Nevada Opts Into the §25F Federal Scholarship Tax Credit: Gov. Lombardo Enrolls the State for 2027

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo formally enrolled Nevada in the federal Tax Credit Scholarship Program (§25F) on January 23, 2026, his office announced in a press release headlined “Governor Lombardo Opts-In To Federal Tax Credit Scholarship Program.” The move makes Nevada a covered state for the program, which was created by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in the summer of 2025 and takes effect January 1, 2027. Under §25F, individual taxpayers who donate to a qualifying Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO) can claim a dollar-for-dollar federal income tax credit of up to $1,700 per year, with the scholarship dollars flowing to families at or below 300 percent of their area median income whose children are eligible to attend public K-12 schools. Coverage from Fox5 Vegas, mynews4, and The Nevada Independent each confirmed the announcement the same day.

The mechanism here is an administrative opt-in, not a new statute or numbered executive order. Section 25F gives each state’s governor the authority to make an advance election enrolling the state, and Lombardo’s office exercised that authority directly through the governor’s office rather than through the legislature. With the election made, Nevada must now establish an application process for prospective SGOs and submit a certified list of approved organizations to the U.S. Treasury. The governor’s office said the finer details of Nevada’s application process will follow once Treasury issues further guidance, which is consistent with the broader timeline: federal regulations governing §25F are still under development, and many operational specifics depend on rules Treasury and the IRS have not yet finalized. We walk through the governor-election structure and the household income limits in our explainers on how the credit works.

For Nevada families, SGOs, and donors, the opt-in opens a new channel of private scholarship funding. Two features matter most for the organizations that will run it: donors can carry unused credits forward for up to five years, and SGOs may retain up to 10 percent of donations to cover administrative costs. Those provisions shape both fundraising strategy and the budgets of the scholarship organizations that will compete to be certified in Nevada. Standing up a §25F program is largely an operations and compliance build, from donor receipting and credit tracking to scholarship awards and Treasury reporting, and a growing number of organizations are running these workflows on software written for the federal credit from the start. Operators can study participating organizations across the national SGO directory as they prepare to apply.

Nevada joins a roster of states that have moved early. Virginia was the first state to opt in, Colorado’s Gov. Polis elected in December 2025, Florida followed in January 2026, and Alaska’s Gov. Dunleavy made a comparable executive opt-in that same month. Lombardo’s decision places Nevada among the states acting well ahead of the January 1, 2027 effective date, giving its scholarship organizations and donors a long runway to organize before the first credits can be claimed.

The near-term question for Nevada is procedural: when Treasury publishes its implementing guidance, the state will open its SGO application process and begin building the certified list it must send to Washington. Until then, organizations interested in serving Nevada students can position themselves to apply quickly once the window opens. We track Nevada’s status and any movement on the application process on our Nevada state page and across the national participation map. For operators weighing how to launch a compliant program, our explainers cover the requirements that apply uniformly across every covered state, Nevada included.