I Made a Donation to My Local Animal Shelter. Can I Deduct the Contribution?

If you give money to any charity in 2026, save your receipts

Sandra Block,

AARP

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Published February 20, 2026

a white dog made of receipt paper runs on a green background

Good news for those who donate to pet charities (or any charity, for that matter): Starting in 2026, taxpayers who claim the standard deduction will be allowed to deduct up to $1,000 in charitable contributions.

Pete Ryan

People ages 45 and older were more likely to donate money to charity in 2025 than younger adults, a December 2025 poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found. Unfortunately, most of us who donated received no reward from Uncle Sam for our contributions. Unless you itemized on your tax return — and only about 10 percent of taxpayers do — you couldn’t deduct charitable contributions.

That’s no longer the case. Starting in 2026, taxpayers who claim the standard deduction will be allowed to deduct up to $1,000 in charitable contributions, or $2,000 if they’re a married couple filing jointly.

The new tax break, which was included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) signed into law in July 2025, is designed to encourage more people to give to charity. After the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act roughly doubled the standard deduction, the percentage of taxpayers who itemized dropped sharply — and the amount of money donated to charity took a big hit. Charitable giving was about $20 billion less than it would have been without the change in 2018, the first year the higher standard deduction was implemented, according to an analysis published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

This isn’t the first time Congress has encouraged non-itemizers to make charitable donations. In 2020 and 2021, Congress voted to allow Americans who claimed the standard deduction to deduct up to $300. The tax break was designed to encourage charitable giving during the pandemic, and it proved effective: In 2020 alone, more than 42 million Americans took advantage of the deduction, donating nearly $11 billion to charity, according to the Charitable Giving Coalition.

Unlike the pandemic-era tax break, the new deduction is larger and permanent. However, there are some restrictions on the types of donations that are eligible for the tax break.

You can’t claim the deduction for contributions to donor-advised funds, charitable-giving vehicles that allow you to contribute to an investment account such as Vanguard Charitable, Fidelity Charitable or Ren, and decide later how to distribute the money. To get a tax break for contributions to those accounts, you still need to itemize. Donations to private foundations are also ineligible for the new deduction.

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The recipient must be a qualified public charity. Donations to individuals (like through GoFundMe campaigns), political organizations and some private foundations aren’t deductible. The IRS has a tool you can use to determine whether an organization is a qualified charity.

Keep good records

If you donate $250 or more to a charity, you’re required to obtain a written receipt from the organization that confirms the amount, the date of your contribution and whether you received any goods or services in exchange for your donation. For example, if you received a ticket to a banquet because you made a contribution, you can only deduct the amount that exceeds the fair market value of the dinner.

You don’t need a receipt from the charity for donations of less than $250, but you should keep a bank statement, a credit card receipt or a record of your check. If you make the contribution through a payroll deduction, keep a copy of your paystub, W-2 or other document provided by your employer that shows the amount withheld from your paycheck.

Most charities will provide a written acknowledgement of donations that exceed $250 by Jan. 31 of the year following the donation. If you don’t receive a letter from the charity by mail or email, contact the charity and ask for one. You’re not required to include the letter when you file your tax return, but you should keep it with your records in the event you’re audited.

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Sandra Block has covered personal finance for more than two decades. She was a senior editor at Kiplinger Personal Finance and a reporter for USA TODAY. She is the coauthor of The Busy Family’s Guide to Money and Easy Ways to Lower Your Taxes: Simple Strategies Every Taxpayer Should Know.