2026 Platform Fees and the 1099-K State of Play

If you sell on more than one marketplace, you already know the frustrating truth: the fee you pay is not one number, and it is not the same anywhere. A percentage that sounds small hides fixed per-order charges, shipping fees, and rules that changed sometime in the last year without much announcement. On top of the fees sits the tax question that scares casual sellers most, the Form 1099-K, whose reporting threshold has been rewritten three times in four years. This guide puts the current numbers in one place, with the date they were verified, and explains why a dated table is worth more than a confident article that has quietly gone stale.

eBay: a percentage plus a per-order fee, revised in February 2026

eBay charges sellers a final value fee, calculated on the total amount the buyer pays, which includes the item price, the shipping you charge, and any sales tax the platform collects. As of a change that took effect in February 2026, the final value fee for most categories is about 13.6 percent, plus a fixed fee of $0.40 per order. That per-order fee is the part sellers routinely forget, and it matters most on cheap items: on a $6 sale, forty cents is a meaningful slice on top of the percentage, while on a $200 sale it barely registers.

Two details are easy to miss. First, because the fee is charged on the full buyer-paid total rather than just the item price, the shipping you collect is not fee-free money; eBay's cut applies to it too. Second, eBay's fee varies by category, and optional programs like Promoted Listings add an advertising fee on top of the base rate. That advertising fee is a separate decision with its own break-even point, which is exactly what the eBay Promoted Listings Breakeven tool is built to find: the ad rate at which a promoted sale stops earning you more than an organic one would have.

Poshmark: two tiers and a flat shipping fee

Poshmark keeps its commission simple to state and easy to underestimate. On any sale under $15, Poshmark takes a flat $2.95, regardless of the exact price. On sales of $15 and above, it takes 20 percent of the sale price. That flat fee on low-priced items is punishing in percentage terms: sell a $10 item and the $2.95 fee is nearly 30 percent of your money, far more than the headline 20 percent that applies higher up. Buyers typically pay a flat shipping fee of $7.97 for standard orders, which keeps shipping off the seller's plate in most cases but raises the total price the buyer sees.

Poshmark selling also runs on negotiation, through offers to likers and counteroffers, and the commission sits between the number you accept and the number you keep. Working backwards from a target take-home to the offer that produces it is fiddly to do by hand, which is why the Poshmark Offer Calculator reverses the ladder: you tell it what you want to keep, and it accounts for the commission so you can offer the right figure.

Mercari: a fee structure that keeps moving

Mercari is the cautionary tale for anyone relying on a fee number they memorized a couple of years ago. The platform has repeatedly reworked how it charges, at various points shifting fees from sellers toward buyers and then adjusting again. The specific consequence for a seller is that a "Mercari takes X percent" figure from an old forum post or a dated article may describe a structure that no longer exists. Before you price for Mercari, confirm the current seller fees and any buyer-side service fees directly against Mercari's own fee page, because this is the platform where stale information is most likely to burn you.

The broader lesson generalizes to every marketplace: treat a fee percentage as a figure with an expiration date, not a constant. Platforms change fees to manage their own economics, and they rarely make a loud announcement that reaches every seller. The only safe habit is to check the number against a source that shows when it was last verified.

The 1099-K threshold: back to $20,000 and 200 transactions

The tax paperwork question has been just as turbulent as fees. A Form 1099-K is an information return: a marketplace or payment app files it with the IRS to report the gross payments it processed for you during the year, and sends you a copy. For over a decade, a platform had to issue one only if you crossed both $20,000 in gross payments and more than 200 transactions. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 slashed that to a flat $600 with no transaction minimum, which would have pulled in tens of millions of casual sellers.

Facing a flood of forms and confused taxpayers, the IRS delayed the change through transition relief: the old $20,000-and-200 rule held for 2023, and an interim figure of $5,000 with no transaction minimum applied for 2024. Then the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, enacted in July 2025, repealed the $600 rule outright and restored the original standard: a form is required only when you cross both $20,000 in gross payments AND more than 200 transactions on a single platform, made permanent from 2025 onward. So for 2025 and 2026, the number that applied before the whole saga is the number that applies again.

The point sellers most often get wrong is that this threshold decides paperwork, not tax. Profit from selling is taxable whether or not any form is issued, and a 1099-K never taxes you on the gross figure it shows, because you subtract what your items cost and your selling expenses first. If you want the rule applied to your own totals, along with a read on whether your selling counts as a hobby or a business and an estimate of self-employment tax, the 1099-K Checker does exactly that for the year you choose. Note too that several states set their own, lower 1099-K thresholds, so you can receive a state form while under the federal line; check your state tax authority for its own figure.

Why fresh beats stale

Every figure in this guide has an expiration risk. eBay revised its fee in February 2026; Poshmark's tiers and shipping fee could shift; Mercari has already moved more than once; and the 1099-K threshold was rewritten by legislation as recently as mid-2025. An article that was accurate the day it was published becomes quietly wrong the moment any one of those changes, and most published guidance never gets updated. That is the case for tools over prose: the fee tables and thresholds behind the Reseller Math family live in dated data modules, with the verified date shown next to the numbers, and when a platform or the IRS changes something, the figure and its date are updated together.

The figures above were verified in February 2026. Use them to understand how each platform charges, then run your own numbers through the tool that fits your question, and always glance at the date on a figure before you build a pricing or tax decision on top of it. References to eBay, Poshmark, and Mercari here are for identification only; Reseller Math is independent and not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of these platforms.

This article is general information, not tax or financial advice. Fees and thresholds are verified as of the date shown; confirm current figures with each platform and, for tax questions, with the IRS or a qualified tax professional.