10

Appendix A: AIR Transmission Checklist (A2A) for TY2026

Section 10 Appendix A: AIR Transmission Checklist (A2A) for TY2026

This checklist covers both AATS and Production Filing for Software Developers, Transmitters and Issuers

1. Preparation (Including Registration and Application)

• Did your company’s Responsible Officials and Contacts create an e-Services Account?

• Did your company apply for and obtain a valid Transmitter Control Code (TCC)? Software ID(s)?

• Has a responsible official signed the application with the PIN created during e-Services account creation

process and for any subsequent application modifications?

• Has your company followed the Automated Enrollment process?

• Have you reviewed the Publication 5308, Automated Enrollment for ACA Providers the External

Guide ? Have you uploaded and registered the certificate in Automated Enrollment for A2A?

• When registering the certificate, have you taken note of your A2A Client System ID (ASID) for future

troubleshooting?

• Have you authorized the IRS-ACASubmitService?

• Have you authorized the IRS-ACAAckngService?

• Have you reviewed Publication 5258, 5165 and 5164? (These documents can be found on the AIR page

under Resources)

2. Pre-Filing—AATS and Production

• Have you downloaded the latest versions of Schema and Business Rules? (Schemas and Business

Rules can be found Affordable Care Act Information Returns Schemas and Business Rules )

• Have you ensured that required Business Header data elements are present per the Schema?

• Have you ensured that required Manifest data elements are present per Schema?

  • Transmitter should use Manifest schema from current tax year (TY2026) schema package to

generate TY2017, TY2018, TY2019, TY2020, TY2021, TY2022, TY2023, TY2024, TY2025 and TY2026 Manifest file

Example: 2015 Manifest will be checked and validated against TY2026 schema and business rules

3. Have you ensured that required 1094/1095 B/Cs Form data file elements are present per Schema?

• Transmitters should use latest TY2026 schema version to generate Forms 1094/1095-B or Forms

1094/1095-C Form Data (payload) for TY2026 returns

Guide for Electronically Filing ACA Information Returns for Software Developers and Transmitters 85

Appendix A: AIR Transmission Checklist (A2A) for TY2026

For prior year returns TY2017, TY2018, TY2019, TY2020, TY2021, TY2022, TY2023, TY2024 and TY2025 use the latest year schema for that tax year.

Example: Transmitters should use latest TY2019 schema version to generate Forms 1094/1095-B or Forms

1094/1095-C Form Data (payload) for TY2019 returns

• Transmitters should use TY2026 schema package and deploy at their end

• Transmitters should use TY2026 WSDL’s:

• Are your manifest and form data files well-formed extensible Markup Language (XML)?

• Is the composition of your XML file in line with Publication 5258 ?

  • Is your Transmission Form data file uncompressed and sized under 100 MB?

  • Do you have a certificate from an approved source? (See Publication 5258 Section 5.3.1.1)

  • Have you ensured that namespaces have been defined and referenced correctly (See Publication 5258

Section 5.3.1.4 for samples)?

• Have you ensured the test file indicator is correct (See Publication 5258 Section 3.4.1 Transmission XML

Elements)?

• Have you ensured the UTID is set correctly per the schema and Publication 5258 Section 3.4.2?

• Checks to avoid Data Element-driven Portal (TPE) Errors

  • Have you followed the special characters guidance in Publication 5165 that prohibits use of

Hash (#) and Double- Dash (--) characters and specifies the use of HTML escape character equivalents,(e.g., “&” for Ampersand)?

• Have you removed any commas or periods in the ‘BusinessNameLn1’ or ‘BusinessNameLn2’ or in

‘AddressLine1’ or ‘AddressLine2’?

• Have you scanned your document for commented out element names, e.g.,

? Note that any occurrence of double dash will trigger a potential

threat error and rejection

• To avoid error “TPE1105 Message not formatted properly and/or cannot be interpreted,”

  • Have you verified HTTP Post method is used when calling web service?

  • Have you tested your sample SOAP message via a web service testing tool (e.g. SoapUI)? ²

  • Have you verified you are using the most current tax year schema in your manifest file?

• To avoid “TPE1112 Request must be sent using HTTP compression

  • Is your Transmission Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) compressed via gzip for A2A? (See

Publication 5258, Section 5.1)

2 IRS recommends that external users validate their XML files against the schemas provided by the IRS prior to submitting them

to the IRS. Taking this step will help avoid discovering errors after the XML file is submitted. Performing this validation on the user

end makes it easier and faster to identify and locate schema types of errors. Any tool which allows the external user to validate their

XML files against the schemas, such as “Altova XML Spy” or “SoapUI” should be suitable.

Guide for Electronically Filing ACA Information Returns for Software Developers and Transmitters 86

Appendix A: AIR Transmission Checklist (A2A) for TY2026

• Is your file attachment SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) encoded?

• Have you downloaded the latest versions of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)?

• To avoid “TPE1122 Invalid WS security header,” (See Publication 5258 section: 5.3.1.4 - SOAP Header

Examples showing Security Header and related elements)

• Have you ensured your registered certificate is not expired?

• Have you ensured your registered certificate lists BOTH of the values “digital signature” and “key

encipherment” as Key Usage attributes?

• Have you ensured your registered certificate DOES NOT list values other than “digital signature”

and “key encipherment” as Key Usage attributes?

• Have you ensured all Security Header elements are present per Schema and CRG?

• Have you digitally signed your Transmission for all Message Types?

  • Timestamp

  • ACABusinessHeader

• Have you followed the format for timestamp? E.g., Added colons (:) to the time stamp and removed

the milliseconds Ex: 2015-08-28T20:08:45Z

• Have you digitally signed the following Header elements for Message Type

  • ACAGetTransmitterBulkRequestService?

  • ACABusinessHeader

  • ACATransmitterManifestReqDtl

  • Timestamp

• Have you digitally signed the following Header elements for Message Type

  • ACAGetTransmitterBulkRequestStatus?

  • ACABusinessHeader

  • ACABulkRequestTransmitterStatusDetailRequest

  • Timestamp

• Have you set CanonicalizationMethod Algorithm to http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/

REC-xml-exc-c14n-20020718/#WithComments ?

• Have you set SignatureMethod Algorithm to http://www.w3.org/2001/04/

xmldsig-more#rsa-sha256 ?

• Have you set each DigestMethod Algorithm to http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#sha256 ?

• Have you set each Transform Algorithm http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n# ?

• Have you included your Base64-encoded certificate in a KeyInfo element?

• Have you regenerated the Timestamp for every request to avoid expiration?

• To avoid “TPE 1106 Soap message does not conform to WSDL”

  • Do you have the latest version of Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) files describing the

web services? (Please contact AIR Help Desk - 1-866-937-4130. Include your ACA TCC and Company Name)

Guide for Electronically Filing ACA Information Returns for Software Developers and Transmitters 87

Appendix A: AIR Transmission Checklist (A2A) for TY2026

• Do you have the ACAGetTransmitterBulkRequestService.wsdl to transmit TY2017, TY2018, TY2019,

TY2020, TY2021, TY2022, TY2023, TY2024, TY2025 and TY2026 transmissions?

• Do you have the ACAGetTransmitterBulkRequestStatus.wsdl to check the status of TY2017, TY2018,

TY2019, TY2020, TY2021, TY2022, TY2023, TY2024, TY2025 and TY2026 transmissions?

• TY2026 WSDLs are capable of generating the SOAP envelope for TY2017, TY2018, TY2019,

TY2020, TY2021, TY2022, TY2023, TY2024, TY2025 and TY2026 transmissions

• SOAP envelope generated by TY2026 WSDL’s contain: ACA Header, WS-Security, ACA Business header and Manifest information which are the same for TY2017, TY2018, TY2019, TY2020, TY2021, TY2022, TY2023, TY2024, TY2025 and TY2026 transmissions (namespaces are different in payload)

  • Have you verified that each value conforms to the appropriate schema version?

  • If your Transmission has been rejected, have you updated your UTID? – Note that UTIDs are checked

for uniqueness.

• Have you run your header and manifest and form data file through an XML Schema validator (e.g.

SoapUI)? ³

• Do you have the AIR endpoints for Service and Status requests? Is your Transmission Form File encoded

as UTF-8 without the Byte Order Mark (BOM)? (See Publication 5258 section 5.4.1 -Message Attachment File Format)

• Have you included your ASID in the UserId element within the ACASecurityHeader? (See Publication

5258 section 5.3.1.4)

4. Transmitting to IRS—AATS

• Did you use the correct TCC, Software Developer for AATS testing and Transmitter and/or Issuer for

Communication Testing?

• Did you establish a connection with ISS-A2A?

• Have you saved the ‘ReceiptId’ along with your copy of the Transmission as sent?

• Have you obtained a status?

• If the status for all your required test submissions is “Accepted,” did you contact the help desk for confir mation and update of the TCC and/or Form Status? (Telephone Number 1-866-937-4130, for domestic calls, or 470-769-5100 (not toll-free) for international calls.)

• If the status is “Accepted with Errors,” Have you checked against the test Scenarios and Publication

5164 and resubmitted?

• If the status is “Rejected,” Have you checked against the test scenarios / Publication 5164 as well as

guidance above and resubmitted?

3 See previous footnote

Guide for Electronically Filing ACA Information Returns for Software Developers and Transmitters 88

Appendix A: AIR Transmission Checklist (A2A) for TY2026

5. Transmitting to IRS­—Production Environment

• Have you passed the AATS A2A Communications Test?

• Is the software you are using approved through the AATS testing process?

• Did you establish a connection with Information Submission Service (ISS)-A2A?

• Have you submitted all Transmissions?

• Do you have Forms 1094/1095-B and Forms 1094/1095-C in separate transmissions?

• Have you saved the ‘ReceiptId’ along with your copy of the Transmission as sent?

• Have you obtained a status?

  • If the status is “Accepted,” No action required.

  • If the status is “Accepted with Errors,” Have you reviewed the Error Data File to identify and correct

errors?

• If the status is “Rejected,” Have you reviewed the Error Data File to identify and fix errors?

• Did you resubmit the Transmission using the Replacement Process?

• Have you provided the ‘OriginalReceiptId’ of the first-rejected Transmission?

  • Was your Replacement Accepted? – If not, have you fixed and resubmitted?

  • If the status is “Partially Accepted,” have you reviewed the Error Data File to identify and fix errors?

  • Did you resubmit the Rejected Submission(s) using the Replacement Process?

  • Have you provided the ‘OriginalUniqueSubmissionId’ of the first-rejected Submission?

  • Was your Replacement Accepted? – If not, have you fixed and resubmitted?

All external partner communication will need to support encryption using TLS 1.2 or 1.3 Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Publication 140-2 . Compliant cryptography will be used for strong and secure communication between Transmitters and IRS.

Guide for Electronically Filing ACA Information Returns for Software Developers and Transmitters 89