IRS Form 1023-EZ — Every Line, Explained

Form 1023-EZ is the streamlined section 501(c)(3) exemption application. This page hosts the official PDF, records what it asks line by line in the IRS’s own words, and cites the revision each reading came from.

Eligibility for Form 1023-EZ

Form 1023-EZ is open only to applicants that answer “No” to every question on the Form 1023-EZ Eligibility Worksheet in the instructions. The worksheet sits ahead of the form itself and is a screen rather than a preference: an applicant that answers “Yes” to any question applies on the full Form 1023 instead. The worksheet runs to thirty-four questions; the first five cover projected and historical gross receipts, total assets, and foreign formation or mailing address, and the IRS states them this way.

Do you project that your annual gross receipts will exceed $50,000 in any of the next 3 years?

— Instructions for Form 1023-EZ (Rev. 1-2025), Form 1023-EZ Eligibility Worksheet, official source (4a70163dccb8ffd1), checked 2026-09-15

Have your annual gross receipts exceeded $50,000 in any of the past 3 years?

— Instructions for Form 1023-EZ (Rev. 1-2025), Form 1023-EZ Eligibility Worksheet, official source (4a70163dccb8ffd1), checked 2026-09-15

Do you have total assets the fair market value of which is in excess of $250,000?

— Instructions for Form 1023-EZ (Rev. 1-2025), Form 1023-EZ Eligibility Worksheet, official source (4a70163dccb8ffd1), checked 2026-09-15

Were you formed under the laws of a foreign country (U.S. territories are not considered foreign countries)?

— Instructions for Form 1023-EZ (Rev. 1-2025), Form 1023-EZ Eligibility Worksheet, official source (4a70163dccb8ffd1), checked 2026-09-15

Is your mailing address in a foreign country (U.S. territories are not considered foreign countries)?

— Instructions for Form 1023-EZ (Rev. 1-2025), Form 1023-EZ Eligibility Worksheet, official source (4a70163dccb8ffd1), checked 2026-09-15

The worksheet is reproduced in full in the instructions linked above. Nothing on this page evaluates any organization against it.

Every line on Form 1023-EZ

The table below carries one row for every printed line of Form 1023-EZ that the Private Pierce form-fields store holds a publishable reading for — 42 lines across 6 Parts. Each row quotes the form’s own caption, names the kind of answer the line accepts, records the condition the instructions attach to it, and cites the document and line the reading came from.

Part I — Identification of Applicant

Part I collects who the applicant is and how the IRS reaches it: legal name, mailing address, employer identification number, accounting period, contact person, officers, and website. It holds 12 lines, more than any other Part of the form. Two of them are not preparer-entered at all — the user fee is populated by Pay.gov, and the email line is described in the instructions as a channel for IRS educational material rather than correspondence about the application.

Part II — Organizational Structure

Part II records what kind of legal entity the applicant is, when and where it was formed, and whether its organizing document carries the clauses section 501(c)(3) requires. Of its 7 lines, most are attestations rather than data entry: the applicant affirms that its organizing document limits its purposes, withholds power to engage in activities not in furtherance of those purposes, and permanently dedicates its assets to a section 501(c)(3) purpose. The organizing document itself is not attached to Form 1023-EZ.

Part III — Your Specific Activities

Part III is the substantive screen, and it is where the streamlined form does most of its work. It opens with a mission description capped at a character limit and an NTEE code, then runs 12 lines in total through the activity questions the Code cares about: exempt-purpose categories, prohibited and restricted activities, legislative influence, compensation to insiders, payments to individuals, activities outside the United States, financial transactions with officers, unrelated business income, gaming, and disaster relief. Each of those is a checkbox on the electronic form rather than a narrative.

Part IV — Foundation Classification

Part IV is where the applicant states the foundation classification it is claiming. Its 5 lines cover the church, school, and hospital classifications that Form 1023-EZ cannot be used for, the two public-support tests under sections 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) and 509(a)(2), the college and university support test, and an attestation for an applicant that will be classified as a private foundation.

Part V — Reinstatement After Automatic Revocation

Part V applies only to an organization whose exemption was automatically revoked for failing to file a required annual return or notice for three consecutive years. Its 2 lines correspond to two sections of Revenue Procedure 2014-11 — retroactive reinstatement under section 4, and reinstatement from the postmark date under section 7. An applicant that has never been revoked leaves the Part out of scope entirely.

Part VI — Signature

Part VI is the signature block, and the declaration made in it is a declaration under penalties of perjury. Its 4 lines are the perjury box, the typed name of the signer, that person’s title or authority, and the date. The instructions state that the signature must be accompanied by the title or authority of the signer and the date; this page does not go past that statement, because the question of authority inside a particular organization is a question for that organization’s own counsel.

The user fee

Form 1023-EZ carries a user fee that is paid to the IRS through Pay.gov at the moment of submission. Neither the printed form nor the instructions state the amount: the instructions direct readers to the IRS user-fee page for the current figure, and the form’s own fee line is populated by Pay.gov rather than by the preparer.

A user fee is required to process your application. This fee must be paid through Pay.gov when you file your application.

— Instructions for Form 1023-EZ (Rev. 1-2025), official source (4a70163dccb8ffd1), checked 2026-09-15

Pay.gov will populate this field with the current user fee for filing Form 1023-EZ.

— Instructions for Form 1023-EZ (Rev. 1-2025), official source (4a70163dccb8ffd1), checked 2026-09-15

That design is why this page shows no dollar figure for the fee. The amount is set by revenue procedure and changes without the form changing, so the only reliable rendering of it is the one Pay.gov performs at submission.

How Form 1023-EZ is filed

Form 1023-EZ is filed only through Pay.gov, and the IRS does not accept a printed copy of it. The application is an electronic questionnaire that presents the same Parts as the printed sheet; the PDF hosted at the top of this page is a reference and preparation copy of that printed sheet, which means it is useful for reading the form before filling the electronic version and cannot be filed on paper.

Form 1023-EZ can only be filed electronically by going to IRS.gov/Form1023EZ or Pay.gov (enter the term “Form 1023-EZ” in the search box). We will not accept printed copy submissions of the application.

— Instructions for Form 1023-EZ (Rev. 1-2025), official source (4a70163dccb8ffd1), checked 2026-09-15

The electronic application lives at https://www.pay.gov, where the instructions direct applicants to search the term “Form 1023-EZ”. Because the printed sheet was last revised in 6-2014 and the electronic questionnaire tracks the current instructions, the two are not line-for-line identical — the field matrix above marks the divergences in each row’s authority column.

Not legal or tax advice

Private Pierce publishes what this form asks, in the IRS’s own words, with the citation attached. It does not prepare, review, or file applications, and it does not evaluate any organization against the eligibility worksheet above.

• Private Pierce is not a law firm.
• Private Pierce does not provide legal advice.
• This page is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney.
• Private Pierce is not a tax return preparer and does not provide tax advice; nothing here is a substitute for the advice of a tax professional about your situation.

The companion page for the full application is IRS Form 1023, and the silo index is IRS Forms.