Last updated 2026-08-14
TL;DR
Form 990-N, the IRS e-Postcard, is a free online filing for tax-exempt organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less. It's due every year by the 15th day of the 5th month after your fiscal year ends. Miss three years in a row and the IRS automatically revokes your tax-exempt status, no notice required beyond the filing deadlines themselves.
What is Form 990-N (the e-Postcard)?
Form 990-N is the shortest, cheapest version of the annual information return that most tax-exempt nonprofits have to file with the IRS. The IRS calls it the "e-Postcard" because that's basically what it is: eight quick questions, submitted online, no attachments, no financial statements. It exists specifically for small organizations, and it replaced nothing (it was created new, starting with tax years ending after December 31, 2006) so that tiny booster clubs and PTOs wouldn't have to fill out the same forms as a hospital system. You file it if your organization's gross receipts are "normally $50,000 or less." [1] That word "normally" matters. The IRS doesn't look at just this year; it averages your last three years (or fewer, if you're new). If that three-year average is $50,000 or under, you're a 990-N filer by default, unless you choose to file the longer Form 990-EZ or Form 990 instead, which some organizations do voluntarily for grant applications or bank requirements. The filing itself asks for basic identifying information: your legal name, any doing-business-as names, your mailing address, your Employer Identification Number (EIN), the name and address of a principal officer, your tax year, confirmation that gross receipts are still $50,000 or less, and a statement if you've gone out of business. That's it. No income, no expenses, no bank balances. If you're coming from a world where "tax form" means hours of paperwork, this one will feel almost suspiciously easy. For comparison with the longer versions of the return, see form 990 and 990 tax form for what organizations above the threshold have to file instead.
What is Form 990, exactly, and how is 990-N different?
| 990-N (e-Postcard) | Gross receipts normally ≤ $50,000 [1] | 8 questions, online only, no financials | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 990-EZ | Gross receipts < $200,000 and total assets < $500,000 [2] | Short paper/e-filed return with summarized financials | |
| 990 (full) | Gross receipts ≥ $200,000 or total assets ≥ $500,000 [2] | Full return, several schedules, most detailed | |
| 990-PF | Private foundations, any size | Full financial detail, required regardless of size | A typical volunteer-run booster club, PTO, or youth sports league with a $15,000 or $30,000 annual budget lands squarely in 990-N territory. A larger regional league or a booster club that just ran a $60,000 capital campaign might tip into 990-EZ. Check your three-year average gross receipts before you assume you're stuck with the e-Postcard forever. See [990](/articles/treasurer-basics/990) and irs form 990 for more on the bigger versions. |
Form 990 is the IRS's annual information return for tax-exempt organizations, the document the government uses to keep tabs on nonprofits without taxing most of their income. "Information return" is the key phrase: your booster club almost certainly owes no federal income tax, but the IRS still wants an annual report on what you took in, what you spent, and who ran the place. That's what a 990, in any of its versions, actually is. There are four tiers, based on gross receipts and total assets: | Form | Who files it | What it requires |
When is the 990-N due, and how often do I have to file it?
Form 990-N is due every single year, by the 15th day of the 5th month after your organization's accounting period ends. [1] For an organization on a calendar year (ending December 31), that's May 15 of the following year. For a booster club running on a school-year fiscal calendar ending June 30, the deadline is November 15. There's no extension form for 990-N. The IRS says plainly: "There is no penalty assessment for late filing of the e-Postcard, but organizations that fail to file required e-Postcards (or any of the other Form 990 series returns) for three consecutive years will automatically lose their tax-exempt status." [1] So there's no late fee that shows up on a notice, but there's also no grace period once you hit that third missed year; the revocation is automatic, by statute (Pension Protection Act of 2006, which added this three-year rule to the tax code). My honest advice: pick a fixed date every year, put it on the treasurer handoff calendar, and file it early rather than on the deadline. It takes about 10 minutes once you have your EIN and prior-year information handy. Don't wait until the week of the deadline, because if the IRS system is glitchy or you can't remember your EIN, you don't want to be scrambling.
How do I actually file the 990-N e-Postcard?
You file Form 990-N entirely online, for free, through the IRS's e-Postcard system. There is no paper option. [1] Here's the actual process: 1. Go to the IRS Form 990-N landing page and follow the link to the filing system (currently hosted, confusingly, through Login.gov after the IRS moved off the old URS system in 2023). 2. Register or sign in with a Login.gov account tied to the person filing. 3. Enter your organization's EIN. The system pulls up your name as it appears in IRS records. 4. Confirm your tax year, mailing address, and principal officer. 5. Answer the gross receipts question and the "going out of business" question. 6. Submit. You'll get an on-screen confirmation and can check filing status later. A few practical gotchas. First, your EIN has to already exist and be correctly registered as tax-exempt in IRS records; if you're a brand-new organization, get your EIN and, if applicable, your exemption determination sorted first. Second, the "legal name" field has to match IRS records exactly, so if your booster club changed its name and never told the IRS, fix that first or the filing will bounce or file under the wrong name. Third, keep a screenshot or PDF of your confirmation. The IRS system lets you look up past e-Postcard filings, but it's slower than just keeping your own paper trail in the treasurer binder.
What happens if I miss the 990-N deadline, or miss it three years in a row?
Missing one year has no direct penalty. There's no fine, no letter, nothing automatic. That's the good news, and it's also exactly why organizations drift into trouble: nothing bad seems to happen after year one or two, so nobody notices until it's too late. Miss three consecutive years, though, and your tax-exempt status is automatically revoked, effective as of the filing deadline for the third year. The IRS doesn't send a warning before revocation; it happens by operation of law under Internal Revenue Code section 6033(j), added by the Pension Protection Act of 2006. [3] You typically find out only when you check the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search and see "Auto-Revoked," or when you try to apply for a grant and the funder's due-diligence check flags it. Once revoked, any income your organization takes in becomes taxable, and donors can no longer deduct their gifts (which matters a lot less for most booster clubs, since individual donors rarely itemize small youth-sports donations anyway, but it matters enormously for grant applications and school district partnerships that require proof of 501(c)(3) status). Reinstatement is possible but not automatic. Depending on your circumstances, you may qualify for streamlined retroactive reinstatement (Rev. Proc. 2014-11 outlines this for organizations that were eligible to file 990-N or 990-EZ and apply within 15 months of revocation), or you may have to file a full Form 1023 or 1023-EZ application again and pay the applicable user fee. Confirm current eligibility and fees with the IRS before you assume which path applies to you, since these procedures and dollar thresholds can change.
What does a treasurer do, and where does the 990-N fit into the job?
A treasurer is the person legally and practically responsible for an organization's money: tracking income and expenses, keeping the books straight, filing required reports, and making sure the group doesn't accidentally lose its tax-exempt status or run afoul of state law. In a booster club, PTO, or youth sports league, this is almost always a volunteer parent, not an accountant, elected or appointed for a one- or two-year term. What does a treasurer do in practice? The job usually breaks into four buckets: - Bookkeeping: recording deposits, receipts, reimbursements, and bank reconciliations, usually month by month.
- Reporting: giving the board and members a clear picture of cash position, upcoming expenses, and fundraising results.
- Compliance: filing the annual 990-N (or 990-EZ/990) with the IRS, renewing any state charitable registration, and handling raffle or gaming license requirements if the group runs raffles.
- Continuity: keeping records organized enough that next year's treasurer, who is very likely a different volunteer, can pick up the job without starting from zero. What does a club treasurer do that's different from a corporate treasurer? Mostly scale and formality. A club treasurer of a $20,000-budget booster group isn't managing investments or debt covenants; they're managing a checking account, a fundraising calendar, and a stack of receipts from the concession stand. But the compliance obligations, weirdly, don't scale down much. The IRS still wants that annual e-Postcard whether your group brought in $8,000 or $8 million (above a certain size you just file a bigger form instead). So when someone asks what a treasurer of a club does, the honest answer is: less accounting than people fear, and more calendar-and-checklist discipline than people expect. Filing Form 990-N on time is one of the single highest-leverage, lowest-effort parts of the job, because skipping it has an outsized downside (auto-revocation) relative to how little effort it takes to just do it.
Who has to file 990-N, and who's exempt from filing it?
Most tax-exempt organizations recognized under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c) have to file some version of Form 990 every year, and 990-N is the version for the smallest of them. But there are real exceptions worth knowing. Churches and most church-affiliated organizations are generally not required to file any Form 990 series return. [4] This trips up some faith-based youth programs that assume the church exemption covers their booster-style fundraising arm too; it may or may not, depending on how the group is structured, so confirm with the IRS or a qualified advisor rather than guessing. Organizations included in a group return filed by a parent organization (common with some Scouting councils, PTA state associations, or league affiliates) may be covered without filing separately. Ask your state or national affiliate whether you're included in a group filing before you assume you need to file on your own. Private foundations must file Form 990-PF regardless of size; the $50,000 small-organization exception doesn't apply to them. And organizations that haven't yet applied for or received formal 501(c)(3) recognition from the IRS are in a different, murkier situation entirely; talk to the IRS or a qualified advisor about whether and how to file before you've got a determination letter in hand.
Does my state also require a separate annual filing?
Yes, usually, and this is the part treasurers most often miss. Form 990-N satisfies your federal IRS obligation. It does nothing for state-level charitable registration, which many states require separately if you solicit donations, run raffles, or hold charitable assets. Requirements vary enormously by state: some states require annual charitable solicitation registration renewals with the attorney general's office or secretary of state, some exempt small all-volunteer organizations below a certain revenue threshold, and some have no separate registration requirement at all for small local groups. Confirm with your state charity official or attorney general's office what applies to your organization, because the dollar thresholds, renewal fees, and exemption categories differ by state and change periodically. If your booster club or PTO also runs raffles, that's frequently an entirely separate license, issued by a state gaming commission or the attorney general, on its own renewal cycle. Don't assume filing your federal 990-N means you're square with your state; treat them as two completely separate checklists.
What information should I gather before I start the 990-N filing?
Have these ready before you sit down to file, so the 10-minute filing actually takes 10 minutes: - Your organization's EIN (Employer Identification Number). If you don't know it, check a prior tax filing, a bank statement, or your IRS determination letter.
- The organization's legal name exactly as it appears in IRS records (not your "doing business as" name if it's different).
- Your current mailing address and website (if you have one).
- The name and address of one principal officer, usually the president or board chair, not necessarily the treasurer.
- Your organization's tax year start and end dates.
- A rough sense of whether gross receipts over the last three years averaged $50,000 or less.
- Confirmation of whether the organization has terminated or gone out of business (almost always "no"). If this is your first time filing and you're inheriting a messy or incomplete set of prior records, that's common, and it's exactly the kind of gap a structured 990n or form-990-n reference and a proper handoff binder are built to close. BoosterLedger's $99 one-time State-Personalized Treasurer Kit (/treasurer-kit-builder) includes the IRS and state deadline calendar prefilled for your state and organization type, so you're not reconstructing this from scratch every time a new volunteer takes over.
How do I check my organization's current IRS status, or find out if I'm already revoked?
Use the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool, available directly on irs.gov. [5] It lets you look up any organization by name or EIN and see its current exemption status, including whether it's listed on the Auto-Revocation List. This is the single fastest way to answer "are we actually still tax-exempt" without waiting for a mailed notice, since the IRS generally doesn't proactively mail revocation notices before the fact. If a new treasurer is taking over an organization with a spotty filing history, checking this tool in the first week on the job is one of the cheapest, highest-value things they can do. It takes two minutes and can save months of confusion down the line if the group turns out to already be revoked and nobody realized it. If you do find your organization on the Auto-Revocation List, don't panic, but don't ignore it either. Confirm with the IRS which reinstatement path applies (streamlined retroactive reinstatement under Rev. Proc. 2014-11, or a fresh exemption application) before your next fundraiser, grant application, or bank account renewal runs into it.
Frequently asked questions
What is Form 990-N (the e-Postcard)?
Form 990-N is the IRS's shortest annual filing for tax-exempt organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less. It's filed entirely online, asks about eight basic questions, and has no financial detail required. It's due by the 15th day of the 5th month after your fiscal year ends.
What is Form 990, and how does it differ from the 990-N?
Form 990 is the IRS's general annual information return for tax-exempt organizations. There are four versions based on size: 990-N for gross receipts under $50,000, 990-EZ for under $200,000 in receipts and under $500,000 in assets, the full Form 990 above those thresholds, and 990-PF for private foundations of any size.
What is a 990 tax form used for?
A 990-series form isn't a tax bill; it's an information return. The IRS uses it to confirm a tax-exempt organization's income, spending, and governance each year without collecting income tax on most of that income. Skipping it for three straight years triggers automatic loss of tax-exempt status.
What does a treasurer do in a club, PTO, or booster group?
A club treasurer tracks income and expenses, reconciles the bank account, reports financial status to the board, and handles compliance filings like the IRS 990-N and any state charitable registration or raffle license renewal. In most volunteer groups it's a one- or two-year elected role, not a paid accounting job.
What does a club treasurer do differently from a corporate treasurer?
Mostly scale, not substance. A club treasurer manages a checking account, fundraiser proceeds, and reimbursement requests rather than investments or debt. But the same core duties apply: accurate books, transparent reporting, and on-time compliance filings, including the annual IRS 990-N.
When is Form 990-N due each year?
It's due by the 15th day of the 5th month after the end of your organization's fiscal year. For a calendar-year filer (year ending December 31), that's May 15. For a fiscal year ending June 30, it's November 15. There's no extension form available for 990-N.
What happens if I file the 990-N late?
There's no monetary penalty for filing 990-N late in any single year, according to the IRS. But if you fail to file for three consecutive years, your tax-exempt status is automatically revoked by law, with no advance warning notice from the IRS.
How do I know if my organization qualifies to file 990-N instead of a longer form?
Check your gross receipts over the last three years (or fewer years if you're newer) and average them. If that average is $50,000 or less, you generally qualify for 990-N. Above that, you'll likely need Form 990-EZ or the full Form 990 depending on receipts and assets.
Do churches have to file Form 990-N?
Generally, churches and many church-affiliated organizations are not required to file any Form 990-series return, including 990-N. Whether a specific church-affiliated youth or booster program qualifies for that exception depends on its structure, so confirm directly with the IRS or a qualified advisor.
Does filing the federal 990-N also cover my state charity registration?
No. Form 990-N only satisfies your IRS federal filing requirement. Many states separately require annual charitable solicitation registration renewals through the attorney general's office or secretary of state. Confirm requirements and thresholds with your specific state charity office.
How do I check if my nonprofit has already been auto-revoked?
Use the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool on irs.gov. Search by your organization's name or EIN to see current exemption status and whether you appear on the Auto-Revocation List. The IRS doesn't reliably mail advance warnings before revocation happens.
Can I get my tax-exempt status back after auto-revocation?
Often yes, but not automatically. Depending on eligibility and timing, you may qualify for streamlined retroactive reinstatement under Rev. Proc. 2014-11, or you may need to file a new exemption application (Form 1023 or 1023-EZ) and pay the applicable fee. Confirm your specific path and current fees with the IRS.
Sources
- IRS, Annual Electronic Filing Requirement for Small Exempt Organizations - Form 990-N (e-Postcard): Gross receipts normally $50,000 or less qualifies for 990-N; filing is online only; due date is the 15th day of the 5th month after the tax year ends
- IRS, Form 990 Series Which Forms Do Exempt Organizations File: Thresholds distinguishing 990-N, 990-EZ, and full Form 990 based on gross receipts and total assets
- IRS, Automatic Revocation of Exemption: Automatic revocation for failing to file required returns for three consecutive years under IRC section 6033(j), added by the Pension Protection Act of 2006
- IRS, Annual Exempt Organization Return: Who Must File: Churches and certain church-affiliated organizations are generally exempt from the Form 990-series filing requirement
- IRS, Tax Exempt Organization Search: Tool for checking an organization's current exemption status, including whether it appears on the Auto-Revocation List
- IRS, Revenue Procedure 2014-11: Streamlined retroactive reinstatement procedures for small organizations eligible to file 990-N or 990-EZ that apply within 15 months of revocation