The IRS puts the paperwork behind the W-8 forms at 30.5 million hours a year, and the notice asking for comment on that figure says no changes are being made to it

One sentence in Wednesday's notice carries the whole of it: "There are no changes being made to the burden at this time."

That burden is 30,562,942 hours a year.

The Internal Revenue Service published the figure in the Federal Register as part of a routine request for comment under the Paperwork Reduction Act. The collection is the Forms W-8 series, the certificates by which foreign individuals, entities, intermediaries, governments and certain tax-exempt organisations establish that they are not American for withholding purposes: W-8BEN, W-8BEN-E, W-8ECI, W-8EXP and W-8IMY. The agency estimates 3,390,700 respondents, and an average of 9 hours and 1 minute each.

Divide the total by 2,080 hours, which is a 40 hour week across a full year, and the estimate comes to roughly 14,694 working years annually.

What the forms are for

They do not go to the IRS. The notice's own description says the forms let a foreign person certify status, and that withholding agents use the information to determine the correct withholding treatment, including eligibility for a reduced rate or an exemption. The certificate sits with the payer. It is the document that decides whether 30 percent is taken out of a payment, or 15, or nothing.

Nine hours is the average across all five forms and every kind of respondent, from an individual with one American brokerage account to an intermediary certifying on behalf of many.

What is actually being decided

Nothing about the forms. This is an extension of a currently approved collection, which is the administrative step by which an existing information collection is renewed rather than altered.

What is open is the number. The notice invites comment on five questions, and two of them are whether the collection is necessary and whether the agency's estimate of the burden is accurate. Written comments are requested on or before 13 October 2026, and the notice says every comment becomes a matter of public record.

The notice is dated 10 August and signed by Ronald J. Durbala, a tax analyst.