Schedule E and 1099s for landlords: what to know
6 min read
Two tax documents come up again and again for landlords: Schedule E and 1099s. This is a general overview to help you keep the right records — not tax advice; check specifics with your CPA.
Schedule E in one paragraph
Schedule E is where individual landlords report rental income and expenses in the U.S. It's organized by property, with lines for rents received and categories of expenses like repairs, insurance, management fees, mortgage interest, taxes, and depreciation.
Because it's per-property, your bookkeeping needs to be per-property too. If your numbers are only portfolio-wide, you'll be untangling them every April.
What to track all year
Keep rents received and every expense tagged to a property and an expense category that maps to Schedule E lines. Save receipts and vendor invoices, and record mileage or home-office details if they apply to your situation.
Depreciation is its own topic — your accountant typically calculates it from the property's cost basis — but you should keep clean records of purchase price, improvements, and dates.
1099-NEC for vendors
If you pay an unincorporated vendor $600 or more in a year for services (a handyman, landscaper, plumber), you generally issue a 1099-NEC. That means collecting a W-9 with their tax ID before you pay them.
The easiest way to stay ready is to track vendor payments and flag which vendors cross the threshold as you go, rather than reconstructing it in January.
1099s for owner distributions
If you manage property for other owners and distribute funds to them, you may have reporting obligations for those payments as well. Keep owner distributions recorded separately and totaled per owner.
Rentwelly generates 1099 totals for both vendors and owners against the $600 threshold, and flags anyone missing a tax ID — so the paperwork is a report, not a research project.
See it in your own books
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