 in more than 200 transactions, a threshold the IRS says the One, Big, Beautiful Bill retroactively reinstated. They may still send one for less, and your state may have a lower threshold.

Report all your income, 1099 or not

The IRS is direct: you must report all income on your tax return, even if you don't receive Forms 1099 from the businesses that pay you. Income paid in cash, property, goods or virtual currency counts too.

So the client who paid you $1,800 in 2026, the one who paid by card and the family who hired you for portraits all go on your return. Your invoices and bank deposits give you the total; the 1099s that arrive in January are a cross-check. Our year-end invoicing checklist helps you close the year.

Self-employment tax and estimated tax

General information, not tax advice:

Schedule C and Schedule SE. A sole proprietor reports business income and expenses on Schedule C (Form 1040), and files Schedule SE when net earnings from self-employment are $400 or more.
Self-employment tax is Social Security and Medicare tax for people who work for themselves: 15.3%, that is 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare. You can deduct the employer-equivalent portion when you figure your adjusted gross income.
Estimated tax. The IRS says that if you are in business for yourself, you generally need to make estimated tax payments; individuals, including sole proprietors, generally must if they expect to owe $1,000 or more. Use Form 1040-ES. The 2026 due dates are April 15, June 15 and September 15, 2026, and January 15, 2027. Paying too little or too late can bring a penalty, even if you are due a refund.

Records to keep

The IRS lists invoices, deposit information, receipt books and Forms 1099-MISC among the documents that show your gross receipts. Keep the 1099-NEC and 1099-K forms you receive with them, in an orderly fashion and a safe place, for example by year and type of income or expense. Electronic records must meet the same requirements as paper ones.

How long depends on the period of limitations for the return: 3 years in the general case; 6 years if you do not report income that you should, and it is more than 25% of the gross income shown on your return; indefinitely if you do not file a return or file a fraudulent one. For receipts, see expense and receipt tracking.

Do 1099 contractors charge sales tax?

It depends on your state and on what you sell. Check with your state's department of revenue (the IRS keeps a list of state government websites) before you add a sales tax line.

How Clodou helps

Clodou is an AI back office for freelancers and small teams, run from a chat with an AI agent.

One sentence per invoice. "Invoice Bluefield Outdoor Co. for milestone 2 at $4,000 and 6 hours of support at $95, due in 30 days." Clodou finds or adds the client, numbers the invoice in your workspace's sequence (INV-0001, INV-0002…), applies the tax rate you set (called sales tax in a US workspace) and makes a PDF with your logo and business details. If a price is missing, it asks.
Follow-up. It knows which invoices are draft, sent, paid and overdue, lists who owes you money and prepares payment reminders for you to approve (wording ideas in our payment reminder email templates). Partial payments show the remaining balance, and logged hours can become a draft invoice.
Approvals. Emailing an invoice or a reminder and recording a payment wait for an owner or admin. Most changes can be undone for 10 minutes, and every action is in the Activity log.
Payment link. On Solo and Team, your own payment link prints on invoices. Clodou does not process card payments.

Clodou does not file 1099s, collect W-9s, file tax returns or work out estimated tax, and it has no bank feeds or double-entry bookkeeping. Every new workspace starts with a 14-day Team trial, no card needed. After that, the Free plan includes up to 5 clients and 20 AI actions a month, with no separate cap on quotes and invoices (making them in the chat uses AI actions); Solo is $29 and Team $79 a month per workspace.

Frequently asked questions

Do I send a 1099 to my client?

No. You give your client a Form W-9 when it asks. The client files Form 1099-NEC, if the rules require it, and sends you a copy.

Should my SSN or EIN be on my invoices?

No IRS page we read requires it: the client gets your TIN from your W-9. We would keep your SSN off invoices, since the W-9 tells you to protect it; a sole proprietor with an EIN may give the EIN on the W-9 instead.

A client paid me less than $2,000 in 2026. Do I still report it?

Yes. The threshold decides whether the client files a 1099-NEC, not whether the income is taxable.

When should my 2026 Form 1099-NEC arrive?

By January 31. Because January 31, 2027 is a Sunday, a copy furnished on Monday, February 1, 2027 is on time.

What if a 1099 shows the wrong amount?

Check payment dates and methods first (card and app payments go on Form 1099-K), then ask the client to correct it. For an incorrect Form 1099-MISC, the IRS says to contact the payer and, if you cannot get it corrected, attach an explanation to your tax return and report your income correctly.

Sources

IRS pages, checked on November 7, 2026: