What Is the Difference Between Form 990 and 990-EZ?

The difference between Form 990 and Form 990-EZ comes down to size and depth: Form 990-EZ is a four-page short return available to nonprofits with gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000, while the full Form 990 is a substantially longer return required above either threshold and demands detailed reporting on governance, executive compensation, and how every dollar was spent.¹

Which Form Your Organization Files

The IRS uses two financial thresholds to decide which return you owe. Both matter, and crossing either one pushes you up to the full Form 990.

Gross receipts normally $50,000 or less: file Form 990-N, a brief electronic notice with no financial data.²
Gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000 at year-end: you may file Form 990-EZ.³
Gross receipts of $200,000 or more, or total assets of $500,000 or more: file the full Form 990.¹

“Gross receipts” is the total your organization received from every source during the accounting period, with no costs subtracted. That covers contributions, grants, dues, investment income, and the gross amount from asset sales before deducting what you paid for the asset.⁴ “Total assets” is everything on your books at year-end: cash, investments, property, and other holdings.

Private foundations sit outside this comparison entirely. They file Form 990-PF regardless of size and cannot use Form 990 or 990-EZ.⁵

What Form 990-EZ Covers

The 990-EZ has four core parts. Part I reports revenue, expenses, and changes in net assets. Part II is a simplified balance sheet. Part III asks you to describe your three largest programs by expense and give concrete results, like the number of people served. Part IV lists all officers, directors, trustees, and key employees with their compensation.³ Section 501(c)(3) organizations also complete Part VI, which covers lobbying and certain compliance questions.¹

The form also asks for compensation of your five highest-paid employees (other than officers and directors) who each received more than $100,000, plus the count of independent contractors paid over $100,000.³ For a small nonprofit with straightforward finances, it is manageable, but it still demands accurate figures and enough narrative for the IRS and the public to judge your operations.

What the Full Form 990 Adds

The full return covers everything on the 990-EZ and then piles on disclosure. The added weight shows up in three areas.

Governance and Policies

Part VI of the full Form 990 asks whether your board has adopted a written conflict-of-interest policy, whether officers and directors must disclose conflicts annually, and whether the policy was actually applied when conflicts arose. It also asks about document retention and destruction policies. None of these governance questions appear on the 990-EZ.

Compensation Reporting

The 990-EZ collects basic pay for officers and the highest-paid employees above $100,000. The full Form 990 goes further and requires a broken-out compensation table for all current officers, directors, trustees, key employees, and the five highest-compensated employees. W-2 or 1099 compensation, contributions to benefit plans, deferred compensation, and estimated other compensation are reported separately.

Financial Statements

The Statement of Revenue (Part VIII) on the full form breaks income into categories such as program service revenue, investment income, and unrelated business revenue. The Statement of Functional Expenses (Part IX) makes you allocate every expense across three columns: program services, management and general, and fundraising. The 990-EZ reports total expenses by line item without that functional split, which is the breakdown donors and watchdogs use most when they judge how a nonprofit spends its money.

Organizations That Must File the Full Form 990 Regardless of Size

Even if you sit well under the financial thresholds, certain organizations cannot use the 990-EZ. The full Form 990 is required from sponsoring organizations of donor-advised funds, organizations that operate hospital facilities, Section 501(c)(29) nonprofit health insurance issuers, and certain controlling organizations with subsidiaries more than 50% controlled under Section 512(b)(13) of the Internal Revenue Code.¹ Group returns also require the full Form 990. Controlling organizations, for example, must report loans, fund transfers, and payments of interest, royalties, or rent from controlled subsidiaries on Schedule R, and those transactions get special tax treatment.⁶

Schedules That Attach to Either Form

Both returns can trigger supplemental schedules based on what your organization did during the year. A handful catch filers who did not plan ahead.

Schedule A: Section 501(c)(3) organizations use it to show they qualify as a public charity, mainly by passing a public support test.⁷
Schedule B: reports contributors who gave $5,000 or more. Section 501(c)(3) and section 527 organizations must include names and addresses; most other exempt types no longer report names but still file the schedule and keep the records.⁸
Schedule G: required when fundraising events bring in more than $15,000 in combined gross receipts and contributions; each event over $5,000 in gross receipts must be listed individually.⁹
Schedule O: the catch-all attachment for narrative explanations that will not fit in the standard fields on either form.¹⁰

Other schedules cover foreign activities (Schedule F, triggered at $10,000 in foreign revenue or expenses), related-entity transactions (Schedule R), and other specialized situations.¹¹ Missing a required schedule counts as an incomplete return.

Deadline, Extension, and Electronic Filing

Both forms are due on the 15th day of the 5th month after the end of your organization’s tax year. Calendar-year filers owe the return by May 15.¹² Form 8868 grants an automatic six-month extension without any justification, pushing calendar-year filers to November 15. You can only get one such extension per return per year.¹³ The extension covers filing, not payment of any tax owed.¹⁴

Both forms must be filed electronically through an IRS-authorized e-file provider. Waivers are not available for Form 990 or Form 990-EZ.¹⁵

Penalties and Loss of Exempt Status

Filing late or submitting an incomplete return triggers a daily penalty. For organizations with gross receipts under $1,208,500, the penalty is $20 per day up to a maximum of $12,000 or 5% of gross receipts, whichever is less. Above that threshold, the rate rises to $120 per day with a maximum of $60,000.¹⁶ The same penalty applies to a return that is filed on time but leaves out required information or reports incorrect figures. If the IRS sends a written demand and the responsible person still does not comply, that individual is personally liable for $10 per day up to $5,000.¹⁷

Miss three consecutive years of required filings, whether the full 990, the 990-EZ, or the 990-N, and your tax-exempt status is revoked automatically. There is no warning letter and no discretion; the revocation happens by operation of law.¹⁶ Once revoked, the organization loses the ability to receive tax-deductible contributions, income may become taxable, and getting reinstated means filing a new exemption application, paying the user fee, and filing every missed return.¹⁸

One more thing worth planning around: whichever return you file, it becomes a public record. Your organization must also make its three most recent returns and its exemption application available on request, and it will appear on sites like GuideStar and ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer.¹⁹ Donors and journalists will read what you file, so the choice between the short form and the full form is not just about compliance workload, it is about how much of your operation you are describing to the public.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 990-EZ
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Internal Revenue Service. Annual Electronic Filing Requirement for Small Exempt Organizations – Form 990-N (e-Postcard)
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 990-EZ (2025) Short Form Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax
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eCFR. 26 CFR 1.6033-2 – Returns by Exempt Organizations
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 990-PF
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Internal Revenue Service. Exempt Organizations Annual Reporting Requirements – Form 990, Schedule R: Related Organization and Controlled Entity Reporting Differences
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Internal Revenue Service. Exempt Organizations Annual Reporting Requirements – Form 990, Schedules A and B: Maintaining Public Charity Status
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Schedule B (Form 990)
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Schedule G (Form 990)
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Internal Revenue Service. Schedule O (Form 990)
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Internal Revenue Service. Exempt Organizations Annual Reporting Requirements – Foreign Activities (Form 990, Schedule F): Activities Reported
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Internal Revenue Service. Exempt Organization Filing Requirements: Form 990 Due Date
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8868 (Rev. January 2026)
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Internal Revenue Service. Extension of Time to File Exempt Organization Returns
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Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 803, Electronic Filing Waivers or Exemptions and Filing Extensions
16
Internal Revenue Service. Exempt Organizations Annual Reporting Requirements – Filing Procedures: Late Filing of Annual Returns
17
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6652 – Failure to File Certain Information Returns, Registration Statements, Etc.
18
Internal Revenue Service. Automatic Revocation – How to Have Your Tax-Exempt Status Reinstated
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Internal Revenue Service. Public Disclosure and Availability of Exempt Organizations Returns and Applications: Penalties for Noncompliance