File 1095-B Online

What is Form 1095-B?

Form 1095-B is the statement a coverage provider gives an individual, and files with the IRS, confirming that the individual had minimum essential health coverage and listing the months it was in force. Each covered person is named, and each month they were covered is ticked.

It answers one question: was this person covered, and when. That is a narrower job than Form 1095-C, which also has to report what an employer OFFERED and on what terms. Where 1095-C is about an employer obligation, 1095-B is about a factual record of coverage.

Individuals do not attach it to their return and do not need it to file. The federal individual mandate penalty has been zero since 2019, so for most people the form is a receipt rather than a requirement. It still matters in the states that run their own mandates, and it still has to be filed.

Who files Form 1095-B

Anyone who PROVIDES minimum essential coverage, which is a different group from the employers who report on 1095-C.

• Health insurance issuers and carriers, for every individual market and fully insured group policy they wrote. This is the bulk of all 1095-B filing.
• Employers who self-insure but are NOT applicable large employers, typically those under 50 full-time employees including equivalents. A small self-insured employer is the coverage provider, so it reports here rather than on 1095-C.
• Government-sponsored programmes, including Medicaid, CHIP, Medicare Part A, TRICARE and veterans health coverage.
• Sponsors of certain other arrangements that count as minimum essential coverage, such as multiemployer plans where the sponsor rather than an insurer is the provider.
• An applicable large employer that is fully insured does NOT file 1095-B for its staff. Its insurer does that, and the employer files 1095-C.

What counts as minimum essential coverage

The distinction that causes most of the filing errors is between real coverage and excepted benefits.

• Counts: employer-sponsored group health plans, individual market policies including Marketplace plans, Medicare Part A, Medicaid, CHIP, TRICARE, veterans programmes, Peace Corps coverage, and certain student health plans.
• Does not count: stand-alone dental and vision, workers compensation, accident-only and disability-only policies, fixed indemnity plans, and coverage for a single disease or condition. These are excepted benefits and are not reported.
• Short-term limited duration insurance is not minimum essential coverage, whatever the policy is called in marketing material.
• A health reimbursement arrangement integrated with a group plan is generally not separately reported, because reporting it as well would double-count the same person for the same months.

What goes on the form

Four parts, and only the last one changes much between filings.

• Part I identifies the responsible individual, usually the policyholder or primary subscriber, and carries the origin-of-coverage code that says what kind of coverage it was.
• Part II is completed only where an employer sponsored the coverage, naming that employer and its EIN.
• Part III identifies the issuer or other provider filing the form, with a contact telephone number.
• Part IV lists every covered individual with their taxpayer identification number or date of birth, and ticks either the all-twelve-months box or the specific months of coverage. A person covered for part of a year needs the individual months, not the annual box.
• Form 1094-B is the transmittal that accompanies a batch of 1095-B forms to the IRS. It is a single cover sheet, not one per recipient.

You may not have to send them out any more

The Paperwork Burden Reduction Act turned furnishing into a request-based obligation. A provider may post a clear, conspicuous and accessible notice that 1095-B statements are available and send one only to an individual who asks, instead of mailing every covered person.

The conditions are precise. The notice must be up by the furnishing deadline and remain up until 15 October. It has to be written in plain language, headed so that a reader recognises it as a health coverage tax document, and give an email address, a postal address and a telephone number for requests. A request must then be satisfied within 30 days, or by 31 January, whichever is later.

Nothing about the obligation to FILE with the IRS changed. Only the obligation to put a copy in the post did.

Reporting a taxpayer ID you could not get

A provider that cannot obtain a covered individual taxpayer identification number after a reasonable effort may report that person full name and date of birth instead. The reasonable effort is defined: ask at enrolment, ask again by 31 December, and ask a third time by 31 December of the following year. Documenting those attempts is what supports a reasonable cause defence if the return is later challenged.

States that want a copy too

California, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island run their own individual coverage mandates with their own reporting and their own deadlines. A provider covering residents of those jurisdictions can have filed correctly with the IRS and still owe a state return.

What is published for 2026, and what is not

As at October 2026 the IRS has published instructions for Forms 1094-B and 1095-B for tax year 2025 only. There is no 2026 edition yet.

So nothing on this page quotes a 2026 figure. Everything here is stated from the current instructions and from the furnishing rules actually in force, which is the honest position until the IRS issues the 2026 revision. A page printing a confident 2026 number right now is guessing.

The substantive change in force is the alternative manner of furnishing described above. When the 2026 instructions appear, this page gets read again and re-dated.

1095-B or 1095-C? Who reports what

The trap is the third row: a large employer with an insured plan still files 1095-C even though it files no 1095-B, because the two forms answer different questions.

Coverage that counts, and coverage that does not

Reporting an excepted benefit is not a harmless extra: it puts a coverage month on the record for a person who may not have had minimum essential coverage at all.

1095-B Pricing

Volume pricing — each band charged at its own rate

Optional add-ons

Included at no extra cost

• Direct IRS e-filing — no Form 1096 needed, it is a paper transmittal
• Free recipient PDF copies to download and share
• Bulk Excel/CSV import and built-in error validation
• CFSF state filing for participating states
• Secure storage of your filing data for 4 years

W-2, W-2C, 1095-B, 1095-C forms share this tier table. Volume tiers are counted per form type within a filing, so a large batch of 1095-B reaches the cheapest band on its own.