Governor Brian Kemp signed Georgia into the federal §25F scholarship tax credit on January 20, 2026, letting donors stack a new federal credit of up to $1,700 per taxpayer on top of one of the nation's largest state tax-credit scholarship programs starting in 2027.
Governor Brian Kemp (R) signed an IRS form at the state Capitol on January 20, 2026, opting Georgia into the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit (§25F), joining roughly fifteen other states that have made the election so far. The move matters more in Georgia than in most states because Georgia already runs one of the country's largest tax-credit scholarship programs: the Georgia Qualified Education Expense Tax Credit, which carries a $100 million annual cap and cost the state about $88.8 million in FY2025. The state credit gives donors up to $2,500 as individuals and up to $5,000 for married couples filing jointly, dollar-for-dollar against their Georgia tax. With Kemp's signature, Georgia donors will be able to layer the new federal credit on top of that mature state machinery beginning in 2027.
The mechanics are what make Georgia a launchpad rather than a duplicate. The federal §25F credit is worth up to $1,700 per taxpayer, claimed dollar-for-dollar for contributions to a qualifying Scholarship Granting Organization, and it becomes available beginning January 1, 2027. Georgia GOAL, the state's largest scholarship organization, administers the federal program through a separate entity it calls the American GOAL Scholarship Program, so a Georgia household can give to Georgia GOAL for the state credit and to American GOAL for the federal credit, claiming each on the corresponding return. The two credits are distinct programs with distinct rules: Georgia's $100 million figure is an aggregate statewide cap that fills up each year, while the federal program's overall volume is not capped the same way, even though each individual donor's federal credit tops out at $1,700. Federal scholarships are also means-tested, limited to families earning under 300% of area median income, a broad band that still narrows who the federal dollars can ultimately serve.
For donors, the headline is the stacking. A married couple in Georgia that already maxes the $5,000 state credit can, in 2027, also direct contributions toward the federal credit and capture up to $1,700 per taxpayer on their federal return, two separate dollar-for-dollar offsets feeding scholarships under two different eligibility frameworks. We walk through how a state credit and the federal credit interact, and where they do not double-count, in our explainer on the federal credit versus state tax credits. One caution worth flagging: GOAL's materials have floated a “potentially $3,400 for married couples” federal figure, but the joint cap under §25F is unsettled and the prevailing reading is $1,700 per taxpayer, a point we examine in our look at what the statute already settles. Treat $1,700 per taxpayer as the working number until Treasury says otherwise.
The structural lesson for SGO operators is the same one playing out in Florida, where Step Up For Students stood up a dedicated federal entity rather than retrofit its state vehicle: GOAL is running the federal program through a separate organization, American GOAL, instead of bolting §25F onto the SGO that handles Georgia's state credit. Keeping the federal arm legally distinct insulates its compliance posture, accounting, and donor reporting from the state program's rules, and it lets the organization meet the federal 90% scholarship floor and means-testing requirements on their own terms. Operators mapping the same decision can study the participating organizations on our Georgia state page, compare structures across the national SGO directory, and review the build-versus-retrofit tradeoffs in our guide to starting an SGO. Running a clean, purpose-built federal SGO is largely an operations problem, which is why a growing number of operators are standing up programs on software written for §25F from the start.
Georgia's opt-in is a preview of how mature school-choice states will absorb §25F: not by replacing their existing programs, but by bolting a federal layer onto them and letting incumbents like GOAL run both arms in parallel. As more states make the election, the question shifts from whether the credit exists to which organizations can administer it cleanly across two sets of rules. We track every state's status on the national participation map and follow the rollout as new states and operators come online.
