Fill Out Form W-4V Online (Voluntary Withholding Request)
How to complete IRS Form W-4V to request federal tax withholding from unemployment compensation or Social Security benefits, and where to get the blank form from the IRS.
Official IRS revision: Rev. January 2026
Checked against the current form on irs.gov on October 11, 2026.Blank form on irs.gov
Short answer: Form W-4V is how you ask a payer to withhold federal income tax from certain government payments, mainly unemployment compensation and social security benefits. You give it to the payer, not to the IRS. The blank form is free at irs.gov, and you can fill it on screen here.
This page is general information drawn from the IRS form and its instructions. It is not tax advice. For questions about whether withholding suits your situation, see the official page at irs.gov/FormW4V or talk to a tax professional.
Which payments it covers
The IRS instructions list unemployment compensation (including Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act payments), social security benefits, social security equivalent Tier 1 railroad retirement benefits, Commodity Credit Corporation loans, certain crop disaster payments, and dividends and other distributions from Alaska Native Corporations to shareholders. Withholding from these payments is voluntary. If you receive social security, the form also notes you can request changes through the Social Security Administration directly.
Line by line
- Line 1: first name and middle initial, and last name.
- Line 2: social security number.
- Line 3: home address. If it is outside the United States, the instructions say to enter the city, province or state and the country name, unabbreviated.
- Line 4: the claim or identification number you use with your payer, if any. For social security benefits this is the number under which the claim is filed, often with a letter suffix.
- Line 5: tick to have 10% withheld from unemployment compensation.
- Line 6: tick one rate, 7%, 10%, 12% or 22%, for the other listed payments.
- Line 7: tick to stop withholding.
The form is not valid unless you sign it.
Changing or stopping
Withholding you choose stays in effect until you change or stop it or the payments end. To change a rate on a payment other than unemployment compensation, or to stop, complete a new W-4V and give it to the payer. If your payer provides its own form instead, the instructions say to use that.
Cost and where to get it free
The blank W-4V is free from the IRS. Filling it on screen here is free; downloading the finished PDF requires a subscription, like the rest of our tools. The signature and date lines on the official PDF are not fillable fields, so print the downloaded form and sign it by hand.