Nebraska was the first state to commit to the federal §25F credit, signing Executive Order 25-14 in September 2025

On September 29, 2025, Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen signed Executive Order 25-14, titled “Federal Scholarship Tax Credit,” opting his state into the new federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC / §25F), the program created in the One Big Beautiful Bill that President Trump signed in the summer of 2025. The Republican governor announced the move at St. Teresa Catholic School in Lincoln, joined by U.S. Reps. Adrian Smith and Mike Flood. Under §25F, individual taxpayers can direct up to $1,700 to a qualified Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO) and claim a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit, with the scholarship dollars flowing to families earning up to 300% of area median income. The credit becomes available January 1, 2027, which means Nebraska's participation enables school-choice scholarships beginning that year. The move made Nebraska the first state in the country to commit to the new credit, months before the IRS published the advance-election form that states would later use to formally opt in, and well ahead of the wave of opt-ins that followed.

It is worth being precise about the mechanism. The executive order is the state's action: it signals Nebraska's intent to participate and directs the relevant agencies to begin building the program. The federal side of opting in is effected separately through the IRS, via an advance election (later formalized on Form 15714), with each participating state's certified SGO list due to the IRS by January 1 of the program year. In other words, signing the order is the start of the process rather than the finish. Nebraska's Department of Revenue has stood up a dedicated §25F SGO information page, but SGO certification is not yet open: the application forms and procedures remain pending. Until those are published and organizations are certified, no donations can actually be routed and no scholarships awarded.

For SGO founders and donors, that gap between the election and a working program is the part worth tracking. An opt-in is the easiest step; the credit only functions once qualified SGOs exist to receive donations and award scholarships, and in Nebraska that infrastructure is still being built. Operators weighing whether to establish one of Nebraska's first SGOs should watch the Department of Revenue's certification timeline closely, because early movers will be positioned to receive donations the moment the program goes live in 2027. The current status for every state, including Nebraska's pending certification process, is detailed on our Nebraska state page and the national participation map, and founders can review how the organizations work and what compliance requires in our explainers.

Nebraska's first-mover status set a marker that other states measured themselves against. In the months that followed, Virginia, Colorado, Florida, and others opted in through a mix of executive action, legislation, and veto-override fights, and by mid-2026 the IRS had published an official list of states that filed advance elections. Nebraska's path was the cleanest of them: a single executive order, no veto drama, and a governor aligned with the program from the start. The open question now is execution. Whether Nebraska builds a robust SGO network or lets certification drift will determine how many families actually benefit when the credit goes live. Founders looking to be among the first to run a §25F program can see the current national landscape in our SGO directory.