Some of them can. Streamers, online video creators, social media influencers and podcasters are listed as code 209, Digital Content Creators, in the final Treasury regulations on qualified tips, so a voluntary tip from a viewer can count towards the US federal deduction for tax years 2025 to 2028. A payment a fan has to make to see content is not a tip, the platform's cut never counts, amounts received for pornographic activity are excluded, and the deduction lowers federal income tax only: every tip is still income and still carries self-employment tax.
Where creators sit on Treasury's tipped-occupation list
The deduction lives in section 224 of the Internal Revenue Code, added by the July 2025 budget law that the IRS now files under the name Working Families Tax Cuts; older IRS pages still call it the One, Big, Beautiful Bill. It only covers tips received in an occupation that customarily and regularly received tips on or before 31 December 2024, and it told Treasury to publish that list.
Treasury proposed the list in September 2025 and finalised it in April 2026. Code 209 sits in the 200s group, Entertainment and Events, and the regulation text in section 1.224-1 describes the occupation as people who “produce and publish on digital platforms original entertainment and personality-driven content, such as live streams, short-form videos, or podcasts”. The illustrative examples are streamer, online video creator, social media influencer and podcaster. The final rules took effect on 12 June 2026 but apply to tax years beginning after 31 December 2024, so they govern the 2025 return as well.
Being on the list is the first test, not the last. The IRS's news release on the final regulations says gig workers and other self-employed people can qualify when their occupation is listed and the other statutory and regulatory requirements are met. Those other requirements are where most creator income drops out.
What counts as a tip when a platform sits in the middle
The regulations define a tip as an amount paid for services that goes beyond what was agreed, required, charged or reasonably expected in an arm's-length deal. It has to be paid voluntarily, with no consequence for not paying, including any effect on the scope or cost of the service. It cannot be the subject of negotiation, and the person paying decides the amount. The viewer is the payer; a platform or payment processor that passes the money along is treated as a conduit, not as the source of the tip.
Treasury added two creator examples after commenters asked where tips end and sales begin. In the first, a creator sells access to locked training videos for a set contribution. That contribution pays for the content, so it is not a tip, but an extra amount a satisfied viewer sends afterwards, which was not needed for access, is a qualified tip. In the second, a free live stream lets viewers send a tip with a message that is highlighted in chat, and the creator sometimes thanks people by name. Those payments are tips, because a highlighted message or a thank-you is a token of negligible value that does not turn the tip into a purchase.
Two more rules matter on platforms. The money must arrive in cash or a cash equivalent: cards, payment apps, foreign currency and tokens readily exchangeable for a fixed amount of cash all count, while digital assets such as cryptocurrency do not. And the platform's commission was never yours. The preamble to the final rule says any part of a user's payment kept by a host platform is not received by the creator and is not a qualified tip, so the figure that matters is the amount paid out to you.
Payment classification table to take to your adviser
Most creators see several kinds of income on one statement. Sort them before your tax appointment; the middle column is our reading of the final regulations, not a ruling.
| Payment | How the final rules appear to treat it | Confirm with your adviser |
|---|---|---|
| Tip sent during a free live stream, with or without a highlighted message | Qualified tip when voluntary and the viewer picks the amount, as in the live-stream example | Whether the platform shows it in the tips box of your 1099 |
| Extra amount sent after a fan already paid for access | Qualified tip, because it was not needed to see the content | How you will show that access had already been granted |
| Monthly subscription or channel membership | Payment for services, because it buys access | Nothing to claim; report it as ordinary business income |
| Pay-per-view unlock or paid message | Payment for services, because the content stays locked until paid | What to do if the platform labels the payment a tip anyway |
| Fixed-price item on a tip menu | Likely a charge for a service, since you set the price and promise a specific action | Whether any amount above the menu price was a genuine extra |
| Custom request with an agreed price | Not a qualified tip, because the amount was negotiated | How to treat an unprompted extra paid on top of the agreed price |
| Brand sponsorship, UGC or affiliate fee | Contract income from a business, not a tip | Which information return the brand or network will send |
| Ad revenue share or creator-fund payout | Paid by the platform under its programme terms, not chosen by a viewer | Nothing to claim under section 224 |
| Virtual gifts bought with platform coins | Unclear: it turns on whether the gift is a cash-equivalent tip and what reaches you | Get a professional view before you include these |
| Tip paid in cryptocurrency | Excluded, because digital assets are not cash tips | The value to report as ordinary income |
| The platform's commission on any tip | Never received by you, so never a qualified tip | Use the net payout figure in your workings |
| Tips received for adult content | Excluded: the rules say amounts received for pornographic activity are not qualified tips | Whether any of your income falls outside that term |
Limits that apply even when every tip qualifies
The IRS summary, what the No Tax on Tips deduction means for you, lists the headline conditions: a maximum deduction of $25,000 a year, a phase-out once modified adjusted gross income passes $150,000 ($300,000 for joint filers), a valid Social Security number, and a joint return if you are married. You can claim it whether you itemise or take the standard deduction.
For a self-employed creator the tighter limit is usually profit. The deduction cannot exceed your net income from the business in which the tips were received, worked out before the tip deduction itself. The regulation's own illustration, in paragraph (e) of section 1.224-1, is a self-employed manicurist with $75,000 of gross income, including $20,000 of qualified tips, and $60,000 of expenses, whose deduction is capped at $15,000. A creator who spends heavily on cameras, editing or travel in a year meets the same squeeze.
It is also an income tax deduction and nothing more. A footnote in the final rule says the deduction does not apply for Self-Employment Contributions Act purposes, so tips still count towards your net earnings from self-employment. State income tax follows each state's own rules, and no deduction is allowed for any tax year beginning after 31 December 2028.
The exclusions creators ask about most
Adult content. The final regulations keep the proposed rule that any amount received for pornographic activity is not a qualified tip, alongside exclusions for prostitution and for services that are a felony or misdemeanour. Treasury declined to drop these after objections and said it would consider whether to issue further guidance. The term is not defined, so an account that mixes adult and general content, or a creator who earns tips on several platforms, has a question for an adviser rather than one to settle alone. It also answers whether OnlyFans tips get taxed: tips are income whatever the content, as the proposed regulations' background section notes, and tips received for adult content cannot use this deduction. The mechanics of the tip button itself are covered in our guide to how tips work on OnlyFans.
Specified service businesses. The law excludes tips received in a specified service trade or business, a category that includes performing arts. The proposed regulations illustrated this with a self-employed comedian whose audience tips would not qualify, which worried many streamers. The final rules leave the point open, with paragraph (g) reserved for later guidance, and the transition in IRS Notice 2025-69 continues: people in a listed occupation are treated as outside a specified service business until 1 January of the first calendar year after final rules on that question are issued.
Relabelling. An anti-abuse rule says an amount is not a qualified tip if, on the facts, it is a recharacterised payment for goods or services. The warning signs named in the rule include an invoice price lower than the amount actually paid, with a “tip” that roughly fills the gap, and a sudden shift in how a payer has historically paid you. Moving the price of a custom request into the tip button does not create a deduction; it creates an audit question.
Why your 1099 decides what you can claim
The deduction only covers qualified tips that appear on an information return, meaning Form W-2, 1099-NEC, 1099-MISC or 1099-K, or that an employee reports on Form 4137. The final rule's preamble adds that tips not separately reported on one of those statements are not eligible, and that giving independent contractors a way to report tips missing from a form is outside the regulations.
For 2025 there is a transition. Platforms were not required to split tips out on 2025 forms, so Notice 2025-69 lets a non-employee treat the requirement as met when the tips sit inside the total on the 1099 and then support the qualified amount with earnings statements, platform records or a tip log. Its worked example is a self-employed tour guide whose 1099-K does not identify tips, but whose daily log of each tour supports the figure.
From 2026 the forms themselves change. The instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC add a cash-tips box and a box for the Treasury tipped occupation code: boxes 1b and 1c on the 1099-NEC, and 13a and 13b on the 1099-MISC. Check that your platform enters code 209 and a tip total that matches your own records. If you may not receive a form at all, for example because a payment app only has to issue a 1099-K once payments pass $20,000 across more than 200 transactions according to the IRS's gig economy fact sheet, ask the platform how it will report tips before you rely on the deduction. Which platforms send which forms is mapped in our guide to creator tax forms: W-9, 1099-NEC and 1099-K.
Eligibility checklist
- You are a US taxpayer with a valid Social Security number, and if you are married you will file a joint return.
- The work that earns the tips matches code 209: original entertainment or personality-driven content published on a digital platform.
- Each payment you plan to count was voluntary, was not needed to unlock content, was not negotiated and was sized by the viewer.
- The tips arrived as cash or a cash equivalent, not as cryptocurrency or another digital asset.
- None of the tips was received for adult content or another excluded activity.
- You can show the net amount paid to you after the platform's commission.
- The tips appear on a 1099 or W-2: inside the total for 2025, backed by your records, and in the separate tips box from 2026.
- Your net profit from the creator business is at least the amount you intend to deduct.
- You have checked where your modified adjusted gross income sits against the phase-out.
- A tax professional has confirmed the specified service business position for the year you are filing.
Records to keep for every tip
- The date, the platform and the stream, post or video the tip came in on.
- The gross amount, the platform fee and the net amount credited to your balance.
- Whether the viewer already had access, and whether the payment unlocked anything.
- Any message sent with the tip, which helps show it was unprompted rather than tied to a request.
- Monthly platform statements and the bank deposit each payout landed in.
- The 1099 itself, with the tips box and occupation code checked against your log.
- A short note of anything you left out, such as menu items, custom requests or adult-content tips, and why.
The same log helps you set money aside, because self-employment tax applies to tips whether or not the deduction does; our worksheet for budgeting irregular creator income includes a tax bucket for this. For US creator tax more broadly, see OnlyFans taxes, 1099 forms and deductions, and for how tipping features pay out elsewhere, see YouTube Super Chat and Super Thanks and Twitch Bits versus direct tips.
Limitations of this guide
This is general information about US federal tax rules as published, not tax advice for your situation. It draws on the final regulations (TD 10044), Notice 2025-69, the 1099 instructions and IRS summaries, all checked on 1 October 2026. Some questions remain open: guidance on specified service businesses is still to come, the adult-content exclusion is undefined, and virtual gifts depend on facts the rules do not address. State taxes and creators living outside the US are not covered; non-US creators should start with our guide to the W-8BEN for non-US creators.
Before you claim the deduction, ask a CPA, an enrolled agent or another qualified US tax professional to review your platform statements and 1099s against your tip log. If you also lodge an Australian return, a registered tax agent can tell you how US income fits there.