Last updated 2026-07-25
TL;DR
Form 990-N (the e-Postcard) is the annual IRS filing for tax-exempt organizations with gross receipts of $50,000 or less. It's free, done online through IRS.gov, and takes about 10 minutes once you have your EIN. Miss it for three consecutive years and the IRS automatically revokes your tax-exempt status.
What is Form 990-N?
Form 990-N, officially called the "e-Postcard," is the shortest annual information return the IRS offers to tax-exempt organizations. It exists for small nonprofits, the booster clubs, PTOs, and youth sports leagues that don't have the money or staff to fill out a full financial return every year. You don't file it on paper. You don't attach financial statements. You log into an IRS portal, confirm eight pieces of information, and submit. The IRS describes it plainly: organizations "whose gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less" can file the e-Postcard instead of Form 990 or 990-EZ [1]. It's not optional just because it's easy. Every organization recognized as tax-exempt under section 501(c) has to file something with the IRS each year, even if that something is just the e-Postcard. Skipping it doesn't make your group invisible to the IRS. It makes your group a target for automatic revocation, which we'll get into below. See our 990-N overview for a quick-reference version of this same information.
What is Form 990 (and how is it different from the 990-N)?
| 990-N | Smallest orgs | $50,000 or less [1] | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 990-EZ | Small orgs | Less than $200,000 AND total assets less than $500,000 [2] | |
| 990 (full) | Larger orgs | $200,000 or more, or assets of $500,000 or more [2] | |
| 990-PF | Private foundations | Any size (different rules entirely) | Most booster clubs, PTOs, and small youth sports organizations fall into the 990-N bucket. A high school football booster club running concession stands and a couple of golf tournaments a year rarely clears $50,000 in gross receipts. A district-wide PTO council with paid staff and a big annual gala might not. "Gross receipts" means total money in, not net profit. If your raffle brought in $60,000 in ticket sales but you only kept $15,000 after prizes and expenses, you're still over the $50,000 threshold for 990-N purposes and need to look at the 990-EZ instead. This trips up a lot of first-year treasurers who think in terms of profit rather than total revenue. For a broader comparison of all four forms, see Form 990 and 990 tax form. |
Form 990 is the umbrella name for the IRS's family of annual information returns for tax-exempt organizations. There are four versions, and which one your booster club or PTO files depends entirely on money in the door. | Form | Who files it | Gross receipts threshold |
What is a 990 tax form used for?
Despite the name, Form 990 isn't really a tax form in the way a 1040 is. Tax-exempt organizations generally don't owe income tax on money raised for their exempt purpose, so there's no tax bill attached to most 990 filings. Instead, the 990 family functions as an annual accountability report. The IRS uses it to confirm your organization is still doing what it said it would do when it applied for exemption, still operating within the rules for its 501(c) category, and still exists at all. State charity regulators and watchdog sites like Charity Navigator and ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer also pull data straight from 990 filings, so what you file becomes public record almost immediately. For a 990-N filer, this accountability function is thin by design. You're confirming your EIN, legal name, address, tax year, confirming receipts are under $50,000, and confirming the organization hasn't dissolved. There's no financial detail beyond that one threshold check. That's the tradeoff for being small: less transparency required, but also less room to hide anything if it turns out you were wrong about the $50,000 line. Read more on this at irs form 990.
Who has to file Form 990-N?
You have to file if your organization is recognized as tax-exempt under the Internal Revenue Code (or is applying to be) and your gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less. The IRS defines "normally" using an averaging test based on how long the organization has existed [3]: - In existence 1 year or less: you qualify if you received $75,000 or less in your first tax year.
- In existence 1 to 3 years: you qualify if the average of your first two years is $60,000 or less.
- In existence 3 years or more: you qualify if the average of the immediately preceding three years, including the year you're filing for, is $50,000 or less [3]. There are exceptions. Section 509(a)(3) supporting organizations, private foundations, and section 527 political organizations can't use the 990-N regardless of size [1]. Churches and certain church-affiliated organizations are exempt from the annual filing requirement altogether, but a standalone church-run youth sports league or booster club usually doesn't qualify for that carve-out on its own; confirm with the IRS if your group has any religious affiliation and you're unsure. One more wrinkle that catches booster treasurers off guard: your organization has to already have applied for and received 501(c)(3) or other 501(c) recognition, or at minimum have an EIN and be treated as tax-exempt, before the e-Postcard requirement even applies. Groups that never formally incorporated or applied for exemption are in a different (and messier) situation entirely.
When is the 990-N due, and what happens if I miss it?
Form 990-N is due on the 15th day of the 5th month after your organization's tax year ends. For a calendar-year organization (tax year ending December 31), that's May 15 of the following year [1]. If your fiscal year ends June 30, like a lot of school-affiliated booster clubs, your 990-N is due November 15. There's technically no penalty for filing the e-Postcard late in any single year, unlike the late-filing penalties that apply to full Form 990 or 990-EZ filers. That sounds forgiving, and it is, up to a point. The real danger isn't a late fee. It's the three-year rule. Section 6033(j) of the Internal Revenue Code says that if an organization required to file an annual return or notice fails to do so for three consecutive years, its tax-exempt status is automatically revoked as of the filing due date for the third year [4]. The IRS doesn't send a warning letter first in most cases. Your exemption just ends, effective retroactively, and you find out when you check the IRS's Tax Exempt Organization Search and see "Revoked" next to your name, or when a bank or grant application asks for a determination letter you can no longer produce. This is the single most common crisis new booster and PTO treasurers walk into. The previous treasurer graduated, moved, or just stopped filing three years ago, and nobody caught it. If that's you, our companion piece on recovery walks through the reinstatement process (Form 1023 or 1023-EZ, plus Rev. Proc. 2014-11 streamlined retroactive reinstatement for organizations that missed the deadline).
How do I actually file Form 990-N?
You file through the IRS's e-Postcard filing system, accessed via IRS.gov, using an IRS-issued Login.gov or ID.me account. As of the 2023 transition, all 990-N filings go through this system rather than the older third-party sites the IRS used previously [5]. You'll need eight pieces of information ready before you start [1]: 1. Employer Identification Number (EIN) 2. Tax year (calendar or fiscal) 3. Legal name and mailing address 4. Any other names the organization uses 5. Name and address of a principal officer 6. Website address, if the organization has one 7. Confirmation that annual gross receipts are $50,000 or less 8. A statement that the organization has terminated or gone out of business, if applicable There's no signature page, no upload of financial statements, and no fee. Most treasurers who have their EIN and prior-year confirmation on hand finish the whole thing in under 15 minutes. The confirmation you get back after submitting is your proof of filing, so save the PDF or screenshot somewhere durable, ideally in the same binder or shared drive where you keep bank statements and board minutes. A well-organized treasurer kit with prior-year confirmations, your EIN letter, and fiscal year dates already on file turns this into a five-minute task instead of an afternoon of digging through a predecessor's shoebox.
What is a treasurer, and what does a treasurer do?
A treasurer is the officer responsible for an organization's money: tracking it, reporting on it, and making sure legal filing obligations like Form 990-N get met on time. In a booster club, PTO, or youth sports league, the treasurer is usually a volunteer parent, which means the job rotates every year or two and institutional knowledge walks out the door with every departing officer. At a baseline, what a treasurer does includes keeping the checkbook or bank account reconciled, tracking income from dues, concessions, and fundraisers, paying approved bills, giving the board a financial report at meetings, and handling the annual IRS filing. Depending on the bylaws, the treasurer might also manage a budget, oversee cash-handling at events, and prepare records for an annual audit or financial review by an outside committee. The job is bigger than bookkeeping. A treasurer is also the person who notices when the organization drifted over the $50,000 gross receipts threshold and needs to bump up from 990-N to 990-EZ, or who catches that nobody has filed anything in two years and the group is one missed deadline from losing its exempt status. Nobody teaches this in a PTA handbook. Most new treasurers learn it by finding a problem their predecessor left behind.
What does a club treasurer do differently from a corporate one?
A club treasurer, whether for a booster club, PTO, or rec league, operates with less structure and lower stakes per transaction, but the compliance requirements are surprisingly similar to a small business. What does a treasurer of a club do that's different? Mostly, they're managing volunteers, cash, and paper trails instead of employees, invoices, and accounting software. Club treasurers deal with cash constantly: concession stand receipts, raffle ticket sales, car wash proceeds. That cash has to get counted by two people, deposited promptly, and logged before it becomes a "where did $340 go" mystery at the next meeting. See our guidance on financial controls for concrete cash-handling procedures. Club treasurers also tend to inherit whatever mess the last person left. There's rarely a paid bookkeeper checking their work, rarely a CPA on retainer, and rarely continuity between school years. That's exactly why the IRS's small-org filing threshold and the simplified 990-N exist: the system assumes most of these organizations are small, volunteer-run, and need the compliance bar set low enough that a first-time parent volunteer can actually clear it.
What if my gross receipts go over $50,000 partway through the year?
You use the three-year averaging test described above, not a single-year cutoff. A single unusually good fundraiser year, say your booster club ran a big raffle and pulled in $58,000 instead of the usual $35,000, doesn't automatically knock you out of 990-N eligibility. What matters is the average of the current year plus the two prior years [3]. Run the math each year before you file. If the three-year average creeps over $50,000, you need to file Form 990-EZ (or the full 990, if you're also over the asset threshold) instead, and that form requires an actual statement of revenue and expenses, a balance sheet, and program service descriptions. It's a real step up in effort from the e-Postcard. A lot of booster treasurers get this backwards and either file the 990-N one year too many (when they should have stepped up to the 990-EZ) or panic and file the 990-EZ one year too early. Filing the wrong form isn't usually catastrophic on its own, but it's worth getting right, especially if your organization is growing and this is the first year you might cross the line permanently.
Can I file Form 990-N myself, or do I need an accountant?
You can file it yourself. That's the entire design intent of the e-Postcard: an organization small enough to owe no filing fee and disclose no financials should also be small enough that its volunteer treasurer can file without professional help. Where it gets harder is everything around the filing, not the filing itself. Figuring out whether your organization is even still tax-exempt (check the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool), reconstructing three years of gross receipts when the prior treasurer left no records, or navigating reinstatement after an automatic revocation are all situations where a CPA or a nonprofit attorney earns their fee. This article and the rest of this site are not tax or legal advice, and nothing here guarantees a particular filing outcome or that your organization's tax-exempt status will be approved, maintained, or reinstated. Confirm your specific situation with the IRS and, for anything touching state charity registration or raffle licensing, your state charity office or attorney general. For most healthy, small, on-time-filing organizations, though, the 990-N really is a self-service, no-cost, ten-minute task.
What records should I keep after filing?
Save the confirmation email or PDF the IRS system generates after you submit, plus a note of the exact gross receipts figure you used to confirm eligibility for that year. Keep this alongside your EIN confirmation letter (IRS Form CP 575 or its replacement), prior-year bank statements, and board meeting minutes approving the year's budget. The reason to keep this isn't just tidiness. If your organization ever needs to prove three consecutive years of compliant filing, whether for a grant application, a bank's due diligence before opening an account, or a reinstatement filing after a lapse, you want that paper trail sitting in one folder, not scattered across four former treasurers' inboxes. A simple year-by-year binder or shared folder with EIN letter, prior 990-N confirmations, bank statements, and meeting minutes covers 90% of what a new treasurer, an auditor, or the IRS itself will ever ask to see.
Frequently asked questions
What is Form 990-N?
Form 990-N, the e-Postcard, is the IRS's simplest annual filing for tax-exempt organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less. It's free, filed online through IRS.gov, and requires only basic identifying information, no financial statements or attachments.
What is Form 990?
Form 990 is the family of annual information returns the IRS requires from tax-exempt organizations. Which version you file (990-N, 990-EZ, or the full 990) depends on your gross receipts and total assets, with 990-N reserved for the smallest organizations.
What is a 990 tax form used for?
It's an annual accountability filing, not a bill. It confirms a tax-exempt organization still exists, still qualifies for exemption, and (for larger filers) discloses revenue, expenses, and governance details. Most 990 data becomes public and is used by regulators, donors, and watchdog sites.
What does a treasurer do?
A treasurer manages an organization's money: bookkeeping, bank reconciliation, budget tracking, financial reporting to the board, and legal filings like Form 990-N. In volunteer-run booster clubs and PTOs, the treasurer is often the only person watching for IRS and state compliance deadlines.
What does a club treasurer do that's different from a business treasurer?
A club treasurer handles more cash, less structure, and higher volunteer turnover. Duties center on concession and fundraiser proceeds, dues tracking, cash-handling controls, and the annual 990-N filing, usually without a paid bookkeeper or CPA checking the work.
When is Form 990-N due?
It's due the 15th day of the 5th month after your organization's tax year ends. Calendar-year filers (year ending December 31) file by May 15. Fiscal-year filers ending June 30 file by November 15.
What happens if I don't file Form 990-N for three years?
The IRS automatically revokes your tax-exempt status under Internal Revenue Code section 6033(j) after three consecutive years of missed annual filings, with no warning letter in most cases. Reinstatement requires filing Form 1023 or 1023-EZ, potentially using the streamlined retroactive process under Rev. Proc. 2014-11.
Is there a penalty for filing Form 990-N late?
There's no monetary late-filing penalty for a single missed year on the 990-N itself, unlike Form 990-EZ or the full 990. The real risk is cumulative: three consecutive years of non-filing triggers automatic revocation of tax-exempt status.
How do I know if my gross receipts qualify for the 990-N?
The IRS uses a three-year averaging test. Organizations in existence three years or more qualify if the average of the current year plus the two immediately preceding years is $50,000 or less. Newer organizations use different one- and two-year thresholds.
Can churches skip filing Form 990-N?
Churches and certain church-affiliated organizations are generally exempt from the annual Form 990-series filing requirement. A booster club or youth league with a religious affiliation usually doesn't automatically qualify for that exception on its own; confirm with the IRS.
What information do I need to file Form 990-N?
You need your EIN, tax year, legal name and address, any alternate names, a principal officer's name and address, your website (if any), and confirmation that gross receipts are $50,000 or less. All filing now happens through an IRS Login.gov or ID.me account.
What is the difference between Form 990-N and Form 990-EZ?
Form 990-N is for organizations with gross receipts of $50,000 or less and requires no financial detail. Form 990-EZ applies to organizations with gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000, and requires a full revenue, expense, and balance sheet disclosure.
What does a treasurer of a club do at meetings?
At board or membership meetings, a club treasurer typically presents a financial report covering current balances, recent income and expenses, and budget-to-actual comparisons. They also flag upcoming filing deadlines, like the annual 990-N, and answer questions about spending decisions.
Sources
- IRS, Annual Electronic Filing Requirement for Small Exempt Organizations (Form 990-N): Form 990-N eligibility threshold of $50,000 or less in gross receipts and the eight required data items
- IRS, Which Forms Do Exempt Organizations File: 990-EZ and full Form 990 gross receipts and asset thresholds
- IRS, Annual Electronic Notice (Form 990-N) for Small Organizations FAQs: Three-year gross receipts averaging test for organizations in existence three years or more, and thresholds for newer organizations
- 26 U.S.C. Section 6033(j), Internal Revenue Code: Automatic revocation of tax-exempt status after three consecutive years of failing to file required annual returns or notices
- IRS Revenue Procedure 2014-11, 2014-3 I.R.B. 411: Streamlined retroactive reinstatement procedures for small organizations that lost tax-exempt status under section 6033(j) for failing to file required annual returns or notices for three consecutive years
- IRS Form 1023-EZ, Streamlined Application for Recognition of Exemption Under Section 501(c)(3): Form 1023-EZ is the streamlined application organizations can use, in combination with Rev. Proc. 2014-11, to seek reinstatement of tax-exempt status after automatic revocation