Can you refuse to give a W-9?

When you have to give your number

The Privacy Act notice printed on every W-9 spells out the legal basis: section 6109 of the Internal Revenue Code requires you to give your correct TIN to anyone who must file an information return with the IRS reporting interest, dividends or certain other income paid to you, mortgage interest you paid, the acquisition or abandonment of secured property, cancelled debt, or contributions you made to an IRA, Archer MSA or HSA. You have to provide it whether or not you are required to file a tax return yourself.

In everyday terms: a client paying you for services, a company renting property from you, a bank or brokerage paying you interest or dividends, the settlement agent in a real estate sale, a lender to whom you pay mortgage interest. If one of them asks, the question isn't really whether to give your number, only how to send it safely.

What happens if you refuse anyway

The payer doesn't stop paying you because of an IRS rule — it starts backup withholding. It must keep 24% of reportable payments and send it to the IRS until you provide a correct TIN. You get credit for that tax when you file your return, but the money is gone from each payment in the meantime.

On top of that, the W-9 lists a $50 penalty for each failure to furnish your correct TIN to a requester, unless the failure is due to reasonable cause and not willful neglect. A business may also decline to set you up as a vendor without a completed W-9; that's its decision to make.

The 2026 threshold change helps small jobs. For payments made after 2025, the reporting and backup withholding threshold for most payments reported on Forms 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC rose to $2,000 a year per payee. The IRS says annual payments below $2,000 aren't treated as reportable payments and don't require backup withholding. A payer still can't know in January what it will pay you by December, so expect to be asked anyway.

When saying no — or asking why — is reasonable

If the requester isn't paying you anything reportable, it has no information return to file and no need for your TIN. Examples: a company you're buying from, a prospective client who hasn't hired you, a website asking for a W-9 to “verify your identity”, or anyone claiming to be the IRS — which doesn't collect W-9s at all.

Ask what the form is for. If the answer doesn't describe a payment to you or a reportable transaction, decline. If you're a sole proprietor and simply don't want to hand out your SSN, a free EIN from the IRS gives the requester what it needs without it.

Why would a landlord or an apartment ask for a W-9?

Usually the request goes the other way: tenants and property managers ask landlords for one. A business that pays rent in the course of its trade or business reports it on Form 1099-MISC, box 1, once it reaches $2,000 for the year (the threshold for payments made from 2026). A property manager who collects rent for an owner reports the rent paid over to the owner, and public housing agencies report rental assistance payments made to owners. Each of them needs the landlord's W-9 to do that.

A tenant being asked for a W-9 is less common. It makes sense when the landlord or management company is going to pay you something that may have to be reported — an interest payment, a cash incentive, a payment for work you do for them. It doesn't make sense as part of a rental application. Screening runs on the application itself and your consent to a credit or background check; a W-9 is a tax certification, not a screening form.

Rental scams are the other reason to ask questions. The FTC warns that fake landlords copy real listings and ask applicants for their Social Security number, a photo of their driver's license and pay stubs, then use them for identity theft. If a “landlord” you've never met wants a W-9 before you've seen the unit or signed a lease, stop and verify who they are.

Sources

• IRS — Form W-9 (Rev. March 2024): backup withholding, penalties, Privacy Act notice
• IRS — Backup withholding
• IRS — Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC: rents, property managers, $2,000 threshold
• IRS — Working Families Tax Cuts business provisions: 1099 and backup withholding threshold
• FTC — Rental listing scams