501c3 Application Status

Section 501(c)(3) allows nonprofits to carry the tax-exempt status. If you, as a nonprofit, applied for the tax-exempt status, know that the application takes some time to process, and the organization won’t get the tax-exempt status right away. 

If you’re waiting for your application to be approved and want to keep yourself in the loop with the IRS updates, there isn’t much you can do. It’s not like the Internal Revenue Service has a tool where you can look up the status of your application like you do with your refund status.

Nonetheless, there are a few things you can do to ask the whereabouts of your application to the Internal Revenue Service. 

Check your acknowledgment notice

Check to see if you received an acknowledgment notice. After submitting the tax-exempt status application, the Internal Revenue Service will send you an acknowledgment notice to tell you that the agency received your application and will begin processing.

If you haven’t received this yet, know that the application hasn’t gone through completely yet. 

Exempt organizations specialists reviewing the application

Once you receive the acknowledgment notice, it means that the Internal Revenue Service has started reviewing your application. In addition to this, this means an exempt organizations specialist will begin reviewing your application.

There is one thing to keep in mind about this, though. The Internal Revenue Service announces dates for postmarking whether or not the applications submitted after a specific date have been assigned to an exempt organizations specialist yet.

The IRS announces the dates on this page of the agency’s website. Note that the applications submitted through Form 1023-EZ are processed a lot quicker than Forms 1023, 1024, 1024-A, and 8940. Depending on your eligibility, we highly recommend submitting your application with 1023-A. Learn more about tax-exempt tax forms.