How Much Can You Donate to a 501(c)(3): AGI Limits and Carryovers

There’s no legal limit on how much you can donate to a 501(c)(3), but the IRS caps how much of that giving you can deduct in a single year. For cash gifts to public charities, the ceiling is 60% of your adjusted gross income. Appreciated property like long-held stock tops out at 30% of AGI. Gifts to private foundations sit lower still. Anything above your annual cap isn’t lost — you can carry it forward for up to five more years.

The AGI-Based Deduction Caps

Every charitable deduction is tied to a percentage of your adjusted gross income, which is the figure on line 11 of Form 1040. What you gave and who received it determines which percentage applies.¹

Cash Gifts to Public Charities: 60% of AGI

Cash contributions to public charities — including churches, hospitals, schools, and most community nonprofits — are deductible up to 60% of your AGI. “Cash” includes checks, credit card charges, and electronic transfers. If your AGI is $100,000, you can deduct up to $60,000 of cash giving in that year. Donor-advised funds sponsored by public charities follow the same 60% limit.

Long-Term Appreciated Property: 30% of AGI

Stock, real estate, or other capital-gain property held longer than a year and donated to a public charity is deductible at current fair market value, capped at 30% of AGI. This is one of the more efficient moves in charitable planning: you skip the capital gains tax on the appreciation and still deduct the full value.

Ordinary Income and Short-Term Property: 50% of AGI, at Cost Basis

Inventory, artwork you created, and assets held a year or less are deductible only at what you paid, not at market value, and fall under a general 50% AGI limit for public charity contributions.

Clothing and Household Goods

These must be in good used condition or better to qualify at all. A single item worth more than $500 can escape the condition rule if you include a qualified appraisal with your return.²

Private Foundations: Lower Caps

Private non-operating foundations are 501(c)(3)s, but Congress set tighter limits for gifts to them. Cash to a private foundation is capped at 30% of AGI. Capital gain property drops to 20%. There’s a second catch: for most property donations to a private foundation, you have to reduce your deduction from fair market value down to your cost basis. Stock you bought for $10,000 that’s now worth $50,000 generally produces a $10,000 deduction at a private foundation and a $50,000 deduction at a public charity.

The exception is “qualified appreciated stock” — publicly traded shares with readily available market quotations. You can deduct the full fair market value if you and your family haven’t contributed more than 10% of the corporation’s outstanding shares.²

You Have to Itemize (With One New Exception)

Those percentage caps only matter if you itemize on Schedule A instead of taking the standard deduction.³ Itemizing pays off only when your combined deductible expenses — mortgage interest, state and local taxes, charitable gifts — clear the standard deduction for your filing status.

For tax year 2026, the standard deduction is $16,100 for single filers and married filing separately, $32,200 for married filing jointly, and $24,150 for head of household.⁴ Fall below those numbers and itemizing produces no additional benefit.

Starting with the 2026 tax year, non-itemizers get a separate above-the-line write-off: up to $1,000 in cash charitable contributions, or $2,000 if you file jointly, deductible even when you take the standard deduction.³ It applies to cash gifts made directly to qualifying charities and does not cover donor-advised fund contributions. For a taxpayer in the 22% bracket giving $1,000, that’s roughly $220 in savings without touching Schedule A.

Confirming the Organization Qualifies

Not every nonprofit generates a deductible gift. Verify status through the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search before you count on the write-off.⁵ Churches, synagogues, mosques, and similar religious organizations may not appear in the database yet still qualify under 501(c)(3).

Several payments people assume are deductible aren’t:

Contributions to 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, including many advocacy and lobbying groups, don’t qualify as charitable deductions.⁶
Political contributions to candidates, campaigns, or PACs are never deductible.
Raffle, bingo, and lottery tickets bought at a charity event don’t count, even when the host is a 501(c)(3).
The value of your time or professional services isn’t deductible, no matter your specialty. Unreimbursed out-of-pocket expenses tied to volunteering are, and you can claim 14 cents per mile for charitable driving.⁷⁸

When You Get Something in Return

If the charity gives you something of value — a dinner, concert ticket, gift basket — your deduction covers only the amount above the fair market value of what you received. Pay $200 for a gala where the meal is worth $60, and you deduct $140.² Charities have to send a written disclosure for any “quid pro quo” payment above $75, telling you the value of the benefit.⁹ Token items like a mug or tote bag are treated as insubstantial if the charity determines they fall under the IRS low-cost article threshold.

Carrying Excess Contributions Forward Five Years

Gifts above your AGI cap aren’t wasted. The IRS lets you carry the unused portion forward for up to five additional tax years.² A donor who gives a $500,000 property in a year with $200,000 of AGI deducts what the cap allows now and spreads the rest across the next five returns.

The carryover keeps the same percentage cap that applied in the original year. A cash carryover still faces 60%; a capital gain property carryover still faces 30%. In any year with both new gifts and a carryover, current-year contributions apply first, and the carryover uses whatever room is left.

Two limits worth knowing. If you don’t use the full carryover within five years, the balance disappears. And if the donor dies before exhausting the carryover, Publication 526 indicates that special rules apply for a surviving spouse and directs other situations to a tax practitioner; as a practical matter, unused carryovers generally can’t transfer to heirs or the estate beyond the final return.²

Qualified Charitable Distributions From an IRA

If you’re 70½ or older, a qualified charitable distribution (QCD) sidesteps the itemizing requirement entirely. You can transfer up to $111,000 per person in 2026 directly from a traditional IRA to a 501(c)(3), and none of it counts as taxable income.¹⁰ The transfer moves from your IRA custodian to the charity without landing in your bank account.

A QCD can also satisfy your required minimum distribution for the year, tax-free. It’s the most useful for retirees who take the standard deduction and would otherwise get no benefit from charitable giving. Trade-offs: a QCD isn’t a separate itemized deduction, since it’s already excluded from income; it doesn’t work with still-active SEP or SIMPLE IRAs; and it cannot go to donor-advised funds or private foundations.

Documentation Thresholds

Even a legitimate gift to a real 501(c)(3) produces no deduction without proof. The rules escalate with the size and type of the contribution.

Cash

Any single cash gift of $250 or more requires a written acknowledgment from the charity, obtained before you file. The letter must state the amount and whether the charity provided any goods or services in exchange.¹¹ For gifts under $250, a bank record, receipt, or canceled check will do. Without documentation, the IRS can disallow the deduction outright.

Non-Cash

Total non-cash gifts above $500 in a year require Form 8283 attached to your return.¹² Any single item or group of similar items worth more than $5,000 needs a qualified appraisal from a credentialed appraiser, completed no earlier than 60 days before the donation and no later than the return’s due date. Publicly traded securities are exempt because their value is readily verifiable. Appraisal fees typically run $175 to $450 per hour depending on property type.²

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 170 – Charitable, Etc., Contributions and Gifts
2
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 526, Charitable Contributions
3
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 506, Charitable Contributions
4
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026
5
Internal Revenue Service. Tax Exempt Organization Search
6
Internal Revenue Service. Donations to Section 501(c)(4) Organizations
7
Internal Revenue Service. Exempt Organizations Annual Reporting Requirements – Reporting Value of Volunteer Time
8
Internal Revenue Service. 2026 Standard Mileage Rates
9
Internal Revenue Service. Charitable Contributions – Quid Pro Quo Contributions
10
Internal Revenue Service. 2026 Amounts Relating to Retirement Plans and IRAs
11
Internal Revenue Service. Charitable Contributions – Written Acknowledgments
12
Internal Revenue Service. Charitable Organizations – Substantiation and Disclosure Requirements