Estimated reading time: 28 minute(s)
Every tax-exempt organization’s Form 990 is a public document, and you can read almost all of them online for free. Whether you’re a donor vetting a charity, a grant researcher, a journalist, or a brand-new board member or treasurer checking whether your own nonprofit has actually filed, this guide walks through the five best free tools that are publicly available for a 990 search, how to use each one, and — just as important — what each tool can’t show you.
A note on transparency: one of the five tools below, 990 Explorer, is built by Tax990. We’ve included it alongside the others with the same treatment, limitations and all.
Firstly, What Is Form 990 and Why Is It Public?
Form 990 is the annual information return most tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS. It reports revenue, expenses, governance, and executive compensation. Under Internal Revenue Code Section 6104, exempt organizations must make these returns available for public inspection. That legal requirement is why a free 990 lookup is possible at all.
A few terms you’ll meet along the way:
- EIN — the Employer Identification Number, a nine-digit IRS ID unique to each organization. Searching by EIN is always the fastest and most accurate method.
- Form 990-N (e-Postcard) — a simplified filing for small organizations with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less.
- Schedule B — the schedule listing substantial donors.
Tool 1: 990 Explorer
Best for: plain-language nonprofit profiles and discovery when you don’t already know which organization you’re looking for.
990 Explorer is a free nonprofit organization lookup tool and Form 990 finder built on verified IRS filing data. Its distinguishing feature is that profiles are generated automatically by AI from an organization’s 990 filings — a nonprofit doesn’t have to claim, build, or maintain anything for its information to appear. Small organizations with $50,000 or less in revenue that file Form 990-N (e-postcard) are also listed.
It’s also built around a different question than the other tools. TEOS and ProPublica assume you know which organization you want. 990 Explorer is organized for browsing by type, category, and geography, including a view of well-performing organizations near you — designed for donors who are looking for places to give.
How to use it:
- Go to explorer.tax990.com.
- Search by EIN to jump straight to one organization, or by name or phrase. Partial names work — “habitat” will surface Habitat for Humanity affiliates.
- Add a city or state to narrow results, and spell names out rather than using acronyms (“Doctors Without Borders” rather than the initials).
- Open a profile to review the organization’s IRS filing data and financial details.
What it can’t show you: Like every tool on this list, it can only show what the IRS has released publicly. If the IRS has not published information about a nonprofit, it will not be reflected here.
Tool 2: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer
Best for: fast, readable browsing, and full-text search across millions of returns. A primary resource for journalists.
ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer turns the IRS’s machine-readable XML into clean, readable pages. It’s free, with no registration required, and it’s the nonprofit explorer most journalists reach for first.
How to use it:
- Go to projects.propublica.org/nonprofits.
- Search by name or EIN, or run a full-text search across e-filed documents — useful for finding every organization that listed a particular grantee on Schedule I.
- Open an organization for year-by-year financial summaries, plus the full return as a readable page, a PDF, and raw XML.
- Use the subscribe option on an organization’s page to get an email when a new filing posts.
What it can’t show you: Organizations that file only the 990-N e-Postcard are not included, coverage is limited to Forms 990, 990-EZ, and 990-PF. Digitized data starts with filings processed in 2012, amended returns may not be reflected, and there’s a real lag between filing and publication.
Tool 3: Candid (GuideStar)
Best for: organizational context — mission, leadership, financial trends, and transparency Seals.
GuideStar is now part of Candid, which in January 2026 launched a unified search platform covering roughly 1.9 million organizations. A free tier remains: registering at no cost gives you up to three years of Forms 990, current-year revenue and expense data, and CEO, board chair, and board member information.
How to use it:
- Register a free account at guidestar.org or candid.org.
- Search by name or EIN.
- Review the profile — 990s, financials, leadership, and any Seal of Transparency the organization has earned.
What it can’t show you: The deepest features like comprehensive grants data, funder recommendations, peer benchmarking — sit behind paid subscriptions. Because nonprofits can voluntarily add information, a rich profile reflects an organization’s own transparency efforts rather than IRS data alone. Copies of Form 990 obtained through GuideStar don’t include Schedule B.
Tool 4: IRS: Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS)
Best for: confirming tax-exempt status and deductibility — the authoritative first stop for any IRS nonprofit search or IRS charity lookup.
TEOS is the official IRS tool and the definitive source on whether an organization is currently recognized as tax-exempt. It combines five separate databases:
- Publication 78 Data — organizations currently eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions.
- Auto-Revocation List — organizations that lost exempt status for not filing for three consecutive years.
- Determination Letters — the IRS letters recognizing exempt status, for letters issued January 2014 or later.
- Form 990-N (e-Postcard) filings.
- Copies of Returns — images of electronically filed Forms 990, 990-EZ, 990-PF, and 990-T.
How to use it:
- Go to the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search page on irs.gov.
- Search by EIN (best) or organization name, narrowing by city or state to cut duplicates.
- Open the result to see status, deductibility, the determination letter, and any available return copies.
What it can’t show you: TEOS holds return copies for filings the IRS received in 2017 or later, so older returns aren’t there. The data is not real-time — bulk datasets refresh monthly, and the IRS advises allowing up to four weeks for a 990-N to appear. Schedule B donor details are redacted for most filers, and subordinate organizations under a group exemption may not appear as separate results
Tool 5: IRS Form 990 Series Downloads (Bulk Data)
Best for: researchers and developers analyzing thousands of organizations at once.
If you need data at scale rather than one organization at a time, the IRS publishes bulk XML downloads of e-filed 990-series returns, organized by year and month. This massive dataset can be difficult to open in standard versions of spreadsheet programs like Excel or Google Sheets.
Worth knowing: the IRS previously hosted this data on Amazon Web Services but discontinued those updates at the end of 2021. The current official home is the Form 990 series downloads page on irs.gov.
How to use it:
- Go to the IRS Form 990 series downloads page.
- Download the annual index (CSV) to map organizations to filing IDs.
- Download the ZIP archives of XML returns and parse them with your own scripts.
What it can’t show you: This is raw XML, not built for casual use. It covers electronically filed returns only. Form 990-N data sits in a separate dataset, donor information and certain identifying numbers are redacted, and Schedule B is excluded from the 990 and 990-EZ data, though included for 990-PF.
Quick Comparison: 5 Form 990 Finder Tools
| Tool | Best for | Coverage | Free? | Key limitation |
| IRS TEOS | Confirming exempt status and deductibility | 5 databases; return copies 2017+ | Yes | Monthly refresh, not real-time |
| ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer | Readable browsing and full-text search | 990, 990-EZ, 990-PF from 2012+ | Yes, no login | Excludes 990-N filers |
| Candid (GuideStar) | Mission, leadership, financial context | ~1.9M orgs; 3 years of 990s free | Free tier | Best features are paid; no Schedule B |
| 990 Explorer | Auto-built profiles; cause and location discovery | IRS 990-series filing data | Yes | Standard lag applies after IRS publication |
| IRS Bulk Downloads | Large-scale data analysis | E-filed XML by year and month | Yes | Raw XML; e-filed returns only |
Most people don’t need to pick just one. Confirm status in TEOS, read the numbers in ProPublica or 990 Explorer, and check Candid for governance context.
Didn’t Find Your Own Organization’s Return? Here’s What That Means
If you’re a board member or new treasurer and your organization isn’t showing up, work through these explanations in order:
- Publication lag. The most common and least alarming reason. Return images generally become available within 6 to 12 weeks of e-filing, and third-party sites add more delay. Measured from fiscal year-end, total lag can stretch to 12–18 months.
- Wrong EIN, or a name variant. Always search by EIN when you have it. If you searched for a “doing business as” name, note that DBA names generally don’t appear in the Publication 78 dataset.
- Your organization files the 990-N e-Postcard. e-Postcards appear separately and aren’t in ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer at all. Check TEOS specifically, and allow up to four weeks after filing.
- No one actually filed. If no return was filed for the year in question, there’s nothing to find. Confirm who was responsible and file as soon as possible.
- Your organization was auto-revoked. Miss the required 990-series filing for three consecutive years and the IRS automatically revokes exempt status under IRC Section 6033(j), effective on the due date of the third missed return. If you find your organization on the Auto-Revocation List, you’ll need to apply for reinstatement using Form 1023, 1023-EZ, 1024, or 1024-A with the applicable user fee, typically with a reasonable-cause statement.
One detail that trips people up: appearing on the Auto-Revocation List is permanent, even after reinstatement. A reinstated organization stays on the historical list; its determination letter simply carries a new effective date on or after the revocation date.
The Bottom Line
A 990 search is genuinely free, and no single tool does everything. Start with TEOS to confirm status, use 990 Explorer or ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer to actually read the numbers, and check Candid for governance and leadership context. If you’re checking your own organization and come up empty, walk the five explanations above — it’s usually just publication lag, but auto-revocation is the one you can’t afford to overlook.
To get started, check https://explorer.tax990.com/
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