IRS Form 1023 — Every Line, Explained

Form 1023 is the full 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 across every Part and every Schedule, and cites the revision each reading came from.

Eligibility and who files Form 1023

Form 1023 is the application every section 501(c)(3) applicant uses unless it is eligible for the streamlined Form 1023-EZ and chooses it. There is no size floor, no size ceiling, and no eligibility worksheet attached to Form 1023 — the screening runs the other direction, on the short form. Churches, schools, hospitals, supporting organizations, and applicants seeking retroactive reinstatement are among those the streamlined form does not cover, so they arrive here.

Organizations requesting recognition of tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3) must complete and submit their Form 1023 (or Form 1023-EZ, if eligible) applications electronically (including paying the correct user fee) using Pay.gov.

— Instructions for Form 1023 (Rev. 12-2024), official source (63eb528189ab4a04), checked 2026-09-15

The eligibility test for the streamlined alternative is set out, with its own citations, on the Form 1023-EZ page. Nothing on either page evaluates an organization against it.

Every line on Form 1023

The table below carries one row for every printed line of Form 1023 that the Private Pierce form-fields store holds a publishable reading for — 309 lines across 18 Parts and Schedules, of which 182 lines sit in the 8 conditional schedules. 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 who may speak for it: legal name, mailing address, employer identification number, accounting period, primary contact, authorized representative, paid non-representative advisors, officers and directors, website, and email. Its 15 lines include two that are about representation rather than identity — an authorized representative requires Form 2848 to accompany the application, and a paid advisor who is not an officer or representative is disclosed with the amount paid and the role performed.

Part II — Organizational Structure

Part II records what kind of legal entity the applicant is and when and where it was formed. Across its 6 lines the form asks for the entity type and its organizing document, the controlling formation date, whether the applicant was formed under the laws of a foreign country, whether bylaws have been adopted, and whether the applicant is a successor to another organization. A successor answer routes the applicant to Schedule G; unlike Form 1023-EZ, the organizing document is attached.

Part III — Required Provisions in Your Organizing Document

Part III is the organizational test, run against the applicant’s own organizing document rather than against its plans. Its 5 lines pair two attestations — a purpose clause limited to section 501(c)(3) purposes and a dissolution clause dedicating remaining assets to such a purpose — with a citation into the document itself by page, article, and paragraph. An applicant relying on state law for the dissolution provision instead names the state on a separate line, which the instructions make mutually exclusive with the express-provision box.

Part IV — Your Activities

Part IV is the substantive description of what the applicant does, and it is the longest narrative section of the form. Its 19 lines open with a narrative description of past, present, and planned activities and then run a sequence of questions on the activities the Code restricts or reports on: political campaign intervention, legislative influence, fundraising arrangements, foreign operations and grants, donor advised funds, and operations conducted jointly with other organizations. Most are checkboxes whose “Yes” answers each attach their own explanation requirement.

Part V — Compensation and Other Financial Arrangements

Part V examines the flow of money between the applicant and its insiders. Its 10 lines cover compensation to officers, directors, trustees, and the highest-compensated employees and contractors, the procedures used to set that compensation, whether a conflict-of-interest policy has been adopted, and whether the applicant has or plans other financial arrangements with the same people. The instructions define “highest compensated” by a dollar threshold and count compensation from related organizations toward it; the threshold itself is quoted in the matrix row rather than restated here.

Part VI — Financial Data

Part VI is the financial statement portion of the application, and it is the largest Part by line count. Its 43 lines split into a statement of revenues and expenses and a balance sheet, with the number of years of data required determined by how long the applicant has existed. Nearly every line is a currency figure, which is why this Part dominates the matrix above even though it asks comparatively few distinct questions.

Part VII — Foundation Classification

Part VII is where the applicant states the classification it is requesting: private foundation, private operating foundation, or one of the public charity classifications under section 509(a). Its 21 lines are structured as a single selection followed by the support-test and schedule consequences that selection triggers. The choice made here is what decides which later lines and schedules the Pay.gov application presents.

Part VIII — Effective Date

Part VIII asks a single question, and the answer decides whether recognition can run from the date of formation. The line is whether the application falls outside the instructions’ late-filing window (quoted under Schedule E); the instructions derive it from the formation date in Part II against the submission date, and a “Yes” requires Schedule E.

Part IX — Annual Filing Requirement

Part IX asks a single question about the applicant’s ongoing annual return obligation. The line records whether the applicant claims an exception from filing an annual information return; the instructions attach an explanation requirement to a “Yes” answer. It is the shortest Part of the form and the only one that looks past recognition to what happens after it.

Part X — Signature

Part X is the signature block, and the declaration made in it is a declaration under penalties of perjury. Its 6 lines are the perjury declaration, the signature, the typed or printed name of the signer, that person’s title or authority, the date, and the single consolidated PDF of attachments the application uploads. This page names the perjury character of the declaration and stops there, because the question of authority inside a particular organization is a question for that organization’s own counsel.

Schedule A — Churches

Schedule A is completed by an applicant claiming to be a church, a convention or association of churches, or an integrated auxiliary. Its 26 lines walk the attributes the IRS uses to identify a church in practice — a creed and form of worship, a distinct ecclesiastical government, a congregation, ordained ministers, established places of worship, regular services, and schools for religious instruction — and ask for the facts behind each. No single answer is dispositive on the form’s face.

Schedule B — Schools, Colleges, and Universities

Schedule B is completed by an applicant operating a school, college, or university as a substantial activity. Its 21 lines cover the faculty, curriculum, enrolled student body, and facilities that make an organization a school, and then turn to the racially nondiscriminatory policy the IRS requires: its adoption, its publication, and the records kept to demonstrate it.

Schedule C — Hospitals and Medical Research Organizations

Schedule C is completed by a hospital or by a medical research organization operated in conjunction with one. Its 31 lines are the longest run of any schedule and cover emergency room policy, the medical staff admitting-privileges arrangement, financial assistance and charity care, billing and collection practices, community health needs assessment obligations, and the research activity and endowment arrangements specific to a medical research organization.

Schedule D — Section 509(a)(3) Supporting Organizations

Schedule D is completed by an applicant requesting classification as a supporting organization under section 509(a)(3). Its 23 lines identify the supported organizations, establish which of the three relationship types the applicant claims — operated, supervised, or controlled by; supervised or controlled in connection with; or operated in connection with — and test the control, responsiveness, and integral-part requirements attached to the type claimed.

Schedule E — Organizations Not Filing Form 1023 Within 27 Months of Formation

Schedule E is completed only by an applicant filing after the instructions’ formation window, quoted below, and it governs the date recognition takes effect. Its 11 lines run the exceptions in order — church status, small gross receipts, inclusion in a group exemption, formation before October 9, 1969 — and then the request for an extension of time and the consequence if none applies. The matrix also carries the two automatic-revocation reinstatement lines that exist only in the electronic question set and not on the printed Schedule E.

Generally, if you didn’t file Form 1023 within 27 months of formation, the effective date of your exempt status will be the date you filed Form 1023 (submission date).

— Instructions for Form 1023 (Rev. 12-2024), official source (63eb528189ab4a04), checked 2026-09-15

Schedule F — Homes for the Elderly or Handicapped and Low-Income Housing

Schedule F is completed by an applicant providing housing for the elderly, for handicapped persons, or for low-income occupants. Its 29 lines describe the facility and its residents, the fee structure and how residents unable to pay are treated, the arrangements for health care and for continuing occupancy, and, for low-income housing, the income limits the applicant uses and the public programs it participates in.

Schedule G — Successors to Other Organizations

Schedule G is completed by an applicant that has taken over, or will take over, the activities or assets of another organization. Its 16 lines identify the predecessor and its exempt or for-profit history, describe the assets and liabilities transferred and the terms of the transfer, and ask about continuing relationships with the predecessor’s officers, directors, and owners.

Schedule H — Scholarships, Fellowships, and Educational Grants to Individuals

Schedule H is completed by an applicant making scholarships, fellowships, educational loans, or other educational grants to individuals, and by a private foundation seeking advance approval of its individual grant procedures. Its 25 lines cover the selection criteria and the group from which recipients are drawn, the selection committee and its relationship to donors, the supervision and record-keeping applied after an award, and the section 4945(g) advance-approval request itself.

The user fee

Form 1023 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 point to the revenue procedure that sets user fees for the current figure, and the form’s own fee line is populated by Pay.gov rather than by the preparer.

The law requires payment of a user fee with each application.

— Instructions for Form 1023 (Rev. 12-2024), official source (63eb528189ab4a04), checked 2026-09-15

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

— Instructions for Form 1023 (Rev. 12-2024), official source (63eb528189ab4a04), 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. The fee for Form 1023 and the fee for Form 1023-EZ are set separately.

How Form 1023 is filed

Form 1023 is filed only through Pay.gov, and the IRS has not accepted paper versions since the grace period that followed the January 2020 changeover closed. The application is an electronic questionnaire that presents the same Parts and Schedules 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.

As of January 31, 2020, the IRS requires that Form 1023 applications for recognition of exemption be submitted electronically online at Pay.gov.

— Instructions for Form 1023 (Rev. 12-2024), official source (63eb528189ab4a04), checked 2026-09-15

Pay.gov can accommodate only one uploaded file.

— Instructions for Form 1023 (Rev. 12-2024), official source (63eb528189ab4a04), checked 2026-09-15

The electronic application lives at https://www.pay.gov, where the instructions direct applicants to search the term “Form 1023”. Attachments are consolidated into a single PDF, because Pay.gov accepts one uploaded file. Because the printed sheet was last revised in 12-2017 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 classifications or schedules described 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 streamlined application is IRS Form 1023-EZ, and the silo index is IRS Forms.