How much is a donated chair worth?

An upholstered armchair and a dining chair are both chairs and are nowhere near each other in these tables, so the first decision is which row the piece belongs on rather than what condition it is in. Office chairs have their own line close to the upholstered chair, rocking and accent chairs sit on the smaller other-chair line, folding chairs carry no published range at all, and the recliner row is published as a single figure rather than a band, sitting below the plain upholstered chair. We print what the source printed rather than reordering the rows into the sequence a reader would guess.

On an upholstered chair, the arms and the front edge of the seat wear first, and the seat cushion is the tell for the tier: press it and watch whether it comes back. A cushion core that stays compressed makes the chair uncomfortable in a way no cleaning fixes. Check the legs and the frame joints by rocking the chair gently, and check the underside webbing if you can reach it.

Recliners add a mechanism, and the mechanism is the item. Cycle it fully, footrest out and back, and on a power chair check that the motor runs and the cord and transformer are with it. A recliner stuck open is nearly impossible to move and generally cannot be resold. Dining chairs, at the other end of the page, are valued per chair and fail at the joints where the seat meets the legs, which is where a glued chair loosens after years of being tipped back on.

The table describes ordinary mass-market chairs. A La-Z-Boy recliner, an Ethan Allen armchair, a Herman Miller or Steelcase office chair, or a genuine mid-century piece can sell used for well above the band, and the IRS method for those is comparable sales (Publication 561).

Find three sold listings, not asking prices, for the same model in similar condition, use the middle figure, and save screenshots of the listings with the item record. Some guides suggest 30% of what you paid as a rule of thumb; treat that as a sanity check, not a method.

Thresholds still apply: a noncash total above $500 for the year generally means Form 8283, and above $5,000 for one item or a group of similar items a qualified appraisal generally comes into it.

Six dining chairs and a table, given together, are seven lines: six chairs at the per-chair figure (about $7 each in good condition, so about $42) plus the table on its own line from the dining table page. If the pieces were a matched set given as one, the dining set row there is the honest single line instead. Do not use both.