Updated October 17, 2026. Quick answer: Box 3 of Form 1098 shows the date the mortgage originated with the original lender. Box 11 shows the date the current lender acquired the mortgage, and it is blank unless that happened in the calendar year. A loan that was never sold in the year has a box 3 date and an empty box 11.
Schedule A and Schedule B (Form 1040) for 2025, read line by line: Schedule A line 8a and Schedule A lines 8b, 8c and 8e.
What the two boxes report
The borrower copy gives one sentence for each box. For box 3: “Shows the date of the mortgage origination.” For box 11: “If the recipient/lender acquired the mortgage in the calendar year, shows the date of acquisition.” On the printed form, the two boxes are labelled “Mortgage origination date” and “Mortgage acquisition date”.
| Box | Borrower copy | Lender instruction |
|---|---|---|
| Box 3, Mortgage origination date | “Shows the date of the mortgage origination.” | “Enter the date the mortgage originated with the original lender.” |
| Box 11, Mortgage acquisition date | “If the recipient/lender acquired the mortgage in the calendar year, shows the date of acquisition.” | “If you acquired the mortgage in the calendar year, enter the date of acquisition. Otherwise, leave this box blank.” |
The overall page for the form is the Form 1098 overview, and the full box list is in the Form 1098 boxes guide.
How the two dates differ
Box 3 is about the start of the loan. The lender instruction is specific that a buyer of the loan does not substitute its own date: “If you acquired this mortgage, do not enter the date of acquisition”. It points to box 11 for that date and adds: “Enter the date the mortgage originated with the original lender.”
Box 11 records a different event. The lender instruction says the box is conditional: “If you acquired the mortgage in the calendar year, enter the date of acquisition. Otherwise, leave this box blank.” A blank box 11 is therefore the ordinary result for a loan that stayed with the same lender all year, and it does not mean something is missing.
As an illustration, not an IRS example: a loan originated by one lender in a prior year, then bought by a servicer during the current year, would show the original lender’s origination date in box 3 and the date of the purchase in box 11. If the loan was originated this year and not sold, box 3 has the origination date and box 11 is blank.
How they connect to box 2
The two dates also explain the variants of box 2, covered on the box 2 page. The form says: “If the mortgage originated in the calendar year, shows the mortgage principal as of the date of origination.” “If the recipient/lender acquired the loan in the calendar year, shows the mortgage principal as of the date of acquisition.”
So a box 2 amount that is not a January 1 figure is a signal to look at boxes 3 and 11 to see which date it follows.
Why the dates matter to the return
The Form 1098 text does not turn the dates into a deduction rule. The borrower copy simply lists boxes 3 and 11 among the items it calls important: “The information in boxes 1 through 9 and 11 is important tax information and is being furnished to the IRS.”
Pub. 936 does sort debt by timing in its own terms. It describes home acquisition debt as “a mortgage you took out after October 13, 1987” and its limit is “limited based on when the debt is secured.” Those are dates you should confirm from your own loan documents. The 1098 dates are the lender’s report of the origination and acquisition events, a useful starting point for that check. The deduction itself is claimed on Schedule A, covered on the Schedule A page.
If a date looks wrong
The borrower copy has a box at the top that the lender checks when it is sending a correction: “CORRECTED (if checked)”. If the origination date or acquisition date in boxes 3 and 11 does not match your loan paperwork, compare the statement against your closing documents first, then ask the lender whether a corrected form is being issued. The return that carries the deduction is described on the Form 1040 page.
Edition and box numbers
The primary read for this page is Form 1098 (Rev. April 2025), Copy B, with its Instructions for Payer/Borrower, together with the Instructions for Form 1098 (Rev. April 2025) that speak to the lender. irs.gov was serving a newer set of instructions, the December 2026 revision, on 2026-10-17. Those instructions describe how the form is used going forward: “Use the April 2025 revision of Form 1098 and these instructions to file 2026 information with the IRS in early 2027.” In other words, the form itself was still the April 2025 revision on that date, and the form text served that day read the same as the April 2025 text when the two were compared line by line.
Boxes 3 and 11 are the same boxes on both revisions of the instructions, and the wording of the box 3 and box 11 entries for the lender is the same in the April 2025 and December 2026 instructions. Check the tax year printed on the Form 1098 you received, and check whether the corrected box is marked, before relying on any number.
Common mistakes
- Expecting a box 11 date on every form. The instruction says “Otherwise, leave this box blank.”
- Reading the box 3 date as the date a servicer bought the loan. The instruction says “If you acquired this mortgage, do not enter the date of acquisition”.
- Assuming the dates are a deduction rule by themselves. The form calls them “important tax information”, but Pub. 936 is where debt timing is explained.
Related: Form 1098 overview, Schedule A (Form 1040), Form 1040, and insurance after the mortgage is paid off.
Sources
- Form 1098 (Rev. 4-2025) with Instructions for Payer/Borrower: IRS archived PDF (irs.gov)
- Instructions for Form 1098 (Rev. April 2025): IRS archived PDF (irs.gov)
- Instructions for Form 1098 (Rev. December 2026): https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1098.pdf
- Publication 936, Home Mortgage Interest Deduction (for 2025 returns): https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p936.pdf
Read from the IRS documents linked above on October 17, 2026. General information, not tax advice. Your own facts decide the outcome, and a preparer, the account provider or the IRS is the right place to confirm anything consequential.