IRIS 5498-ESA CSV template and checker
Form 5498-ESA, Coverdell ESA Contribution Information, can be filed in the IRIS Taxpayer Portal with a CSV upload. Its template has 38 columns, 14 of them required, including 2 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 5498-ESA 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 38 columns
| Col. | Field | Required | Example | Formatting rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Form Type | 5498-ESA | ||
| B | Tax Year | 2023 | ||
| C | Issuer TIN Type | Yes | SSN | Must be entered as "SSN" and "EIN" |
| D | Issuer 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 | Issuer Name Type | Yes | B | Must be entered as "B" for Business Name or "I" for Individual |
| F | Issuer Business or Entity Name Line 1 | 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 | Issuer 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 | Issuer 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 | Issuer Middle Name | James | Length: Max 20 characters May only contain alphabet letters, blanks ( ) and hyphens (-) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | |
| J | Issuer 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 | Issuer Suffix | Length: Max 20 characters May only contain alphabet letters, blanks ( ) and hyphens (-) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | ||
| L | Issuer 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 | Issuer 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 | Issuer 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 | Issuer 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 | Issuer State/Province/Territor y | 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 | Issuer 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 | Issuer Phone Type | D | Must be entered as "D" for Domestic or "I" for International | |
| S | Issuer 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 | Beneficiary TIN Type | SSN | Required if Taxpayer ID Number is entered. Must be entered as "SSN", "EIN", "ATIN", "ITIN", "QI-EIN", or "UND" | |
| U | Beneficiary 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 | Beneficiary Name Type | Yes | I | Must be entered as "B" for Business Name or "I" for Individual |
| W | Beneficiary 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 | Beneficiary 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 | Beneficiary 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 | Beneficiary Middle Name | Jasmin | Length: Max 20 characters May only contain alphabet letters, blanks ( ) and hyphens (-) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | |
| AA | Beneficiary 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 | Beneficiary Suffix | Length: Max 20 characters May only contain alphabet letters, blanks ( ) and hyphens (-) May not contain leading, trailing, and adjacent spaces | ||
| AC | Beneficiary 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 | Beneficiary 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 | Beneficiary 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 | Beneficiary 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 | Beneficiary State/Province/Territor y | 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 | Beneficiary 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 | Form Account Number | ABC12345 | Length: Max 20 characters May not be the same as the Payer or Recipient Taxpayer ID Number | |
| AK | Box 1 - Coverdell ESA Contributions | 1000.50 | $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. | |
| AL | Box 2 - Rollover Contributions | 1001 | $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. |
What the checker does
- Header: reports missing, extra or reordered columns compared with the 5498-ESA 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 5498-ESA CSV template?
Sign in to the IRIS Taxpayer Portal, open Upload CSV with Form Data, choose 5498-ESA and the tax year, and select Download. The formatting guidelines are linked in the FAQ box on the same page.
How many 5498-ESA 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.