Shutterstock tax form and disabled uploads

Shutterstock tax form: why uploads are disabled

Shutterstock states the rule in two help articles updated on 15 December 2025. You must submit a tax form within 90 days of the first reminder that appears in your Contributor Portal. Past that window, your Upload and Submit buttons are disabled, and you cannot upload new content again until a form is submitted and approved.

The reminders come as a series of prompts in the portal. The 90 days count from the first one, not the last. A greyed-out button is not always the tax form, though: the same help article lists other causes.

The other steps of an upload, from file names to the weekly cap, are in how to upload video to Shutterstock.

The October 2026 banner on the earnings page

Shutterstock’s public earnings page, read on 11 October 2026, opens with this banner: “Beginning Month October, 2026, any contributors who do not complete their tax forms will be restricted from uploading any more content.” The wording, “Beginning Month” included, is Shutterstock’s.

The banner says nothing more. It does not say whether the 90-day reminder window still applies, or whether an expired form is treated like a form never filed. The help articles still describe the 90-day rule. When a reminder appears, the safe course is to file the form right away. The change is logged with its date in the rule changes log.

Why you are asked for a new form

Shutterstock says it is required to keep up-to-date contributor tax forms, and that a valid form is needed to receive any payment. Its articles list these reasons for a new request:

• You entered an international address change in Account Settings. The new form is then requested automatically.
• Your W-8BEN was accepted more than three years ago. W-8 forms are valid for three calendar years under IRS regulations, and an expired form must be replaced even if your details have not changed.
• You moved the account from business to personal or the reverse, or transferred it to another person.
• You hold a W-9 and changed your name.
• Your last form was not approved: the dashboard notice stays, and the instructions arrive by email.
• You are a US contributor whose earnings just reached $10.00: Shutterstock emails a W-9 request.

Which form matches your situation

The Tax Center asks a few questions and tells you which form to submit. Shutterstock’s articles describe the common cases this way:

The IRS describes the forms in its own terms. A foreign person gives the W-8BEN to the payer as the beneficial owner of an amount subject to withholding, and submits it when requested “whether or not you are claiming a reduced rate of, or exemption from, withholding.” The W-8BEN-E “is used by foreign entities to document their status for purposes of chapter 3 and chapter 4.” The W-9 provides your correct taxpayer identification number to the party that files an information return with the IRS, for example on income paid to you.

Two Shutterstock articles differ on the W-8BEN-E. The business account article (13 September 2025) says a business outside the US completes it with a US Employer ID Number (EIN), obtained by filing Form SS-4. The W-8BEN-E article (17 July 2025) asks for a US taxpayer identification number on line 8 if you have one, and otherwise your local tax number on line 9b. If you file for a business, ask taxhelp@shutterstock.com which one it expects before you send the form.

Where and how to file the form

The Tax Center is in your contributor account; the “Tax center” link in the contributor site footer leads to it. The order Shutterstock describes:

1. Check your account name and address first. The W-8BEN is filled in from them, and on the W-8BEN-E the organization name (line 1) and address (line 6) must match the account.
2. Open the Tax Center and answer the questions.
3. For a W-8BEN or W-9, complete the fields on screen and submit online.
4. For a W-8BEN-E or another form, download the PDF. Entries must be in English, in black ink or black font, with a handwritten signature (typed signatures are refused). Email all 8 pages, even blank ones.
5. Follow the status at the top of the Tax Center: approved, pending or rejected. “Pending” means Shutterstock asked for more documents.

Shutterstock may ask W-8BEN filers for supporting documents, for example when you receive mail in a different country from the one you live in. On the W-8BEN-E, line 15 takes the treaty article and paragraph, the rate and the type of income; for earnings from licenses, Shutterstock’s article says to enter “Royalties”.

Shutterstock does not publish a delay between approval and the return of the Upload button. The articles only say that uploading resumes once the form is submitted and approved.

Withholding and tax treaties

Shutterstock links to its own list of rates by country and to the IRS treaty pages. This page reproduces no rate. The IRS says reduced rates and exemptions “vary among countries and specific items of income,” and that income a treaty does not cover is taxed as shown in the instructions for Form 1040-NR. Read the rate for your country on those official pages, with your adviser.

What Shutterstock pays before tax, level by level, is set out in stock footage earnings by agency.

1042-S and 1099-MISC after the year

Both forms count payments when they are received: royalties earned in December and paid in January land on the next year’s form. Shutterstock cannot issue a statement of total yearly earnings for a tax service outside the US; it points you to your Payment History instead.

To download a form, click Download now in the Dashboard message. Open the sample PDF and type the word it contains into field 2 (browsers sometimes prefill your email address there), enter your password again, tick the consent box and click Download Your Forms. Keep a copy, since the link expires. The rest of the account rules are on the Shutterstock requirements page.