Lenders and other creditors filed 5,511,766 Forms 1099-C with the IRS in 2024, reporting debts they had canceled in tax year 2023. The IRS projects that the number will fall to 4,205,800 in 2025 and 3,902,000 in 2026.
That is a large cut from a year earlier. Table 1 of the 2025 edition puts the 2024 edition’s forecast for 2026 at about 6.34 million Forms 1099-C, against 3.90 million now, a 38.5% reduction. The 2024 edition had also projected 5.83 million forms for 2025, compared with 4.21 million now. The publication does not explain the 1099-C revision.
The 2024 count was down from 6,311,050 in 2023, the highest year in the editions we checked.
What a Form 1099-C is
When a creditor cancels or forgives $600 or more of debt, it generally must file Form 1099-C and send a copy to the borrower. Canceled debt is usually taxable income unless an exclusion applies, such as insolvency, certain bankruptcies, or some student loan discharges. Getting a 1099-C does not by itself mean tax is owed, but the amount must be dealt with on the return.
The counts are forms, not people; someone with several canceled debts can get several forms. The IRS reports by the calendar year a form is filed, which covers debts canceled in the previous tax year. The projections are IRS staff forecasts for workload planning, not policy estimates, and the IRS notes that its 2025 projections do not yet fully reflect the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Actual counts and projections
| Calendar year filed | Type | Forms 1099-C | Previous edition projection |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Actual | 4,296,985 | – |
| 2020 | Actual | 4,696,370 | – |
| 2023 | Actual | 6,311,050 | – |
| 2024 | Actual | 5,511,766 | – |
| 2025 | Projected | 4,205,800 | 5,825,600 |
| 2026 | Projected | 3,902,000 | – |
| 2027 | Projected | 3,714,600 | – |
| 2028 | Projected | 3,598,900 | – |
| 2029 | Projected | 3,527,600 | – |
| 2030 | Projected | 3,483,600 | – |
| 2031 | Projected | 3,456,400 | – |
| 2032 | Projected | 3,439,700 | – |
| 2033 | Projected | 3,429,300 | – |
Actual counts come from the edition published the following year. Years without a figure were not available in the editions we used. All media (electronic and paper).
Source
Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income, Publication 6961, Calendar Year Projections of Information and Withholding Documents for the United States and IRS Campuses, editions from 2020 to Rev. 9-2025, Tables 1 and 2, downloaded October 27, 2026. U.S. government data in the public domain. Our table is available under CC BY 4.0. Credit "My Credit Guide (mycreditguide.org)".
Steven Reynolds, "Canceled Debt Forms (1099-C): Counts and IRS Projections," My Credit Guide, October 27, 2026, https://mycreditguide.org/data/canceled-debt-1099-c-forms/.