Does this organization
qualify?

The test that runs before every other test

A charitable deduction has to clear four separate things: the organization has to be one the law recognizes, the property has to be the kind of property you can deduct, the amount has to be a defensible fair market value, and the whole thing has to be substantiated. The other three are covered elsewhere on this site. This page is about the first one, and it is first for a reason: if the organization does not qualify, nothing downstream can rescue the deduction. A perfect receipt from an organization that is not qualified is a perfect receipt for nothing.

The IRS calls the organizations that pass this test qualified organizations, and Publication 526 is where the categories are set out. The good news is that the overwhelming majority of the places people actually donate to are qualified, and checking one takes less time than driving to the drop-off. The bad news is that the exceptions are not obvious, and two of them (personal crowdfunding and gifts to individuals) have become far more common than they were when most of the advice on the internet was written.

What counts as a qualified organization

Publication 526 sets out the types of organization that can receive deductible contributions. In its own terms, they are:

• A community chest, corporation, trust, fund, or foundation organized or created in or under the laws of the United States, any state, the District of Columbia, or any possession of the United States, and organized and operated only for charitable, religious, scientific, literary, or educational purposes, or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.
• War veterans’ organizations, including posts, auxiliaries, trusts, or foundations organized in the United States or any of its possessions, along with federally chartered veteran service organizations exempt under section 501(c)(19).
• Domestic fraternal societies, orders, and associations operating under the lodge system, where the contribution is used solely for charitable, religious, scientific, literary, or educational purposes.
• Certain nonprofit cemetery companies or corporations, where the gift is not earmarked for a particular lot or crypt.
• The United States or any state, the District of Columbia, a U.S. territory, a political subdivision of a state or territory, or an Indian tribal government, where the contribution is solely for public purposes.

That list is more abstract than the reality it describes. Publication 526’s own examples are the concrete version: churches, a convention or association of churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques; most nonprofit charitable organizations, with the American Red Cross and the United Way named directly; nonprofit schools, colleges, and museums; nonprofit hospitals and medical research organizations; and nonprofit volunteer fire companies.

Notice what is doing the work in every one of those: the word nonprofit, and the specific purpose. A hospital is not qualified because it is a hospital, and a school is not qualified because it is a school. Both are qualified when they are the nonprofit kind. A for-profit hospital and a for-profit college are ordinary businesses, and giving them money is not a charitable contribution.

Where the deduction quietly disappears

Publication 526 carries a section on contributions you cannot deduct, and its list of organizations that are not qualified is the part worth knowing by heart, because these are the gifts people genuinely believe are deductible:

• Individuals. However great the need and however real the hardship, a gift to a person is not a charitable contribution. This is the rule that decides most crowdfunding.
• Political organizations and candidates. Campaign contributions are not charitable contributions, at any amount.
• Civic leagues, social and sports clubs, labor unions, and chambers of commerce. These are exempt organizations of a different flavour: exempt from tax themselves, but not eligible to receive deductible charitable gifts.
• Homeowners associations.
• For-profit organizations, including for-profit schools and hospitals.
• Foreign organizations, with narrow exceptions. Publication 526 carries separate sections for certain Canadian, Mexican, and Israeli organizations under the relevant income tax treaties, each with limits tied to your income from that country. If that is your situation, read those sections rather than any summary of them, including this one.

Checking an organization in about a minute

The IRS publishes a free lookup: Tax Exempt Organization Search, usually shortened to TEOS. No account, no fee. You can search by employer identification number or by organization name, narrowed by city, state, or country.

Search by EIN when you have one, because names are ambiguous and EINs are not. Large charitable brands are typically networks of separately incorporated local organizations rather than one national entity, so a name search returns a page of results that all look right and only one of which received your bags. The legal name and EIN of the organization that took the donation are usually printed on the receipt it gave you.

The tool searches five distinct datasets, and knowing which one answered your question is the difference between a real check and a guess. The bulk data downloads page names them:

1. Publication 78 data, described by the IRS as the “list of organizations eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions.” This is the one that answers your question. Everything else is context.
2. The automatic revocation list: organizations whose exemption was revoked for not filing an annual return or notice for three consecutive years.
3. Determination letters, for letters issued from January 1, 2014 onward.
4. Form 990-N (e-Postcard) filings, the annual notice filed by the smallest organizations.
5. Form 990 series returns, the full annual returns. Useful when you want to see what an organization actually does with the money, which is a different question from whether your gift is deductible.

One thing the tool cannot give you, and that people go looking for anyway: a certificate. Publication 1828 puts it plainly, in a sentence that is about churches but describes the whole system: “The IRS does not assign a special number or other identification as evidence of an organization’s tax-exempt status.” There is no exemption number to write down. The EIN is an identifier, not a badge.

When the search comes back blank

This is where most people give up, and it is usually the wrong conclusion. The IRS states it directly on the search page: “Some donees (i.e., churches, group ruling subordinates, and governmental units) eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions may not be listed in Pub. 78 Data.” Three enormous categories, all of them qualified, none of them guaranteed to show up.

Churches

A church does not have to ask the IRS for anything. Publication 1828 states that churches meeting the requirements of section 501(c)(3) “are automatically considered tax exempt and are not required to apply for and obtain recognition of tax-exempt status from the IRS.” Many apply anyway, and the publication says why: recognition “assures church leaders, members and contributors that the church is recognized as exempt and qualifies for related tax benefits.” A church that skipped the paperwork is still qualified; it just leaves no trace in the search tool. The publication is explicit that a church which has not applied is not in the listing.

Note that Publication 1828 is the August 2015 revision and refers to the lookup by its former name, Exempt Organizations Select Check. The tool was renamed Tax Exempt Organization Search; the church rules it describes are unchanged. The IRS churches and religious organizations hub is the current landing page for the topic.

Group ruling subordinates

A local post, chapter, lodge, or congregation is often covered by a parent body’s group exemption ruling rather than by a determination of its own. Publication 1828 describes the mechanism: “Under the group exemption process, the parent organization becomes the holder of a group ruling that identifies other affiliated churches or other affiliated organizations. A church is recognized as tax exempt if it is included in a list provided by the parent organization.” And the consequence for anyone searching: “Only the parent organization in a group ruling is included by name on Select Check.”

So when the local chapter returns nothing, search the parent body, and ask the organization which group ruling covers it. That is a normal question and any competent treasurer can answer it.

Governmental units

A public school, a town library, a county park, a volunteer fire department: qualified when the gift is solely for public purposes, and generally not in the Publication 78 listing either. A receipt on the entity’s letterhead is the record here.

The organization that used to qualify

Exempt status can be lost automatically. The IRS states that “Organizations that do not file for three consecutive years automatically lose their tax-exempt status.” No hearing, no warning letter that has to be answered: the third missed year does it, and the organization lands on a published list that is searchable through the same tool.

For a donor, the question is entirely about timing, and the IRS answers it: “Donors can deduct contributions made before an organization’s name appears on the Automatic Revocation List.” Your dated receipt is what proves which side of that line you were on, which is one more reason the date on the record matters as much as the amount.

Reinstatement is a fresh application rather than an appeal. The IRS states that “An automatically revoked organization must apply to have its status reinstated, even if the organization was not originally required to file an application for exemption,” and that the law prohibits it from undoing a proper automatic revocation. An organization mid-reinstatement is a genuinely ambiguous place to give and a good moment to ask for paperwork.

What to write down, and where the EIN actually goes

People go looking for a charity’s EIN because they assume the return asks for it. Mostly, it does not.

On Form 8283 (Rev. December 2025), Section A Part I column (a) asks for the “Name and address of the donee organization.” There is no field for an identifying number anywhere in Section A, which is the half that covers noncash deductions of $5,000 or less, meaning nearly every household clean-out. The only “Employer identification number” box on the form sits in Section B, Part V, the Donee Acknowledgment, and that part is completed and signed by the charity rather than by you.

Tax software frequently asks for an EIN anyway. That is the software’s own interview design, usually there to help it match and remember organizations between years, and it is not evidence that the IRS requires the number from you. Supplying it is fine. Believing your deduction fails without it is not.

The IRS describes an EIN as “a federal tax ID number for businesses, tax-exempt organizations and other entities.” Publication 1828 notes that every tax-exempt organization, including a church, should have one whether or not it has employees, which is why even a small congregation can usually tell you theirs.

What is actually worth recording, per donation:

• The organization’s legal name, which is often not the name on the storefront.
• Its address, and the location of the donation if different.
• The date.
• A description of what you gave, in enough detail that a stranger would recognize it.
• The EIN, if the receipt carries one. Not because the form demands it, but because it is the only thing that makes the organization unambiguously findable in three years.

The full record ladder, including the $250 written acknowledgment and the unattended drop-box rule, is in the receipts and records guide.

Fourteen situations, and how each one lands

Every row is a general pattern, not a ruling on your facts. Where a row says “generally”, the hedge is doing real work.

What DeductiBee records

DeductiBee does not verify charities, and it would be a bad idea if it did: an app checking a cached copy of a federal database is strictly worse than you spending sixty seconds in the real one, and it would invite exactly the false confidence this page exists to prevent.

What it does is keep the answer attached to the donation. The organization, the date, the items, the photos, and a cited value range live on one record, and they export together. When a preparer asks who received the sofa, or when a return three years old needs defending, the organization name is sitting next to the picture of the sofa rather than in a folder of receipts in a drawer.

The lookup itself stays where it belongs: with the IRS, in the Tax Exempt Organization Search tool, free, for anyone, in about a minute.