Kentucky files its federal §25F election and becomes the first state to open its SGO sign-up

Kentucky has done the thing it spent the spring setting up to do. At a Frankfort news conference on July 22, 2026, Secretary of State Michael Adams signed the paperwork completing Kentucky’s federal advance election for the Education Freedom Tax Credit (FSTC / ECCA / §25F) with the IRS, and, in the same appearance, signed a state regulation that opens Kentucky’s process for organizations to declare themselves Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs). “This President, Congress, General Assembly and Secretary of State have Kentucky students’ backs,” Adams said, adding that “all eligible Kentucky students, public, private and home-schooled, will soon have access to better and more affordable education.” The filing closes the one thread our roster coverage has left dangling: after Kansas completed its own election in early July, Kentucky was the last veto-override state whose formal federal filing was still outstanding.

That the filing came from the Secretary of State, and not the governor, is the whole point of how Kentucky joined. Kentucky reached §25F over Gov. Andy Beshear’s objection: he vetoed House Bill 1 on March 13 and the legislature completed its override four days later. Knowing an opposed governor would then be asked to administer a program he had just tried to kill, HB 1 routed the annual federal election and the state’s SGO registry through the independently elected Secretary of State instead. In March we wrote that operators should watch that office, not the governor’s, for the application process. July 22 is that design being exercised: the official the statute empowered filed the election and opened the door, and the governor’s opposition never touched the paperwork.

The roster arithmetic should be stated carefully, because two accurate counts still sit side by side. The IRS’s official list of completed advance elections was last published showing 29 states and does not yet include Kentucky; a government roster updates on its own schedule, so expect a lag before the federal page reflects this filing. Our own participation map already counts Kentucky among 30 opted-in states, because Kentucky has been in by state action since the override. What changed on July 22 is that the gap between those two numbers is now closing from Kentucky’s side: the state has filed, and the official roster will catch up. That leaves New York as the remaining state that has announced it will participate but not yet filed its election.

The second signature is the one SGO founders should read closely. The regulation Adams filed establishes how Kentucky will accept, review, and process SGO filings, and it opens that process now: nonprofit entities, including out-of-state nonprofits, with confirmed 501(c)(3) public-charity status may file the SGO declaration form in person or by mail, with an online option through the Secretary of State’s Fast Track portal to follow shortly. Kentucky’s list of declared SGOs goes to the federal government by January 1, 2027, the date the program goes live and qualifying donations can begin. This makes Kentucky the first state to open any SGO sign-up step at all. It is worth being precise about what that does and does not mean: everywhere else, SGO participation is still gated on Treasury’s proposed §25F regulations, expected at the end of September, which is why no state has opened federal SGO certification. Kentucky has opened its own state-level declaration, getting organizations into line under state law, while the federal qualification rules still arrive on the national clock.

For a Kentucky nonprofit weighing whether to run a scholarship program, this is the first moment in the whole §25F rollout with a concrete action attached rather than a wait. An organization with a 501(c)(3) determination can file the state SGO declaration with the Secretary of State now and be positioned for the January 1 list submission, and a donation to a qualified Kentucky SGO in 2027 can earn the dollar-for-dollar federal credit of up to $1,700. Founders can start with our guide to starting an SGO, track Kentucky’s status on our Kentucky state page and the national participation map, and see the organizations already forming in the SGO directory. Kentucky built its participation to survive a hostile governor; the payoff is that its operators get to move first.