Fill out a W-4 online — free fillable IRS Form W-4

No. You never file a W-4 with the IRS. The W-4 is an instruction to your employer, so once you complete and sign it you hand it back to your employer or payroll department. They keep it on file and use it to calculate how much federal income tax to withhold from each of your paychecks. The IRS only sees the result later, on the Form W-2 your employer issues and on your annual tax return — not the W-4 itself.

Yes. You can fill out the official IRS Form W-4, pick your filing status, claim dependents, sign and download a flattened PDF for free, with no credit card; the free version adds a watermark, removed on paid plans. There is no forced account just to access the form and no upsell into a paid tax-filing product. iFillPDF runs 100% in your browser for this form, and your SSN is processed on EU servers in Frankfurt — not a US datacenter.

There are five steps. Step 1: enter your name, address, Social Security number and filing status (Single or Married filing separately; Married filing jointly or Qualifying surviving spouse; or Head of household). Step 2: if you hold more than one job or your spouse works, account for that using the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator, the Multiple Jobs Worksheet, or the 2(c) checkbox. Step 3: claim the Child Tax Credit and Credit for Other Dependents. Step 4: add other income, deductions, or extra withholding if you want. Step 5: sign and date. Only Steps 1 and 5 are required for everyone; Steps 2-4 fine-tune your withholding.

You can't — and you don't need to. The W-4 was redesigned for 2020 and withholding allowances were removed entirely, so there is no longer a line to "claim 0" or "claim 1." Any guide telling you to do that is describing a pre-2020 form. To withhold more (the effect people wanted from "claiming 0"), add a flat dollar amount on Step 4(c) Extra withholding. To withhold less, claim dependents in Step 3 or deductions in Step 4(b). Your filing status in Step 1 also affects the rate.

It is the simplest case. Complete Step 1 with your name, address, SSN and filing status (Single or Married filing separately if that applies), skip Steps 2, 3 and 4 entirely, then sign and date Step 5. Your employer will withhold at the standard rate for your filing status. You only need the middle steps if you have multiple jobs, a working spouse, dependents, or other income and deductions you want reflected in your paycheck.

Each of you completes your own W-4, but you should coordinate. In Step 2, account for the second income using one of three methods: the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator (most accurate), the Multiple Jobs Worksheet, or — if there are exactly two jobs of roughly equal pay — checking the box in Step 2(c) on both W-4s. Importantly, only one spouse should claim the dependents in Step 3 and the deductions in Step 4; claiming them on both forms under-withholds and usually means owing at tax time. Married filing jointly couples who earn about the same can also use the equal-pay checkbox to avoid over-withholding.

In Step 3 you multiply your number of qualifying children under age 17 by $2,200 and your number of other dependents (for example a parent or an older child you support) by $500, then enter the combined total. That amount tells your employer to reduce your withholding to account for the Child Tax Credit and Credit for Other Dependents, so more of the credit reaches your paycheck during the year instead of waiting for your refund. If both spouses work, only the higher-paying job's W-4 should claim the dependents.

You can claim exemption from federal income tax withholding only if you owed no federal income tax last year and expect to owe none this year. To do it, complete Step 1, leave Steps 2-4 blank, write the word "Exempt" in the space below Step 4(c), then sign and date Step 5. An exemption is only good for one calendar year — you must submit a new W-4 claiming exempt early each year to keep it. Most working people do not qualify, so use this only if you genuinely expect zero federal income tax liability.

A W-4, Employee's Withholding Certificate, is for employees and tells your employer how much federal income tax to withhold from each paycheck. A W-9, Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification, is for independent contractors, freelancers and vendors — non-employees — and simply gives a payer your TIN so they can report payments to you on a 1099. A W-9 does not adjust any withholding. If a company treats you as an employee you fill out a W-4; if it treats you as a contractor you fill out a W-9.

Yes. Your W-4 — including your SSN — is processed on Hetzner Falkenstein eu-central-1 in Germany, under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which keeps your data outside the reach of the US Cloud Act 50 U.S. Code §3024 and FISA Section 702. We use AES-256-GCM encryption at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit, purge files within 24 hours, and never use your document to train AI. When you send the completed W-4 to your employer, prefer a secure HR portal over plain email, since an SSN sitting in an inbox is a real exposure.