Tax year 2026
No federal law requires you to give parents a year-end tax statement. You may have seen that claim — sometimes with an invented “last day of February” deadline — but no IRS form, regulation, or publication imposes that duty or that deadline. One thing is legally required, and it is not the statement. It is your EIN. When a parent asks for your taxpayer identification number, you must furnish it, and a $50 penalty per failure stands behind the request (26 U.S.C. §6723). The statement is optional — and here is the useful part: the optional document and the mandatory disclosure can be the same piece of paper. This page covers what you must do, what you should do, and includes a template you can use today.
This article describes US federal requirements as the IRS publishes them, as of the date noted on each table below. It is not tax advice. Your accountant, and your state licensor, may have more to say.
Do you have to give parents a tax statement?
No. A licensed child care center has one federal obligation to the families it serves at tax time, and it is not a year-end statement. It is a taxpayer identification number — specifically, your Employer Identification Number.
The table below separates every scenario into what you must do and what you may do. The Authority column names the source for each row so a skim cannot mistake one for the other.
| # | Trigger | What you must furnish | Authority | Penalty or consequence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A parent asks for your taxpayer identification number — by email, phone, Form W-10, or any other way | Your correct EIN | 26 U.S.C. §6109(a), as stated on Form W-10 (Rev. October 2020) | $50 per failure, capped at $100,000 per calendar year, waived for reasonable cause and absence of willful neglect (26 U.S.C. §6723; 26 U.S.C. §6724(a)) |
| 2 | Same request, but your center is a 501(c)(3) organization | Name and address only. Write “Tax-Exempt” in the space for the TIN | Form W-10 (Rev. October 2020), tax-exempt provider section | The §6723 penalty does not apply to a 501(c)(3) organization |
| 3 | A parent hands you a blank Form W-10 to complete | Part I: your legal name, address, and EIN. Then sign the certification under penalties of perjury that all three are correct | Form W-10 (Rev. October 2020), Part I and certification block | The perjury certification is on the form itself |
| 4 | A completed Form W-10 comes back to you | Nothing. Do not file it. The form says: “Do NOT file Form W-10 with your tax return. Instead, keep it for your records.” | Form W-10 (Rev. October 2020), header | None |
| 5 | A parent asks for a year-end statement of amounts paid | Nothing is federally required. No IRS form exists for this. No federal deadline applies | No authority imposes this duty — negative finding across Form W-10, Publication 503, Instructions for Form 2441, and the IRS Child Care Tax Center (which is flagged as historical content) | None federally |
| 6 | A parent’s employer dependent care FSA administrator requests substantiation | A statement from you, as an independent third party, showing dates and amounts of care actually provided | Prop. Reg. §1.125-6(g); IRS Chief Counsel memorandum 202317020 | Not your penalty — but if the claim cannot be substantiated, the employee’s reimbursement is included in gross income and wages |
| 7 | A family asks you to confirm care not yet provided | Decline. Substantiation must follow the expense | Prop. Reg. §1.125-6(a)(4), (b)(4); CCA 202317020, Situation 6 | Advance attestation fails substantiation and can cause the exclusion to fail for all dependent care benefits that year |
| 8 | A parent asks for your personal Social Security number | Give your EIN instead. 26 U.S.C. §6109(a) requires a valid TIN — for a center, that is the EIN | Form W-10 (Rev. October 2020), Part I instructions | No penalty for declining an SSN when you furnish a valid EIN |
| 9 | You refuse or ignore the request entirely | The parent completes what they can on Form 2441 Part I, enters “See Attached Statement” in the missing columns, and attaches a statement to their return saying you refused | Instructions for Form 2441 (2025), Part I | Your name and address go to the IRS attached to a statement that you refused to provide a TIN — plus the row 1 penalty |
Last verified: August 25, 2026.
Federal law is what is described here. A handful of state licensing or subsidy-program rules impose their own recordkeeping and parent-notice duties — check your state licensor and, if you take subsidy, your subsidy contract.
What you must furnish: your EIN, on request
The IRS puts it plainly on the face of Form W-10 (Dependent Care Provider’s Identification and Certification, Rev. October 2020):
“Section 6109(a) requires a provider of dependent care services to give to you a valid TIN, even if the provider isn’t required to file a return.”
For a licensed center, your TIN is your Employer Identification Number — your EIN. TIN is the tax code’s umbrella term for any taxpayer identification number (SSN, ITIN, or EIN). As a business entity, yours is the EIN. This article uses “EIN” throughout wherever the reader is a center.
The trigger is not the form. A parent does not need to hand you a W-10 to invoke this obligation. The W-10 is a convenient container, but §6109(a) applies whenever a parent requests your TIN — by email, on the phone, or in person.
If a parent asks specifically for your personal Social Security number, give your EIN instead. A center has one. §6109(a) requires a valid TIN, and for a center that is the EIN (Form W-10, Rev. October 2020, Part I instructions).
What happens if you don’t
The penalty is $50 per failure, capped at $100,000 per calendar year (26 U.S.C. §6723). The statutory chain runs through 26 U.S.C. §6724(d)(3)(B)(ii), which classifies “furnish his TIN to another person” as a specified information reporting requirement — the classification that makes §6723 apply. There is a waiver if the failure is due to reasonable cause and not willful neglect (26 U.S.C. §6724(a)).
One detail worth knowing: the current Form W-10 (Rev. October 2020) no longer prints the $50 figure. The previous revision (Rev. August 2009) stated it explicitly: “A care provider who does not give you his or her correct TIN is subject to a penalty of $50 for each failure unless the failure is due to reasonable cause and not willful neglect.” The current revision says the same sentence with the dollar figure removed — “subject to a penalty for each failure.” The amount did not change; the form stopped restating it. 26 U.S.C. §6723 still reads $50.
The $50 is the statutory amount and is not indexed for inflation. This was verified against Rev. Proc. 2025-32, which adjusts the penalties under §6721 and §6722 (both indexed to $340 for returns and statements due in 2027). §6723 does not appear in the revenue procedure.
If you are a 501(c)(3), the rules are different
If your center is a tax-exempt organization under 501(c)(3), write “Tax-Exempt” in the space where a TIN would go. You provide your name and address only. The §6723 penalty does not apply to a 501(c)(3) organization. Both rules are stated on Form W-10 (Rev. October 2020), under the heading for tax-exempt dependent care providers.
On the parent’s side, they enter “Tax-Exempt” in column (c) of their Form 2441 (Instructions for Form 2441, 2025).
Does a daycare report anything to the IRS about a parent?
No. There is no childcare equivalent of a 1098-T or a 1099. Nothing you give parents is filed with the IRS. You report your own income on your own returns; each parent reports what they paid on theirs. The two never meet at the IRS.
Form W-10 says this on its face: “Do NOT file Form W-10 with your tax return. Instead, keep it for your records.” It is a record-keeping document between you and the parent, not a filing.
Why issue a year-end statement at all?
Because it discharges the EIN obligation before anyone invokes it, and because the statement itself is one of the documents the IRS lists as parent due-diligence evidence. The optional document and the mandatory disclosure become the same piece of paper.
It pre-empts the W-10 request
Publication 503 (2025) lists what counts as due-diligence evidence when a parent reports a care provider’s name, address, and TIN on their return. If any of those details are incorrect, the parent’s credit or dependent care exclusion can be denied — unless the parent shows due diligence (26 U.S.C. §21(e)(9); 26 U.S.C. §129(e)(9)). Publication 503 lists the following as evidence that satisfies the requirement:
- A properly completed Form W-10
- A copy of the provider’s Social Security card
- A recently printed letterhead or printed invoice showing name, address, and TIN
- For an employer plan, a copy of the employer’s statement
- For a household employee, a copy of their Form W-4
A year-end statement on your center’s letterhead, carrying your legal name, address, and EIN, satisfies the third item on that list. Issue it once in January and the individual W-10 requests largely stop.
It is what the parent’s Form 2441 consumes
Parents claim the child and dependent care credit by filing Form 2441 with their federal return. Part I of the form requires five pieces of information per provider:
| Column | What it asks for |
|---|---|
| (a) | Care provider’s name |
| (b) | Address |
| (c) | TIN — EIN, SSN, or ITIN. For a tax-exempt provider, enter “Tax-Exempt” |
| (d) | Was the provider a household employee? For a licensed center, the answer is always No |
| (e) | Amount paid during the tax year |
Source: Instructions for Form 2441 (2025), Part I.
A year-end statement carrying all five gives the parent everything Form 2441 asks for in one document.
If you do not provide a TIN, the parent’s fallback is described verbatim in the Instructions for Form 2441 (2025):
“Complete the entries you can on line 1. For example, enter the provider’s name and address. Enter ‘See Attached Statement’ in the columns for which you don’t have the information. Then, attach a statement to your return explaining that the provider didn’t give you the information you requested.”
Your name and address go to the IRS attached to a statement that you refused. That alone is reason enough to issue the statement proactively.
The January statement run is a reconciliation job before it is a document job — twelve months of cash received, per family, per child, tied back to the ledger, with non-care charges split out. For many centers, it is where a week of January disappears. Year-end family tax documents are part of the bookkeeping work Tactivus handles for child care centers.
What goes on a daycare tax statement
Every field on the statement exists because something downstream consumes it. Some fields feed the parent’s Form 2441. Some satisfy the IRS’s due-diligence requirements under Publication 503 (2025). Some are what an FSA administrator will ask for mid-year. None are decorative.
The full field list and the reason for each field appear in the template section below. Two principles govern the numbers on any statement.
Report what was paid, not what was billed
The statement reports what the family paid between January 1 and December 31, not what you billed. Form 2441 column (e) asks for the amount paid during the tax year (Instructions for Form 2441, 2025).
A family that pays January 2027 tuition in December 2026 has paid it in 2026. That payment belongs on the 2026 statement. If your books run on accrual basis, the statement is a cash-basis extract from them, and the reconciliation between the two is real work.
Separate care charges from everything else
Registration fees, late fees, field trips, supply fees, and similar charges are not necessarily qualifying child care expenses. List them on the statement, but list them separately from the care charges.
You report what was paid and what it was for. Whether a given charge qualifies as a dependent care expense is the parent’s determination, made with their tax preparer. Do not make that determination for them.
Year-end tax statement template (tax year 2026)
Thirteen fields, each on the statement for a reason. The right-hand column shows what consumes each field downstream — the parent’s Form 2441, the IRS’s due-diligence standard, or an FSA administrator’s substantiation request.
| Field | Why it is on the statement |
|---|---|
| Center’s legal name — the name on your EIN, not your trade name | Form 2441 column (a). The IRS matches the name against the EIN; a trade name that differs from the legal name can fail the match |
| Center’s address | Form 2441 column (b) |
| EIN — or “Tax-Exempt” for 501(c)(3) centers | Form 2441 column (c). This is the field with the 26 U.S.C. §6723 penalty behind it |
| Statement on center letterhead, or carrying the center’s printed name and address | Makes the document itself qualify as parent due-diligence evidence under Publication 503 (2025) |
| Parent or guardian name and address | Identifies the family. Also what an FSA administrator matches against the employee’s records |
| Each child’s full name | Required for FSA substantiation (IRS CCA 202317020). Parents also need it to allocate expenses across children on Form 2441 |
| Service period — explicit start and end dates (January 1 – December 31, 2026 for the annual statement) | Form 2441 column (e) is a calendar-year figure. FSA substantiation requires dates of service separately |
| Total amount paid in the calendar year | Form 2441 column (e). Paid, not billed |
| Payment breakdown by month (or by payment) | Not required by the IRS. It survives a parent’s disagreement over the total, and it is what an FSA administrator needs for mid-year claims |
| Care charges subtotaled separately from non-care charges (registration, late fees, field trips, supplies) | Keeps you out of the parent’s determination of what qualifies. You report what was paid for what; the parent and their preparer decide what is a qualifying expense |
| “Was the provider a household employee?” answered No | Form 2441 column (d). A licensed center is never the parent’s household employee |
| Authorized signature, printed name, title, and date issued | Not legally required. It is the difference between a document a parent’s preparer accepts and one they query |
| Contact for corrections — name, email, phone | Every statement run produces questions. Routing them to one person prevents a week of scattered calls |
Include a one-line footer on the statement: “This is a record of payments received. It is not tax advice.”
Last verified: August 25, 2026.
Before you send — a short checklist:
- EIN is correct and matches the legal name on your IRS records
- Service period reads January 1 – December 31, 2026
- Totals reconcile to actual payments received — deposits, not invoices
- One named contact for corrections is listed on every statement
If you are generating statements for your full roster, the fields are the same for every family. The per-family values — child names, service dates, and payment amounts — come from your accounting records. The reconciliation against the ledger is the work; the document that results from it is straightforward.
When a parent’s FSA administrator asks for documentation
This is a different request from the year-end statement. It arrives mid-year, often in a form letter from a benefits administrator the family’s employer contracts with. It asks for dates and amounts of care actually provided — not an annual total of cash received. And it is driven by a different part of the tax code.
For tax year 2026, families may exclude up to $7,500 ($3,750 if married filing separately) in employer-provided dependent care benefits from gross income (26 U.S.C. §129). Tax year 2026 is the first year these limits apply, following the amendments to §129 by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Most families access this exclusion through a dependent care flexible spending account — a dependent care FSA — administered by their employer’s benefits plan.
The guidance below cites a Chief Counsel memorandum (CCA 202317020) and proposed regulations (Prop. Reg. §1.125-6). Both represent the IRS’s stated position; neither is precedent a taxpayer can rely on. Plan administrators set their own documentation rules on top of these requirements.
What they need from you
An independent-third-party statement showing the dates and amounts of care actually provided (Prop. Reg. §1.125-6(g), as applied in IRS Chief Counsel memorandum 202317020).
You are the independent third party. The family cannot self-substantiate their dependent care expenses — the statement must come from the provider, not from the employee claiming the benefit (Prop. Reg. §1.125-6(b)(3); CCA 202317020). That is why the FSA administrator’s letter comes to you rather than asking the family for a receipt.
Never confirm care that has not happened yet
An FSA expense is incurred when the care is provided — “not when the employee is formally billed or charged for (or pays for)” the care (Prop. Reg. §1.125-6(a)(4), quoted in CCA 202317020). Substantiation must follow the expense.
If a family asks you to confirm care not yet provided — to substantiate a claim in advance — decline. Advance attestation fails the substantiation requirement and can cause the dependent care exclusion to fail for the family’s entire year of dependent care benefits (CCA 202317020, Situation 6). Offer a statement of actual service dates after the care has been provided.
Why your year-end statement and their FSA claim won’t match
The year-end statement and the FSA claim run on different clocks:
- Year-end statement: what the family paid between January 1 and December 31 (cash basis)
- FSA claim: when the care was provided (incurred-when-provided basis, per Prop. Reg. §1.125-6(a)(4))
Consider a family that prepays January 2027 tuition in December 2026. That payment belongs on the 2026 year-end statement — it was paid in 2026. But it is not a 2026 FSA expense — the care will be provided in 2027. The two documents will show different totals for the same family for the same year, and both are correct.
This is why the year-end statement should show a monthly breakdown of care charges rather than only an annual total. The monthly detail is what lets the family and their FSA administrator reconcile the statement against the plan’s incurred-when-provided requirement.
Questions parents ask (and the short answers)
These are general answers to common questions about child care expenses and tax filings. They are not advice about any particular family’s return.
Should my daycare give me a tax form?
Your center is required to provide its EIN when you ask — that is a federal obligation under 26 U.S.C. §6109(a), with a $50-per-failure penalty behind it (26 U.S.C. §6723). A year-end statement of payments is not federally required, but centers issue them as a courtesy that benefits both sides. If your center does not offer one, ask — and if they decline, hand them IRS Form W-10 (Dependent Care Provider’s Identification and Certification, Rev. October 2020), which they are obligated to complete.
How do I get a tax statement from my daycare?
Ask the center’s front desk or billing office. Most centers that issue statements do so in January. If a center does not issue statements, request their EIN, legal name, and address — those three are what Form 2441 requires. If they refuse, IRS Form W-10 is a one-page form designed for this request, available at irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw10.pdf.
Who fills out Form 2441?
You do — the parent, as part of your federal tax return. Your child care provider does not fill out Form 2441. Part I asks for your provider’s name, address, TIN, and the amount you paid during the tax year (Instructions for Form 2441, 2025). You fill in those fields using the center’s year-end statement or a completed Form W-10.
How do I prove child care expenses on my taxes?
Form 2441 Part I requires your provider’s name, address, and TIN. If any of those turn out to be incorrect, the credit or exclusion can be denied — unless you show due diligence (26 U.S.C. §21(e)(9); 26 U.S.C. §129(e)(9)). Publication 503 (2025) lists what counts as due-diligence evidence:
- A properly completed Form W-10
- A copy of the provider’s Social Security card
- A recently printed letterhead or printed invoice showing name, address, and TIN
A year-end statement on the center’s letterhead carrying the center’s EIN satisfies the third item.
Do I need receipts, or is the provider’s statement enough?
Both, ideally. Publication 503 (2025) advises taxpayers to keep their own records of payments. The provider’s statement confirms what the center received; your own records — bank statements, canceled checks, receipts — confirm what you paid. The two should match.
What if my provider won’t give me a TIN?
Complete what you can on Form 2441 Part I. Enter “See Attached Statement” in the columns where information is missing, and attach a statement to your return explaining that you requested the information and the provider did not provide it (Instructions for Form 2441, 2025). Your return can still be filed.
Is this a credit or a deduction?
A credit. The child and dependent care credit under 26 U.S.C. §21 reduces your tax liability directly — dollar for dollar, up to the applicable percentage of qualifying expenses. It is not a deduction from income, and “write-off” is not the right term. The actual credit amount depends on your income, qualifying expenses, and filing status.
How much of my daycare expenses are covered?
For tax year 2026, the credit under 26 U.S.C. §21 applies to up to $3,000 of qualifying expenses for one qualifying individual, or $6,000 for two or more (26 U.S.C. §21(c)). The applicable percentage starts at 50% and phases down based on adjusted gross income (26 U.S.C. §21(a)). These are statutory limits — the actual credit is a percentage of those amounts, determined by your AGI. Your tax preparer can calculate the specific figure for your return.
Separately, if your employer offers a dependent care FSA, you may exclude up to $7,500 ($3,750 if married filing separately) from gross income for tax year 2026 (26 U.S.C. §129). The credit and the FSA exclusion interact — you cannot claim the credit on expenses already reimbursed through the FSA. Your preparer can determine how the two apply together.
All dollar figures above are tax year 2026 amounts. Tax year 2026 is the first year these figures apply under the amendments to §21 and §129 by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
What about Form 8332 and divorced or separated parents?
Form 8332 releases a claim to the dependency exemption and has nothing to do with child care payments — a noncustodial parent cannot treat the child as a qualifying person for the child and dependent care credit even if that parent is entitled to claim the child as a dependent under the special rules for divorced or separated parents (Publication 503, 2025).
Does my child care center count as a household employee?
No. A licensed child care center is never your household employee. On Form 2441, column (d) asks the question; for a center, the answer is always No (Instructions for Form 2441, 2025).
The statement is the easy part. The twelve months of clean, per-family, per-child payment records behind it — cash received reconciled to the ledger, care and non-care charges separated — are the actual job. Year-end family tax documents are part of the managed finance work Tactivus does for licensed child care centers. If that is the part of January you would rather hand off, get in touch.