Venmo Taxes: How They Work in 2026

Is Venmo taxed? That depends on whether you’re taking personal or business payments.

Written by

Edited by

other

Updated Jan 23, 2026

If you’re using Venmo to split a restaurant check or collect your roommate’s half of the rent, you probably don’t have to worry about the tax implications of those transactions. But if you are collecting payments for a business using the popular app, you may need to settle up with the IRS.

The basic tax rules distinguishing business and personal income haven’t changed much, but there’s been some understandable confusion over Venmo payments in recent years. Here’s what’s going on.

How is Venmo taxed?

If you’re receiving payments as part of your work, you’re supposed to report that income to the IRS and pay applicable taxes. This is true whether you’re being paid by card, check, a sock full of quarters or — yes, Venmo.

That underlying concept has been true for years, but it has become easier for the IRS to track these payments to make sure you're paying the applicable taxes.

Third-party platforms, such as Venmo, are required to send the user and the IRS a Form 1099-K for anyone who made 200 transactions and earned $20,000 or more in business income. Form 1099-Ks are summaries of the business payments you've received.

» What do you owe? Check out NerdWallet’s tax calculator

Why does Venmo need my tax information?

Venmo collects tax information to prepare a Form 1099-K for people who are using the service to collect payments for goods and services. Among the required information is a Social Security number or tax identification number.

If you don’t provide the requested details, Venmo says it is required by law to do what’s called “backup withholding” on your behalf. Backup withholding is a way for the IRS to try to make sure it gets your tax dollars no matter what by hanging onto a chunk of your income if you haven’t entered identifying information.

The amount of your payments that are subject to withholding can vary over time, but it is currently set at 24%.

The good news is that, in many cases, backup withholding is not an issue if you provide the proper tax information and you haven’t had recordkeeping issues with the IRS in the past.

If you are subject to backup withholding, Venmo emphasizes that the platform isn’t hanging onto your money for its own benefit.

“Venmo is not keeping your money,” the company says on its website. “Payments placed on tax hold are in your account, but they're unavailable to you until you provide your tax info or until the next [monthly] backup withholding date.”

What does Venmo consider a taxable payment?

If you have a business account on Venmo, then the platform considers all of your payments to be for business purposes. That means you’ll likely have to report that income on your taxes, and you’ll have to pay Venmo’s business fees.

But if you have a personal account, not every bit of money that comes your way on Venmo is necessarily considered to be taxable income. If you haven’t noticed, there’s an option that allows payers to report that a transaction is for “goods and services.”

The “goods and services” designation can entitle both the buyer and the seller to purchase protection, and it also allows Venmo to help itself to the same fees it charges business and charity accounts.

Where things could get complicated is if you occasionally accepted personal payments using a business account that was previously below the tax reporting threshold. Now, you’ll need to convince the IRS that the income reported on your forms from personal transactions isn’t related to your business.

How do you get tax information from Venmo?

While Venmo may send you forms in the mail, it’s pretty easy to get those forms through the app. Here’s what you do:

Open the Venmo app.
Tap the “settings” icon.
Open the tax documents option.
Pull up the year you’re looking at to see if there are any applicable documents.

Will Venmo provide any other tax documents?

Venmo may also send you a gains and losses statement if you buy and sell cryptocurrency on its app. Cryptocurrency taxes are generally calculated in the same way as other investments, such as stock: If you sell a crypto asset for more than you paid for it, you may have to pay capital gains taxes.

Explore more on

Taxes

Article sources

NerdWallet writers are subject matter authorities who use primary, trustworthy sources to inform their work, including peer-reviewed studies, government websites, academic research and interviews with industry experts. All content is fact-checked for accuracy, timeliness and relevance. You can learn more about NerdWallet's high standards for journalism by reading our editorial guidelines.

1.Internal Revenue Service. Backup Withholding. Accessed Jan 23, 2026.