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Current throughTY20261099-NEC threshold $2,000.00Backup withholding 24%
WithholdWatch

Free tool

How much withholding was required?

Four numbers, no account, nothing sent anywhere. This runs the same rule the product runs, against the same published threshold, and gives you a floor rather than a forecast.

Exposure estimate

TY2026 threshold $2,000.00·Rate 24%

Your figures

Everyone you paid for work who is not on payroll.

A dollar amount. If your book is lumpy, run it twice — once for the small payees and once for the large ones.

This one changes the answer. The payment that crosses the threshold counts in full, so fewer, larger invoices produce a larger figure.

A form you hold but cannot find does not count.

Illustrative — not your figures

$5,120.02

At least this much, already required

Backup withholding on payments already made to contractors over the line without a valid W-9.

How it got there

Contractors without a valid W-9
4
Of those, over the threshold
4
Reportable from the crossing invoice onward, each
$5,333.35
2026 threshold
$2,000.00
Backup withholding rate
24%
Do it against your real payments

Computed in your browser from the 2026 nonemployee-compensation threshold (IRC 6041A(a) as amended by OBBBA s.70433(a)). Nothing you type here is sent anywhere or stored.

WithholdWatch reports payments against published IRS thresholds. It is not tax advice.

What it cannot know

Why this is a floor and not an answer

01

An average is not a book

Two payees averaging the threshold are not one payee at the threshold. If half your spend sits with two subs, run those two separately — the real figure will be higher than the averaged one.

02

It assumes even invoicing

WithholdWatch has no idea when you actually paid. The invoice count you type is the assumption doing that work, and it is stated as an input rather than hidden inside the arithmetic.

03

It is federal, and it is one box

This estimate uses the nonemployee-compensation threshold. Rents, royalties, medical payments and gross proceeds paid to an attorney have their own figures, and states do not all follow the federal one.

The product does none of this averaging. It reads your actual payments, finds the actual payment that crossed, and reports a figure with a date attached. How it works.