IRIS 1098-F CSV template and checker
Form 1098-F, Fines, Penalties and Other Amounts, can be filed in the IRIS Taxpayer Portal with a CSV upload. Its template has 44 columns, 16 of them required, including 9 form box columns. Drop your file below to check it against every IRS rule, or read the column list further down.
Free. Checks every column against the IRS formatting guidelines.
2What the check found
3Download fixed files
Download the blank 1098-F header (CSV) All IRIS templates
Built from the IRS TY2025 Template Formatting Guidelines, the latest posted. IRIS checks the header row against the template you download inside the portal, so upload with that one. Columns marked required are starred in the IRS guidelines.
Upload limits for every IRIS CSV
- Up to 250 records per file, header not counted, and files of 100KB or less.
- One form type and one tax year per file.
- Save as CSV UTF-8, and do not reopen and re-save the file in Excel.
- Leave money cells empty instead of 0.00, and enter Y or N in every checkbox column.
All 44 columns
| Col. | Field | Required | Example | Formatting rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Form Type | 1098-F | ||
| B | Tax Year | 2023 | ||
| C | Filer TIN Type | Yes | SSN | Must be entered as "SSN" and "EIN" |
| D | Filer Taxpayer ID Number | Yes | 123-23-1234 | Digits and dashes only Business TINs (EIN) must be in XX-XXXXXXX format Individual TINs (SSN) must be in XXX-XX-XXXX format |
| E | Filer Name Type | Yes | B | Must be entered as "B" for Business Name or "I" for Individual |
| F | Filer Business or Entity Name Line 1 | Yes | John Finch Company | Required if Name Type = "B" Length: Max 40 characters May only contain alphabet letters, numbers, blank space (), and the following special characters: hyphen (-), pound (#), parentheses (), ampersand (&), and apostrophe (') May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces |
| G | Filer Business or Entity Name Line 2 | Length: Max 40 characters May only contain alphabet letters, numbers, blank space (), and the following special characters: hyphen (-), pound (#), parentheses (), ampersand (&), apostrophe ('), slash (/), and percent (%) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | ||
| H | Filer First Name | John | Required if Name Type = "I" Required if Last Name is filled out Length: Max 20 characters May only contain alphabet letters, blanks ( ) and hyphens (-) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | |
| I | Filer Middle Name | James | Length: Max 20 characters May only contain alphabet letters, blanks ( ) and hyphens (-) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | |
| J | Filer Last Name (Surname) | Finch | Required if Name Type = "I" Required if First Name is filled out Length: Max 20 characters May only contain alphabet letters, blanks ( ) and hyphens (-) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | |
| K | Filer Suffix | Length: Max 20 characters May only contain alphabet letters, blanks ( ) and hyphens (-) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | ||
| L | Filer Country | Yes | US | Must be entered according to their designated country abbreviation Link to country abbreviations: https://www.irs.gov/e-file- providers/foreign-country-code-listing-for-modernized-e-file |
| M | Filer Address Line 1 | Yes | 1234 Midway Rd | Length: Max 35 characters May only be alpha-numeric characters and the following special characters: hyphen ( - ) slash ( / ) space ( ) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces |
| N | Filer Address Line 2 | Length: Max 35 characters May only be alpha-numeric characters and the following special characters: hyphen ( - ) slash ( / ) space ( ) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | ||
| O | Filer City/Town | Yes | Dallas | Length: Max 40 characters May only be alphabet characters and the following special characters: space ( ) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces |
| P | Filer State/Province/Territory | Yes | Texas (TX) | [Domestic] Must be entered as their 2 letter abbreviation Link to 2 letter abbreviation: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs- utl/zip code and state abbreviations.pdf _ _ _ _ [Foreign] Length: Max 17 characters Alpha-numeric characters (A-Z, 0-9) and spaces only May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces |
| Q | Filer ZIP/Postal Code | Yes | 12309 | [Domestic] Length: Exactly 5, 9 or 12 characters Digits only [Foreign] Length: Max 9 characters Alpha-numeric characters only (A-Z, 0-9) |
| R | Filer Phone Type | D | Must be entered as "D" for Domestic or "I" for International | |
| S | Filer Phone | 2145555555 | Domestic Phone must be in one of the following formats: 1231231234, 123-123-1234, (123) 123-1234 International Phone must be 15 digits or less and may only include the "+" symbol at the beginning | |
| T | Payer TIN Type | SSN | Required if Taxpayer ID Number is entered. Must be entered as "SSN", "EIN", "ATIN", "ITIN", "QI-EIN", or "UND" | |
| U | Payer Taxpayer ID Number | 123-23-1234 | Business TINs (EIN, QI-EIN) must be in XX-XXXXXXX format Individual TINs (SSN, ITIN, ATIN) must be in XXX-XX-XXXX format Undeterminable TINs (UND) must be in XXXXXXXXX format | |
| V | Payer Name Type | Yes | B | Must be entered as "B" for Business Name or "I" for Individual |
| W | Payer Business or Entity Name Line 1 | ABC123 | Required if Name Type = "B" Length: Max 40 characters May only contain alphabet letters, numbers, blank space (), and the following special characters: hyphen (-), pound (#), parentheses (), ampersand (&), and apostrophe (') May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | |
| X | Payer Business or Entity Name Line 2 | Length: Max 40 characters May only contain alphabet letters, numbers, blank space (), and the following special characters: hyphen (-), pound (#), parentheses (), ampersand (&), apostrophe ('), slash (/), and percent (%) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | ||
| Y | Payer First Name | Sarah | Required if Name Type = "I" Required if Last Name is filled out Length: Max 20 characters May only contain alphabet letters, blanks ( ) and hyphens (-) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | |
| Z | Payer Middle Name | Jasmin | Length: Max 20 characters May only contain alphabet letters, blanks ( ) and hyphens (-) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | |
| AA | Payer Last Name (Surname) | Finch | Required if Name Type = "I" Required if First Name is filled out Length: Max 20 characters May only contain alphabet letters, blanks ( ) and hyphens (-) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | |
| AB | Payer Suffix | Length: Max 20 characters May only contain alphabet letters, blanks ( ) and hyphens (-) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | ||
| AC | Payer Country | Yes | US | Must be entered according to their designated country abbreviation Link to country abbreviations: https://www.irs.gov/e-file- providers/foreign-country-code-listing-for-modernized-e-file |
| AD | Payer Address Line 1 | Yes | 1234 Midway Rd | Length: Max 35 characters May only be alpha-numeric characters and the following special characters: hyphen ( - ) slash ( / ) space ( ) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces |
| AE | Payer Address Line 2 | Length: Max 35 characters May only be alpha-numeric characters and the following special characters: hyphen ( - ) slash ( / ) space ( ) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | ||
| AF | Payer City/Town | Yes | Dallas | Length: Max 40 characters May only be alphabet characters and the following special characters: space ( ) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces |
| AG | Payer State/Province/Territory | Yes | TX | [Domestic] Must be entered as their 2 letter abbreviation Link to 2 letter abbreviation: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs- utl/zip code and state abbreviations.pdf _ _ _ _ [Foreign] Length: Max 17 characters Alpha-numeric characters (A-Z, 0-9) and spaces only May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces |
| AH | Payer ZIP/Postal Code | Yes | 12309 | [Domestic] Length: Exactly 5, 9 or 12 characters Digits only [Foreign] Length: Max 9 characters Alpha-numeric characters only (A-Z, 0-9) |
| AI | Office Code | 1234 | Length: Exactly 4 digits | |
| AJ | Box 1 - Total Amount Required to be Paid | 1000.00 | $0 to $999,999,999,999,999 Cannot be negative Digits only except 1 decimal is allowed Must have no more than two digits after the decimal. Check for long numbers in money amount fields that may have been formatted in scientific notation. For example: 1.045E+5. | |
| AK | Box 2 - Amount to be Paid for Violation or Potential Violation | 2000 | $0 to $999,999,999,999,999 Cannot be negative Digits only except 1 decimal is allowed Must have no more than two digits after the decimal. Check for long numbers in money amount fields that may have been formatted in scientific notation. For example: 1.045E+5. | |
| AL | Box 3 - Restitution/Remediation Amount | 1000 | $0 to $999,999,999,999,999 Cannot be negative Digits only except 1 decimal is allowed Must have no more than two digits after the decimal. Check for long numbers in money amount fields that may have been formatted in scientific notation. For example: 1.045E+5. | |
| AM | Box 4 - Compliance Amount | 500.50 | $0 to $999,999,999,999,999 Cannot be negative Digits only except 1 decimal is allowed Must have no more than two digits after the decimal. Check for long numbers in money amount fields that may have been formatted in scientific notation. For example: 1.045E+5. | |
| AN | Box 5 - Date of Order/Agreement | 03/30/2023 | Length: Max 8 characters Digits only Date field must be in MM/DD/YYYY format | |
| AO | Box 6 - Court or Entity | Example123 | Length: Max 75 characters Can only allow the following characters: A-Z, a-z, 0-9, hash, hyphen, parentheses, ampersand, apostrophe and may not include leading space, trailing space, adjacent spaces, and other symbols. | |
| AP | Box 7 - Case Number | Example123 | Length: Max 30 characters Can only allow ASCII Characters 33 through 126 and these special characters [£§ÁÉÍÑÓ×ÚÜáéíñóúü] and may not include leading or trailing spaces, or more than 1 space in a row. | |
| AQ | Box 8 - Case name or names of parties to suit, order, or agreement | Example 123 | Length: Max 75 characters Can only allow Legal Characters: A-Z, a-z, 0-9, hash, hyphen, parentheses, ampersand, apostrophe and may not include leading space, trailing space, adjacent spaces, and other symbols. | |
| AR | Box 9 - Code Check all boxes that apply (must select at least one) | Yes | "A,B" | Length: Must not include more than 5 codes Must be entered as "A" for Multiple payments, "B" for Multiple payers, "C" for Multiple payees, "D" for Provision of services or provision of property required, or "E" for Payment amount not identified. Codes must be separated by commas and surrounded by quotation marks (","). Codes list is not case sensitive. Codes can be in any order. |
What the checker does
- Header: reports missing, extra or reordered columns compared with the 1098-F template.
- Safe fixes: trims stray spaces, writes amounts as plain numbers, leaves $0 cells empty, fills empty Y/N boxes with N, adds dashes to TINs from the TIN type, restores ZIP leading zeros, converts state names to codes and rewrites dates.
- Errors to fix yourself: required columns left empty, values over the length limit, codes that are not in the allowed list, invalid TINs, ZIP codes and dates.
- Split: writes files of up to 250 records and under 100KB, keeping your header row.
Date columns: the IRS guidelines ask for MM/DD/YYYY but also say "Max 8 characters, Digits only". The checker accepts both MM/DD/YYYY and MMDDYYYY. If the portal rejects one, try the other.
For 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC, the main IRIS CSV tool goes further: it builds the template from QuickBooks, Excel or FIRE files.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I download the official 1098-F CSV template?
Sign in to the IRIS Taxpayer Portal, open Upload CSV with Form Data, choose 1098-F and the tax year, and select Download. The formatting guidelines are linked in the FAQ box on the same page.
How many 1098-F records can one CSV hold?
Up to 250 records per file, not counting the header, and the file must be 100KB or less. The portal then submits at most 100 forms at a time.
What does "required" mean here?
The IRS guidelines mark these columns with an asterisk. Other columns can still become required by a rule, for example a TIN type when a TIN is entered.
Sources
- IRS: TY2025 IRIS CSV Template Formatting Guidelines (ZIP)
- IRS Publication 5717, IRIS Taxpayer Portal User Guide (Rev. 9-2026)
Last reviewed November 1, 2026.