Do you pay taxes on StubHub sales?

The short answer

Yes, you owe tax on the profit from reselling tickets. The IRS says all income, no matter the amount, is taxable unless the tax law says it is not, and that you must report it whether or not you receive a Form 1099-K. What changes from seller to seller is how it is reported. The IRS splits the cases this way: for a personal item sold at a gain, you report the gain on Form 8949 and Schedule D; for goods you sell as a business or a side hustle, you report on Schedule C. A loss on a personal item cannot be deducted, but the IRS says you can zero out a reported amount so you do not pay tax you do not owe, either at the top of Schedule 1 or on Form 8949.

What StubHub reports and what it leaves out

StubHub’s help center explains its 1099-K rules in plain terms. Starting January 1, 2025, all US sellers must provide a Taxpayer Identification Number to be paid. For tax year 2025, sellers who reached $20,000 in sales and more than 200 transactions get a 1099-K, available in Settings by January 31, 2026. Sales are counted by the date you were paid, not the date of the sale, and gross payments are the total before seller fees. StubHub says it does not factor in the purchase price of the tickets or adjustments such as credits, discounts, fees, refunds, cancelled events or substitutions. If you were paid through PayPal, the 1099-K comes from PayPal. If you do not hit the threshold you will not get a form, and the income is still yours to report.

The gross figure on the form is therefore not your profit. That is the whole point of this page: the form starts the conversation, and your records finish it.

Personal tickets or a ticket business?

There is no bright line. IRS Publication 334 says you do not need to actually make a profit to be in a trade or business as long as you have a profit motive, and that you need to make ongoing efforts to further the interests of the business. Buying a handful of seats for yourself and selling the ones you cannot use looks like personal property. Buying events in volume to flip, listing them regularly and tracking margins looks like a business. StubHub itself tells sellers to ask a tax advisor. If you are on the business side, self-employment tax usually applies once net earnings reach $400, at 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare on 92.35% of net earnings. The tool above checks the $400 line and estimates that tax; it does not model the Social Security wage cap.

Worked examples (hypothetical numbers)

• A personal gain. You paid $720.00 for four concert tickets, fees included, and sold them for $1,100.00 with an assumed $165.00 in seller fees. Net gain: $215.00. Held a year or less, it is a short-term capital gain on Form 8949 and Schedule D. No 1099-K is likely because $1,100 is far below $20,000.
• A personal loss. The same four tickets sell for $400.00 with $60.00 in fees. You are down $380.00. The IRS says the loss on a personal item cannot be deducted, so it saves no tax, but it also should not create any.
• A reseller. In a year you sell $42,000 across 260 transactions, pay $6,300 in fees and $31,000 for the tickets. Federal 1099-K: yes, both tests exceeded. Net profit $4,700.00 goes on Schedule C, and the self-employment tax estimate is $664.09. Income tax is extra.

Sales tax is a separate track

StubHub says that since October 1, 2020 it has calculated, collected and remitted sales tax from buyers for events in jurisdictions where it must. It asks sellers for the purchase price per ticket so it can work out any tax already paid, and says that if your listing has no such field, StubHub is not collecting for that event. Sales tax collected by StubHub should not affect your income tax and is not included on your 1099-K, according to its sales tax FAQ, but sales tax on sales you make outside StubHub, or in states where it does not collect, is your responsibility. StubHub also says it is not accepting resale certificates on its purchases at this time, so a tax-free ticket purchase through StubHub is not available.

Edge cases and common mistakes

Who this is for, and what it does not cover

This is for US sellers who resell tickets on StubHub or similar platforms. It does not cover the legality of resale or price caps in your state, state income tax, Canadian rules, or the bracket your profit falls into. For lower state reporting thresholds see 1099-K threshold by state; for the federal test see the 1099-K threshold checker; to plan payments see the 1099 tax set-aside calculator; and for the general reseller version see 1099-K for resellers.

Sources

• StubHub Support: Overview of 1099-K Regulations — TIN rule, $20,000 and 200 test, gross before fees, PayPal
• StubHub Support: Sales tax FAQs — sales tax collection, purchase price per ticket, resale certificates
• IRS: What to do with Form 1099-K — personal items at a gain or loss; Schedule C; wrong forms
• IRS: Understanding your Form 1099-K — $20,000 and 200 transactions; report income without a form
• IRS Topic 409: Capital gains and losses — short-term vs long-term; personal-use losses not deductible
• IRS Topic 554: Self-employment tax — $400 floor, 12.4% and 2.9%, 92.35%
• IRS Publication 334: Tax Guide for Small Business — profit motive and ongoing efforts

All figures and rules above were retrieved October 2026. Agencies and platforms revise forms and thresholds, so confirm anything that affects a sale or a return against the current official page.