Kansas, which joined the federal scholarship tax credit in April by overriding Gov. Laura Kelly's veto, now appears on the IRS's official roster of states with completed advance elections. The official count stands at 29, our participation map counts 30, and Kentucky is the one veto-override state whose formal federal filing is still outstanding.
Kansas has finished the paperwork. The IRS's official list of states participating in the federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC / ECCA / §25F), updated July 7, 2026, now includes Kansas among the states with completed advance elections, the formal Form 15714 filing that puts a state on the federal roster for the program's January 1, 2027 launch. The official count now stands at 29 states, up from the 27 the IRS announced on June 8 and the 28 it reached in late June when North Carolina filed.
The filing closes a gap that has trailed Kansas since spring. Kansas did not arrive at §25F by a governor's signature: Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed SB 361, and in April the legislature overrode her veto, House 85-38 and Senate 29-10, making Kansas one of three states to force the program in over a governor's objection, alongside Kentucky and North Carolina, the veto-override path we have tracked all year. But an override makes participation state law; it does not by itself complete the federal election, which is an executive filing to the IRS. That mismatch left Kansas politically in but officially absent from the federal roster for nearly three months. North Carolina resolved the same mismatch in late June, and Kansas has now followed.
The roster arithmetic is worth stating precisely, because two true counts circulate side by side. The IRS's official roster, the list of completed advance elections, now shows 29 states. Our own participation map counts 30 states as opted in, because it includes Kentucky, which is in by state action, its legislature overrode Gov. Andy Beshear's veto of HB 1 in March, but whose formal federal filing has not yet appeared. New York sits in a separate category: Gov. Kathy Hochul announced in May that the state will participate, but no election has been filed, so we track it as committed rather than opted in. As each state files, the official roster catches up to the map.
For Kentucky, the outstanding step now has an unusual owner. Under HB 1, the statute the legislature passed over Beshear's veto, the annual federal election and the state's SGO registry run through the independently elected Secretary of State, Michael Adams, rather than the governor's office, precisely so a governor who opposed the program cannot stall the paperwork. Kansas's completed filing leaves Kentucky as the lone override state not yet on the federal list, and the mechanics of its filing will be an early test of that workaround design.
For Kansas donors, families, and prospective scholarship organizations, the practical meaning is certainty: Kansas is on the federal roster the IRS will use when the program goes live, so a donation to a qualified Kansas Scholarship Granting Organization in 2027 can earn the dollar-for-dollar federal credit of up to $1,700. The next state-side milestone is the same one every participating state is waiting on: SGO certification, which no state has opened yet because the rules governing it arrive with Treasury's proposed regulations, expected by the end of September. Operators who want to be ready for that window can start with our guide to starting an SGO; Kansas's status is tracked on our Kansas state page and the national participation map, and the organizations already forming are in the SGO directory.
