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Contributions You Can’t Deduct: Charitable Deductions (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Contributions You Can’t Deduct” within charitable deductions. The following material presents the IRS treatment of this topic, including the qualifications, exceptions, and examples in the source section. Read the rules alongside the facts of your own situation before deciding what to report, deduct, or document.

Adapted from Publication 526 (2025), Charitable Contributions, published by the Internal Revenue Service. This guide retains the source edition’s years, amounts, deadlines, and examples. It is guidance for that edition, not a statement that the same figures apply to every tax year.

Contributions You Can’t Deduct

There are some contributions you can’t deduct and others you can deduct only in part.

You can’t deduct as a charitable contribution:

A contribution to a specific individual;
A contribution to a nonqualified organization;
The part of a contribution from which you receive or expect to receive a benefit;
The value of your time or services;
Your personal expenses;
Generally, a qualified charitable distribution from an individual retirement arrangement (IRA); see Qualified Charitable Distributions, later.
Appraisal fees;
Certain contributions to donor-advised funds;
Certain contributions of partial interests in property;
Certain conservation contributions by pass-through entities. See Instructions for Form 8283 for more information.

Detailed discussions of these items follow.

Contributions to Individuals

You can’t deduct contributions to specific individuals, including the following.

Contributions to fraternal societies made for the purpose of paying medical or burial expenses of members.
Contributions to individuals who are needy or worthy. You can’t deduct these contributions even if you make them to a qualified organization for the benefit of a specific person. But you can deduct a contribution to a qualified organization that helps needy or worthy individuals if you don’t indicate that your contribution is for a specific person.

Example. You can deduct contributions to a qualified organization for flood relief, hurricane relief, or other disaster relief. However, you can’t deduct contributions earmarked for relief of a particular individual or family.
Payments to a member of the clergy that can be spent as they wish, such as for personal expenses.
Expenses you paid for another person who provided services to a qualified organization.

Example. Your child does missionary work. You pay their expenses. You can’t claim a deduction for the expenses you paid related to their contribution of services.
Payments to a hospital that are for a specific patient’s care or for services for a specific patient. You can’t deduct these payments even if the hospital is operated by a city, state, or other qualified organization.

Contributions to Nonqualified Organizations

You can’t deduct contributions to organizations that aren’t qualified to receive tax-deductible contributions, including the following.

Certain state bar associations if:
1. The bar isn’t a political subdivision of a state;
2. The bar has private, as well as public, purposes, such as promoting the professional interests of members; and
3. Your contribution is unrestricted and can be used for private purposes.
Chambers of commerce and other business leagues or organizations.
Civic leagues and associations.
Country clubs and other social clubs.
Foreign organizations other than certain Canadian, Israeli, or Mexican charitable organizations. (See Canadian charities, Mexican charities, and Israeli charities under Organizations That Qualify To Receive Deductible Contributions, earlier.) Also, you can’t deduct a contribution you made to any qualifying organization if the contribution is earmarked to go to a foreign organization. However, certain contributions to a qualified organization for use in a program conducted by a foreign charity may be deductible as long as they aren’t earmarked to go to the foreign charity. For the contribution to be deductible, the qualified organization must approve the program as furthering its own exempt purposes and must keep control over the use of the contributed funds. The contribution is also deductible if the foreign charity is only an administrative arm of the qualified organization.
Homeowners’ associations.
Labor unions.
Political organizations and candidates.

Contributions From Which You Benefit

If you receive or expect to receive a financial or economic benefit as a result of making a contribution to a qualified organization, you can’t deduct the part of the contribution that represents the value of the benefit you receive. See Contributions From Which You Benefit under Contributions You Can Deduct, earlier. These contributions include the following.

Contributions to a college or university if the amount paid is to (or for the benefit of) a college or university in exchange for tickets (or the right to buy tickets) to an athletic event in an athletic stadium of the college or university.
Contributions from which you receive or expect to receive a credit or deduction against state or local taxes unless an exception applies. See State or local tax credit and State or local tax deduction, earlier.
Contributions for lobbying. This includes amounts you earmark for use in, or in connection with, influencing specific legislation.
Contributions to a retirement home for room, board, maintenance, or admittance. Also, if the amount of your contribution depends on the type or size of apartment you will occupy, it isn’t a charitable contribution.
Costs of raffles, bingo, lottery, etc. You can’t deduct as a charitable contribution amounts you pay to buy raffle or lottery tickets or to play bingo or other games of chance. For information on how to report gambling winnings and losses, see Expenses You Can Deduct in Pub. 529.
Dues to fraternal orders and similar groups. However, see Membership fees or dues under Contributions From Which You Benefit, earlier.
Tuition, or amounts you pay instead of tuition. You can’t deduct as a charitable contribution amounts you pay as tuition even if you pay them for children to attend parochial schools or qualifying nonprofit daycare centers. You also can’t deduct any fixed amount you must pay in addition to, or instead of, tuition to enroll in a private school, even if it is designated as a “donation.”
Contributions connected with split-dollar insurance arrangements. You can’t deduct any part of a contribution to a qualified organization if, in connection with the contribution, the organization directly or indirectly pays, has paid, or is expected to pay any premium on any life insurance, annuity, or endowment contract for which you, any member of your family, or any other person chosen by you (other than a qualified charitable organization) is a beneficiary.

Example. You donate money to a qualified organization. The charity uses the money to purchase a cash value life insurance policy. The beneficiaries under the insurance policy include members of your family. Even though the charity may eventually get some benefit out of the insurance policy, you can’t deduct any part of the donation.

Qualified Charitable Distributions

A qualified charitable distribution (QCD) is a distribution made directly by the trustee of your individual retirement arrangement (IRA), other than an ongoing SEP or SIMPLE IRA, to certain qualified organizations. You must have been at least age 70½ when the distribution was made. Your total QCDs for the year can’t be more than $108,000. If all the requirements are met, a QCD may be nontaxable; however, if the QCD is nontaxable, you can’t claim it as a charitable contribution deduction. See the Instructions for Form 1040 and Pub. 590-B, Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs), for more information about QCDs.

Qualified charitable distribution one-time election.

You can elect to make a one-time distribution of up to $54,000 from an individual retirement arrangement. This one-time distribution may be made through a charitable remainder annuity trust, a charitable remainder unitrust, or a charitable gift annuity if it is funded only by qualified charitable distributions. For more information, see the Instructions for Form 1040 and Pub. 590-B.

Value of Time or Services

You can’t deduct the value of your time or services, including:

Blood donations to the American Red Cross or to blood banks, and
The value of income lost while you work as an unpaid volunteer for a qualified organization.

Personal Expenses

You can’t deduct personal, living, or family expenses, such as the following items.

The cost of meals you eat while you perform services for a qualified organization, unless it is necessary for you to be away from home overnight while performing the services.
Adoption expenses, including fees paid to an adoption agency and the costs of keeping a child in your home before the adoption is final. However, you may be able to claim a tax credit for these expenses. Also, you may be able to exclude from your gross income amounts paid or reimbursed by your employer for your adoption expenses. See Form 8839, Qualified Adoption Expenses, and its instructions, for more information.

Appraisal Fees

You can’t deduct as a charitable contribution any fees you pay to find the FMV of donated property.

Contributions to Donor-Advised Funds

You can’t deduct a contribution to a donor-advised fund if:

The qualified organization that sponsors the fund is a war veterans’ organization, a fraternal society, or a nonprofit cemetery company; or
You don’t have a contemporaneous written acknowledgment from that sponsoring organization that it has exclusive legal control over the assets contributed.

There are also other circumstances in which you can’t deduct your contribution to a donor-advised fund.

Generally, a donor-advised fund is a fund or account in which a donor can, because of being a donor, advise the fund how to distribute or invest amounts held in the fund. For details, see Internal Revenue Code section 170(f)(18).

Partial Interest in Property

Generally, you can’t deduct a contribution of less than your entire interest in property. For details, see Partial Interest in Property under Contributions of Property, later.

Using the guidance

Keep the documents that establish the dates, amounts, and circumstances described above. References to other chapters, forms, worksheets, or earlier and later sections refer to the linked IRS publication. Check the full publication and its updates before relying on a rule for a different tax year or a situation not addressed here.

Sources and further reading

Publication 526 (2025), Charitable Contributions: Contributions You Can’t Deduct — Internal Revenue Service; 2025 edition.

The cited U.S. government text is in the public domain. Source accessed October 28, 2026. Fynoptic has organized this material for educational use and is independent of, and not endorsed by, the IRS.

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