File 1098-T Online

1098-T thresholds and deadlines by tax year

There is no dollar threshold on this form. An institution files for each enrolled student for whom a reportable transaction was made, and the dates above are the e-filing deadline for each year.

Source: IRS, Instructions for Forms 1098-E and 1098-T (2026)

What's New on Form 1098-T for Tax Year 2026

One change, and it is structural. On the filer and student blocks the address fields have been separated into individual entry boxes. Nothing you report changes, but a student file that packed a whole address into one column now maps to several.

Boxes 2 and 3 remain reserved for future use. They have no entry for 2026 and nothing goes in them — which is the question this form gets asked most often, so it is worth saying plainly rather than leaving a reader to guess.

Box 1 is still payments received for qualified tuition and related expenses, not amounts billed. For the rest of the catalogue, see our tax year 2026 changes page.

What is Form 1098-T?

Form 1098-T is the tuition statement an eligible educational institution files for each enrolled student for whom a reportable transaction was made.

It reports what the student actually paid toward qualified tuition and related expenses, and what they received in scholarships or grants. Those two figures are what an education tax credit is calculated from.

There is no dollar threshold. The test is enrollment plus a reportable transaction, not an amount.

Who needs to file Form 1098-T?

• Eligible educational institutions — colleges, universities, vocational schools and other post-secondary institutions.
• A separate form for each enrolled student for whom a reportable transaction was made during the year.
• An institution may use Form W-9S, or an equivalent electronic process, to obtain or confirm a student's name and taxpayer identification number before filing.
• A missing or incorrect student TIN is the most common source of a penalty on this form, and a documented request is the defence against it.

When box 5 is larger than box 1

This looks like an error and usually is not. A student whose scholarships and grants exceed their qualified expenses genuinely has more in box 5 than in box 1, and the excess may be taxable income to them.

The institution's obligation is to report both figures accurately. Reconciling them is the student's job on their own return, and reducing one to match the other would misstate what actually happened.

Form 1098-T box by box

Box 7 is what dates this form: it asks about an academic period beginning in early 2027, which is how you can tell the 2026 revision from last season's at a glance.

The two questions this form always gets

"Box 2 is blank — is the form wrong?" No. Boxes 2 and 3 are reserved for future use and have been empty for years. Box 2 used to hold amounts billed, and institutions were given the choice between billing and payments until the law removed it. Payments received, in box 1, is now the only method.

"Box 5 is bigger than box 1 — did we file it wrong?" Not necessarily. A student whose scholarships exceed their qualified expenses genuinely has more in box 5 than in box 1, and the excess may be taxable to them. Your job is to report both accurately, not to reconcile them.

You may use Form W-9S, or an equivalent electronic process, to get or confirm a student's name and taxpayer identification number before you file. That is also your defence on a penalty for a missing or incorrect TIN.

1098-T 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

1099, 1098, W-2G, 5498 forms share this tier table. Volume tiers are counted per form type within a filing, so a large batch of 1098-T reaches the cheapest band on its own.