Filing a 990-N: the e-postcard walkthrough for treasurers

Last updated 2026-07-25

what is form 990 and where does the 990-N fit in?

Form 990 is the annual information return that tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS. It's not an income tax return exactly, since most exempt orgs don't owe income tax, but it's how the IRS (and the public) keeps tabs on what a nonprofit brought in, spent, and did during the year. There isn't just one 990. There's a family of them, sized to the organization. The full Form 990 is a multi-page filing with schedules for orgs with $200,000 or more in gross receipts or $500,000 or more in total assets. Form 990-EZ is the shorter version for orgs between roughly $50,000 and $200,000 in gross receipts. And Form 990-N, often called the e-Postcard, is the bare-minimum version for the smallest organizations, those with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less ^[1]. Most school booster clubs, PTOs, and small youth sports leagues fall into that 990-N bucket. If your group's total income for the year (dues, concession stand sales, spirit wear, small fundraisers, sponsorships) adds up to $50,000 or less, you're very likely a 990-N filer. If you're not sure which bucket you're in, our form 990 overview breaks down all three tiers side by side.

what is the 990-N (e-Postcard) exactly?

The 990-N is an eight-item electronic form. There's no paper version. You file it entirely online through the IRS's Form 990-N Electronic Filing System, and the IRS states plainly that "there is no paper form" for it ^[2]. Here's what you actually need to have on hand before you sit down to file: your organization's Employer Identification Number (EIN), the tax year you're filing for, your legal name and mailing address, any other names the organization uses, the name and address of a principal officer, your website address if you have one, confirmation that your annual gross receipts are $50,000 or less, and, if applicable, a statement that the organization has terminated or is going out of business ^[1]. That's it. No revenue schedule, no expense breakdown, no balance sheet. It genuinely takes most treasurers under 10 minutes once they have the EIN and officer info in front of them. If your group has never filed anything with the IRS on its own, our 990n explainer walks through getting an EIN first, since you can't file the e-Postcard without one.

who has to file a 990-N?

You have to file a 990-N if your organization is recognized as tax-exempt (or is treated as tax-exempt under a group ruling) and your gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less per year ^[1]. "Normally" matters here. The IRS uses an averaging test, not a strict single-year cutoff, for orgs that have been around 3+ years: you average the current year and the two years before it. Newer organizations get a scaled-down version of that averaging based on however many years they've existed. A few groups are exempt from filing any 990 series form at all, including churches and church-affiliated organizations, and some government-affiliated organizations. But a booster club, PTO, or youth sports association almost never falls into that carve-out. If your organization brings in more than $50,000 in a given year, you don't get to file the easy version. You'd file the 990-EZ or full 990 instead, depending on where you land on the size scale ^[3]. One trap catches new treasurers constantly: your organization has to file *something* every year, even a year with almost no activity. A team that raised $200 in bake sale money and spent it all on jerseys still owes a 990-N. There's no minimum threshold that excuses you from filing entirely; the $50,000 figure determines *which* form you file, not *whether* you file.

when is the 990-N due?

The 990-N is due by the 15th day of the 5th month after your organization's accounting period ends ^[1]. For an organization on a calendar-year accounting period (January 1 to December 31, which is most small booster clubs and PTOs), that means the deadline is May 15 of the following year. If your fiscal year runs differently, say July 1 to June 30 (common for school-affiliated groups syncing with the academic year), your 990-N is due by November 15. There's no extension available for the 990-N specifically, and honestly you don't need one. Since it takes a few minutes and costs nothing, there's little reason to wait until the deadline anyway. Mark it on the calendar the same week you close your books for the year and just knock it out.

how much does it cost to file a 990-N?

Nothing. The 990-N is free to file directly through the IRS's e-filing system at irs.gov ^[2]. There is no IRS fee for this form, ever, for any organization size that qualifies. Be careful here, because a cottage industry of third-party "nonprofit filing service" websites will happily charge you $50 to $150 to submit a form that costs $0 through the government's own portal. Some of these services aren't scams exactly, they're legitimate if you want someone else to click the buttons for you, but for an eight-item form that takes 10 minutes, paying a stranger to do it is not a good use of a booster club's money. File it yourself at the official IRS portal.

how do you actually file the 990-N step by step?

You file through the IRS Form 990-N Electronic Filing System ^[2]. Here's the general flow, though the IRS occasionally tweaks the interface, so confirm the current steps on the IRS site when you go to file: 1. Go to the IRS's 990-N filing page and create or log into your account (the IRS moved this system behind Login.gov / ID.me identity verification in recent years, so first-time filers may need to verify identity there first). 2. Select the tax year you're filing for. 3. Enter your organization's EIN. The system pulls up basic info if you've filed before. 4. Confirm or update your legal name, mailing address, and website (if any). 5. Enter the name and address of a principal officer, someone who can speak for the organization, usually the president or board chair, not necessarily the treasurer. 6. Confirm gross receipts are $50,000 or less for the year. 7. Check the box if the organization has terminated operations (only if true). 8. Submit. You'll get an immediate confirmation of acceptance or rejection. Rejections are almost always a mismatched EIN/name combination or a typo, easy to fix and resubmit.

what happens if you miss the 990-N deadline?

One missed year, on its own, doesn't sink you. There's no monetary penalty for filing the 990-N late, unlike the 990 and 990-EZ, which can carry daily penalties for late filing ^[4]. You just file it whenever you get around to it. The real danger is cumulative. The IRS automatically revokes the tax-exempt status of any organization that fails to file a required 990-series return (990, 990-EZ, or 990-N) for three consecutive years. This is written directly into the tax code: Internal Revenue Code section 6033(j) states that an organization's exempt status "shall be treated as revoked" if it doesn't file the required annual return for three consecutive years ^[5]. This revocation is automatic. There's no warning letter, no phone call, no grace period beyond the three years. Plenty of volunteer-run booster clubs and PTOs have gone through 2, 3, or 4 changes in treasurer over a few years, each one assuming the last one handled the filing, and only found out about the revocation when a bank froze an account or a school district asked for a determination letter. If your group has missed filings, our irs-form-990 piece covers the reinstatement process (Form 1024 or 1024-A, plus possibly retroactive reinstatement under Revenue Procedure 2014-11) in more depth.

how do you check if your organization already lost its exempt status?

Search the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool at apps.irs.gov, which lets you look up any EIN and see current exempt status, plus whether the organization is on the Auto-Revocation List ^[6]. This is the first thing a new treasurer should do, before touching a checkbook. If your EIN shows up on the revocation list, don't panic, but don't ignore it either. Revocation means the organization is currently treated as a taxable entity for federal purposes, which can affect grant eligibility, sponsor deductions, and sometimes state-level tax and charity registration status too. Reinstatement is very doable (thousands of small nonprofits go through it every year) but it does involve paperwork and, for orgs over a certain size, a filing fee for Form 1024 or 1024-A. Confirm the current fee amount and required form on irs.gov before starting, since the IRS updates user fees periodically.

what is a treasurer, and what does a treasurer of a club do?

A treasurer is the officer responsible for an organization's money: tracking what comes in, what goes out, and making sure the books are accurate enough that anyone (a board member, an auditor, the IRS) could look at them and understand what happened financially during the year. For a booster club, PTO, or youth sports league specifically, what does a club treasurer do in practice? Usually some version of this list: collecting dues and fundraiser proceeds, paying vendors and reimbursing volunteers, reconciling the bank account monthly, keeping receipts and invoices organized, presenting a budget or financial report at meetings, and handling the annual IRS filing (the 990-N, in most cases) along with any required state charity registration renewal. The treasurer role doesn't usually include deciding how money gets spent, that's typically a board vote, but it does include flagging when spending is off-track and making sure the organization doesn't accidentally let its legal status lapse. Filing the 990-N on time is a small, recurring part of the job, but it's one of the few tasks with a hard legal consequence attached if it's ignored for too long.

what does a treasurer do differently in a small club versus a large nonprofit?

In a large nonprofit, the treasurer role is often more of an oversight function: reviewing financials prepared by paid bookkeeping staff, chairing a finance committee, presenting to a full board. In a small booster club or PTO, the treasurer usually *is* the bookkeeping staff. There's no accountant on payroll. The treasurer writes the checks, makes the deposits, balances the register, and fills out the 990-N personally. That difference matters for filing purposes too. A larger organization with $200,000+ in gross receipts or $500,000+ in assets files the full Form 990, often with help from a paid preparer, because the form has real complexity (executive compensation schedules, related-party transaction disclosures, and so on). A small club filing the 990-N needs none of that. The whole point of the e-Postcard tier is to keep compliance manageable for volunteer-run organizations that don't have accounting staff. That's worth remembering if a new treasurer feels overwhelmed: the IRS built this specific form because it knows most small nonprofits are run by people with day jobs and no finance background.

does filing the 990-N replace state charity registration or raffle licensing?

No. The 990-N is a federal filing only, submitted to the IRS. It has nothing to do with your state's charitable solicitation registration, raffle or gaming permit, or state corporate annual report, which are separate requirements run by separate agencies. Many states require charitable organizations that solicit donations or run raffles to register annually with the state attorney general's office or a state charity regulator, sometimes with a fee, sometimes with a copy of your federal 990 filing attached as an exhibit. These requirements vary a lot state to state, and change periodically, so confirm the current rules with your state charity office or attorney general before assuming the 990-N alone covers you. A booster club that runs a raffle at its spring fundraiser, for example, may need a state raffle license entirely separate from anything filed with the IRS. Don't let a clean 990-N filing give you false confidence that you're covered everywhere; it only covers the federal exempt-status piece.

what records should you keep after filing the 990-N?

Keep a screenshot or PDF confirmation of the submitted 990-N, along with the date filed, for at least 3 years, though many treasurers keep them indefinitely since they're small files and the cost of losing proof of filing (during a revocation dispute, for instance) is high. Also keep the underlying financial summary you used to confirm gross receipts were under $50,000: bank statements, a simple income and expense log, whatever supports that number. You don't submit this to the IRS with the 990-N, but if your status is ever questioned or your org gets audited by the state, you'll want it on hand. When the treasurer role changes hands, which happens constantly in volunteer organizations, these filing confirmations should be part of the handoff packet along with bank access, the EIN, and login credentials for the IRS e-filing system. A shockingly common failure mode is a departing treasurer forgetting to hand off the IRS login info, leaving the new treasurer to start from scratch with identity verification. This is exactly the kind of gap the $99 State-Personalized Treasurer Kit is built to close: it bundles a filing calendar, an EIN and login tracker, and state-specific checklists so the next person taking over the books isn't guessing at deadlines from scratch.

990-N vs 990-EZ vs 990: which form do you actually file?

Form	Who files it	Gross receipts threshold	Cost to file	Filing method
990-N (e-Postcard)	Smallest exempt orgs	Normally $50,000 or less [1]	$0	Online only, IRS system [2]
990-EZ	Mid-size exempt orgs	Gross receipts under $200,000 AND total assets under $500,000 [3]	$0 IRS fee (paid preparers charge separately)	Electronic filing required for most orgs
990 (full)	Larger exempt orgs	Gross receipts $200,000+ OR total assets $500,000+ [3]	$0 IRS fee (paid preparers charge separately)	Electronic filing required for most orgs	Most school booster clubs, PTOs, and small youth sports organizations sit comfortably in the 990-N row. If your gross receipts crept over $50,000 this year (a bigger-than-usual fundraiser, a large sponsorship, a one-time grant), check whether you've tipped into 990-EZ territory before defaulting to the e-Postcard out of habit. Our 990-tax-form guide has a longer breakdown of how the thresholds are calculated year over year.

Frequently asked questions

What is Form 990-N?

Form 990-N, also called the e-Postcard, is the shortest IRS annual filing for tax-exempt organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less. It's an eight-item online-only form (no paper version) that reports basic identifying information, not financial detail, and costs nothing to file ^[1][2].

What does a treasurer do?

A treasurer manages an organization's money: tracking income and expenses, reconciling bank accounts, paying vendors, reporting financials to the board, and handling required government filings like the annual IRS 990-series return. In a volunteer group, the treasurer usually does the actual bookkeeping personally rather than overseeing paid staff.

What does a club treasurer do differently from a corporate treasurer?

A club treasurer (booster club, PTO, youth sports league) typically does hands-on bookkeeping, deposits, and IRS filings personally, since there's no paid accounting staff. A corporate treasurer more often oversees staff-prepared financials and focuses on cash management and reporting rather than data entry.

What is the 990 tax form?

The 990 is the IRS's annual information return for tax-exempt organizations. It comes in three sizes based on gross receipts and assets: the full Form 990, the shorter Form 990-EZ, and the minimal Form 990-N (e-Postcard) for the smallest organizations, those with $50,000 or less in gross receipts ^[1][3].

Who is required to file a 990-N?

Tax-exempt organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less per year, and that aren't otherwise exempt from filing (like most churches), must file a 990-N annually ^[1]. This includes most booster clubs, PTOs, and small youth sports associations with recognized 501(c)(3) or similar status.

When is the 990-N due?

The 990-N is due the 15th day of the 5th month after your organization's accounting period ends ^[1]. For calendar-year organizations (Jan 1 to Dec 31), that's May 15. For a July-to-June fiscal year, it's November 15. There's no extension option for this specific form.

How much does it cost to file a 990-N?

Nothing. Filing directly through the IRS's Form 990-N Electronic Filing System is free ^[2]. Third-party filing websites sometimes charge $50 to $150 to submit it on your behalf, but for an eight-item form that takes about 10 minutes, filing it yourself at irs.gov is the better use of a small organization's money.

What happens if you don't file a 990-N?

One missed year carries no monetary penalty for the 990-N itself. But under Internal Revenue Code section 6033(j), missing three consecutive years of any required 990-series filing triggers automatic revocation of tax-exempt status, with no warning letter beforehand ^[5].

How do I know if my nonprofit lost its tax-exempt status?

Search your organization's EIN in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool at apps.irs.gov, which shows current exempt status and lists any organization on the IRS Auto-Revocation List ^[6]. Check this before assuming your group's status is intact, especially after a treasurer transition.

Can I file a 990-N by mail or on paper?

No. The IRS states there is no paper form for the 990-N; it must be filed electronically through the IRS's Form 990-N Electronic Filing System ^[2]. If your organization's gross receipts exceed $50,000, you'd instead file the 990-EZ or full 990, both of which have paper or e-file options depending on size.

Does filing the 990-N cover my state charity registration too?

No. The 990-N is a federal IRS filing only. Most states have separate charitable solicitation registration and raffle/gaming licensing requirements run through the state attorney general or a state charity office, with their own deadlines and fees. Confirm your specific state's requirements with that office directly.

What information do I need before filing a 990-N?

You need your organization's EIN, the tax year, legal name and mailing address, any alternate names used, the name and address of a principal officer, your website (if any), and confirmation that gross receipts are $50,000 or less for the year ^[1].

What's the difference between the 990-N and the 990-EZ?

The 990-N is for organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less and asks only 8 basic identifying questions, no financial detail. The 990-EZ is for organizations with gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000 ^[3], and requires actual income and expense reporting.

Sources

1. IRS, Annual Electronic Filing Requirement for Small Exempt Organizations (Form 990-N): Gross receipts threshold, required information items, and due date for Form 990-N
2. IRS, Form 990-N (e-Postcard) filing system landing page: 990-N is filed online only, free, with no paper form option
3. IRS, Form 990-EZ instructions and filing thresholds: Gross receipts and total assets thresholds distinguishing Form 990-EZ and full Form 990 filers
4. IRS, Form 990 Series Which Forms Do Exempt Organizations File: Late filing penalties apply to Form 990 and 990-EZ but not to 990-N
5. 26 U.S.C. Section 6033(j), Internal Revenue Code: Automatic revocation of tax-exempt status for failure to file required returns for three consecutive years
6. IRS, Tax Exempt Organization Search: Tool to check current exempt status and Auto-Revocation List by EIN