With 2026 just a few days away, charities are engaged in the usual end-of-year push to get Americans to support their favorite causes.
From food banks to pet rescues to disaster recovery organizations, charitable groups report giving is up this year and is likely to climb in the final days before new Internal Revenue Service rules kick in and change the incentives for taxpayers.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law in July made significant changes to how donors’ charitable contributions affect their taxes. Here’s what you need to know about charitable giving deductions starting in 2026:
What is changing for taxpayers who do not itemize their deductions
Starting in 2026, individual taxpayers who take the standard deduction and do not itemize will be able to claim a $1,000 write-off for charitable donations. Couples filing jointly will be able to claim $2,000.
While the 2020 CARES Act briefly allowed for a $300 deduction on charitable donations during the COVID-19 pandemic, non-itemizing taxpayers who take the standard deduction have not been able to write off charitable donations on their tax returns since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
That change led to roughly $30 billion less in charitable giving, Charity Navigator CEO Michael Thatcher told Spectrum News.
The new universal deduction for charitable donations, he said, “is really meant to give everyone a chance to support the causes they care about.”
About 86% of taxpayers are expected to take the standard deduction in 2026, according to the nonpartisan nonprofit Tax Foundation.
The Giving USA Foundation expects the change to reenergize donations among small- and mid-level givers who now have a financial incentive to contribute.
What is changing for taxpayers who itemize deductions
For individuals who itemize their deductions, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act imposes a new floor on charitable contribution deductions. Donations that are less than 0.5% of a taxpayer’s adjusted gross income are no longer deductible, but anything over that amount will be.
“It incentivizes being more generous,” Thatcher said. “You can’t just give a little bit. You’ve got to give more.”
The new law also limits the tax benefit of itemized charitable donation deductions for ultra-high-net-worth individuals in the highest tax bracket to 35 cents per dollar instead of the current rate of 37 cents per dollar.
Giving USA expects the change to prompt some donors to lump multiple years’ worth of donations into a single year to claim a higher deduction and others to delay their gifts.
What is changing for corporations’ charitable giving donations
The law imposes a 1% floor on corporations’ charitable contributions. Like individual taxpayers who itemize, donations that are less than 1% of a corporation’s taxable income are no longer deductible, but anything over that amount will be. Previously, there was no minimum on corporate charitable giving to be able to claim a deduction.
Like itemizing individual taxpayers, Giving USA said corporations that currently give less than 1% are also likely to scale back or lump their charitable gifts.
The bottom line
The Tax Foundation estimates the changes will increase giving from non-itemizing taxpayers but reduce it for high-income individuals and corporations, resulting in “a near wash in terms of the overall revenue effects,” it said in a statement.