North Dakota signals it will join the federal §25F scholarship tax credit: Gov. Armstrong commits the state to the 2027 program

On Monday, January 26, 2026, North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong (Republican), the state's 34th governor, announced that North Dakota will participate in the new federal tax credit for donations to Scholarship Granting Organizations, the program created under §25F. The credit is worth up to $1,700 per taxpayer per year, is nonrefundable, and was established by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Trump. Taxpayers will be able to claim it beginning January 1, 2027. Armstrong made the announcement alongside State Superintendent of Public Instruction Levi Bachmeier, who called it an exciting opportunity for North Dakota families. The full text of the commitment is on the North Dakota state page, which tracks the state's status against every other state on our national participation map.

It is worth being precise about what happened and what did not. Armstrong's announcement was a statement of intent to participate, not a completed federal opt-in. As of late January 2026, North Dakota had not yet submitted the IRS advance-election paperwork (Form 15714) that formally enrolls a state, placing it in the “statement only” tier alongside Arkansas, Indiana, and Iowa rather than with the states that had filed the form, such as Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, and Virginia. The governor's office said the state plans to submit a list of approved Scholarship Granting Organizations to the U.S. Treasury in the coming months, and that additional program detail along with an eligible-SGO list will follow. The mechanics of that advance election are explained in our coverage of IRS Form 15714.

The §25F structure is straightforward at the federal level: taxpayers who donate to a qualified SGO can claim a nonrefundable credit of up to $1,700 against their federal tax, and the SGO turns those donations into K-12 scholarships for eligible families. To qualify, an SGO must be a 501(c)(3) public charity and cannot be a private foundation, and income limits apply to the families it serves. Armstrong's office said further Treasury guidance and a state eligibility list are still to come, so the exact roster of North Dakota organizations that can receive credit-eligible gifts is not yet set. For donors, the practical takeaway is that the credit does not function until qualified SGOs exist in the state to receive donations and award scholarships, and standing up that infrastructure is the next step. The fundamentals of how the credit works are laid out in our explainers.

For organizations weighing whether to become one of North Dakota's first approved SGOs, the window between Armstrong's announcement and the program's January 1, 2027 launch is the time to prepare: confirming 501(c)(3) public-charity status, building a donor-intake and scholarship-award process, and getting on the state's approved list once it is published. Operators do not have to build that machinery from scratch, because there is software purpose-built for running a §25F program end to end, and the current national landscape of organizations is catalogued in our SGO directory. Founders can see how the pieces fit together in our explainers as the state moves from intent to a working program.

North Dakota now joins a fast-moving group of states acting on the federal credit in early 2026, from Virginia's formal opt-in to Alaska's executive action. The distinction to watch in North Dakota is the gap between Armstrong's stated commitment and a completed federal election: until the state files its advance election and publishes an approved-SGO list, participation remains an intention rather than a live program. Whether North Dakota converts that intent into a working credit, and how robust an SGO network it builds before 2027, is what will determine what families and donors in the state actually receive, and it is detailed on the North Dakota state page.