Three more states have joined the federal scholarship tax credit that starts on January 1, 2027, bringing the total to 30. The IRS list, current as of September 14, 2026, is up from 27 in the agency’s June announcement. The credit, created in Trump’s tax law, lets taxpayers in participating states give cash to scholarship groups and claim up to $1,700 back.
The IRS list of 30 participating states
The Federal Scholarship Tax Credit page, updated September 16, 2026, names the following states as participating as of September 14: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming. Counting the names gives 30, matching the total in the headline.
The IRS page keeps the list live, so it can change again. The states that appear on it are the only ones where the credit is available on the January 1 start date, unless the IRS adds others.
What changed since the June announcement
The comparison point is the IRS’s June 8, 2026 announcement, IR-2026-76, which listed 27 states: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming. IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano said at the time: “It’s encouraging to see that 27 states have already signed up to participate in this program.”
Setting the two lists side by side shows three additions: Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina. No state on the June list has left the September one. Thirty minus 27 is three, and the three names account for the whole difference. The pace between June and mid-September is a little under one new state per month.
For the three newest entries, Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina, the timetable is short. The credit starts on January 1, 2027, roughly three months after the date of the IRS update, and the same page says a state’s list of scholarship organizations must reach the IRS before any donation in that state can earn the credit. The June-to-September growth from 27 to 30 shows the election process still moving while the start date approaches.
The credit itself
The IRS describes the credit in careful terms: “Individual taxpayers may be able to claim a Federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC) for certain cash contributions up to $1,700 to Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs),” beginning Jan. 1, 2027. The Education Commission of the States, a policy group, describes it as a “dollar-for-dollar tax credit of up to $1,700.” Dollar-for-dollar means the credit reduces the tax bill directly, unlike a deduction. The IRS page as read does not say whether the credit is refundable or allows a carryforward, so those questions remain open in the sources used here.
The ECS analysis, dated May 20, 2026, adds that the scholarships go to students whose family income is below 300 percent of gross area median income. That is a rule about who can receive the scholarships, and it is separate from who can claim the credit.
A state’s opt-in is only the first step
Being on the list does not by itself open the door for donors. The IRS states that “a state or the District of Columbia (state) must choose to participate in the FSTC and provide a list of SGOs in that state to the IRS before an individual taxpayer can donate to an SGO within that state and claim the FSTC.” So a state has to complete two things: the election and the list of scholarship groups. The December 2025 IRS announcement that opened the advance election process refers to Form 15714, titled as the advance election to participate under Section 25F for 2027.
The June release says the IRS will keep an updated list of participating states as they finish “the required election and submission process.” A taxpayer in a listed state therefore has a further step to watch: whether that state’s list of scholarship organizations has reached the IRS.
States that have said no
Not every state is on the list. The ECS analysis reports that the governors of Minnesota and Wisconsin have said their states will not participate. Neither Minnesota nor Wisconsin appears on the September 14 list. Only 30 of the 50 states are named, so 20 are absent as of that date, and the District of Columbia is also absent.
The subtraction is the same one that anchors the headline. Fifty states minus 30 leaves 20 states, some of which may still opt in and some of which have said they will not. The IRS list is the source that decides which side a given state falls on.
The controlling source is the IRS page itself: its September 14, 2026 list has 30 states, its credit language runs up to $1,700 starting Jan. 1, 2027, and its June predecessor, IR-2026-76, counted 27.
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This article was prepared with AI assistance, and the state list and figures were checked against the IRS pages cited above.
