W-4Employee's Withholding Certificate
“Recent developments: How to update withholding to account for tax law changes for 2025 – 10-SEPT-2025”irs.gov, About Form W-4 · checked 2026-11-02
- Source
- irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf
- Size
- 208,845 bytes
- SHA-256
- Revision (page)
- 2026
- Revision (footer)
- Form W-4 (2026) ✓ match
- Fetched
- 2026-11-02 07:30 UTC
Form W-4 tells your employer how much federal income tax to withhold from your pay. You give it to your employer, not the IRS, usually when you start a job and whenever your situation changes. Only Step 1 (your name, address, SSN and filing status) and Step 5 (your signature) are required for everyone; Steps 2 to 4 are for multiple jobs or a working spouse, dependents, other income, deductions and extra withholding. The form has no read-only fields, and the worksheets on pages 3 and 4 are for your records. The IRS points to its Tax Withholding Estimator for the most accurate result, especially if you start a job mid-year or have more than one job.
The official PDF opens here.
- 1Fill
- 2Sign
- 3Flatten (optional)
- 4Download
Your employer keeps it.
The form says so at the top. Your employer uses it to set your withholding; it is not filed with your tax return.
“Give Form W-4 to your employer.”
Form W-4 (2026), page 1Not valid until you sign it.
Step 5 must be signed. You can draw or type a signature onto the PDF here, but whether your employer accepts a PDF signed this way is the employer's call; many employers collect W-4s through their own payroll system.
“Employee’s signature (This form is not valid unless you sign it.)”
Form W-4 (2026), Step 5Exemption lasts one year.
You may claim exemption only if you had no federal income tax liability last year and expect none this year. If you claim it, complete Steps 1(a), 1(b) and 5 only, and file a new W-4 by the date the form gives.
“You will need to submit a new Form W-4 by February 16, 2027.”
Form W-4 (2026), page 2, Exemption from withholdingRevision history
We check the IRS forms list every day and hash the PDF bytes every week. irs.gov’s last-modified header is not reliable, so we compare the bytes. This list starts when our crawler first saw the form.
| Edition | Status | Fields |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Current | baseline |
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Is there a 2026 W-2c? Yes. The current revision is January 2026.
Sources
- About Form W-4 (irs.gov) · checked 2026-10-05
- Form W-4 (2026), PDF with instructions and worksheets · checked 2026-10-05
- IRS Tax Withholding Estimator · checked 2026-10-05
- IRS page for Form W-4 · crawled 2026-11-02
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