Many sellers who are unrelated to the TPSO hold accounts with it and settle their sales through it. Each seller it pays is a participating payee. An automated clearing house does not qualify as a TPSO, so a plain bank transfer is not a TPSO payment.
Whether a payment runs through a TPSO decides who reports it. A payment a brand sends you through a TPSO is the TPSO’s to report, on Form 1099-K. The brand files no 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC for it.
A TPSO files only for sellers who pass both of the 1099-K’s yearly tests, one for dollars and one for transactions. A payment card processor is a separate kind of filer, called a merchant acquiring entity, and it reports card payments of any amount. Both are payment settlement entities, the rules’ name for the filers of Form 1099-K.
Some creator platforms act as a TPSO for the fan money they pay out. Patreon, for one, files its US creators’ 1099-Ks itself. It asks US creators for Form W-9, and non-US creators for Form W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E.
Sources
- 26 U.S.C. § 6050W, Returns relating to payments made in settlement of payment card and third party network transactions
- IRS, Instructions for Form 1099-K (Rev. December 2026)
- IRS, Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (Rev. December 2026)
- IRS, Understanding your Form 1099-K
Reviewed and updated September 2026. General information, not advice for your situation.