Charitable Contribution Carryover Worksheet: AGI Limits and Carryforward

The charitable contribution carryover worksheet is Worksheet 2 in IRS Publication 526, and it does two jobs: it figures how much of your donations exceeded this year’s AGI percentage limits, and it tags that excess by category so you can deduct it on a future return. Any amount you couldn’t deduct this year becomes a carryover you have up to five years to use.¹

Where the Worksheet Lives and What It Produces

Worksheet 2 in Publication 526, titled “Applying the Deduction Limits,” walks you line by line through each AGI category — 60%, 50%, 30%, and 20% — and ends each section with a carryover line where you record the amount that exceeded the limit for that category.¹

One detail trips people up. Worksheet 2 is built to calculate the carryover generated in the current year. If you already have a carryover from a prior year that you’re applying to this year’s return, you’ll do additional calculations that combine the prior balance with your current-year gifts, and the amount you’re applying flows to Line 13 of Schedule A as “carryover from a prior year.”²

The AGI Limits That Create the Carryover

A carryover exists because the IRS caps how much you can deduct in a single year based on your adjusted gross income. The cap depends on what you gave and to whom.

60% of AGI applies to cash contributions to public charities such as churches, hospitals, and schools.³
50% of AGI applies to non-cash property donations to public charities, other than appreciated capital gain property deducted at fair market value.³
30% of AGI applies to appreciated capital gain property (such as stock held over a year or real estate) donated to public charities at fair market value. The same 30% cap covers cash and non-capital-gain property given to private non-operating foundations.³
20% of AGI applies to appreciated capital gain property donated to private non-operating foundations.⁴

The limits stack in a specific order on the worksheet. You apply 60% cash contributions first. Whatever AGI room remains gets used by 50% contributions, then 30%, then 20%. Anything still undeducted becomes a carryover tagged to the same percentage category it came from. A 30% carryover stays a 30% carryover in every future year.¹

Walking Through the Worksheet With Numbers

Start with your AGI for the year of the donation. Say your AGI is $400,000 and you gave $280,000 in cash to your university. Your 60% limit is $240,000. You deduct $240,000 this year, and the remaining $40,000 lands on the carryover line for cash contributions subject to the 60% limit.¹

Now add a second gift. Suppose that same year you also donated stock worth $150,000 (cost basis $30,000) to a public charity. Your 30% limit on that capital gain property is $120,000. But you’ve already used $240,000 of your $400,000 AGI against the 60% limit, and the combined deduction for contributions to public charities can’t exceed 50% of AGI. The worksheet handles these interactions line by line, reducing the room available for each next category based on what earlier categories used up. The $30,000 in stock value you couldn’t deduct becomes a 30% carryover.

Using a Prior-Year Carryover on This Year’s Return

When you carry a balance into a new year, the most important rule is that current-year donations get priority. You deduct everything you gave this year first, then apply the carryover to whatever AGI room remains.¹

Recalculate the percentage limits using this year’s AGI, not the AGI from the year the donation was made. If your income dropped, you may have less room than you expect. A higher-income year opens up more space to absorb the carryover.

Here’s the pattern. Your 2026 AGI is $300,000 and you gave $100,000 in cash to a public charity this year. Your 60% limit is $180,000. After deducting your $100,000 current-year gift, you have $80,000 of room left. If you’re carrying forward a $40,000 cash carryover from 2024, you can deduct the full $40,000 this year. The carryover must match its original category: a 60% carryover uses remaining 60% room, a 30% carryover uses remaining 30% room, and so on.

If your current-year gifts consume the entire limit for a category, none of that category’s carryover can be used. It rolls forward, still ticking against its five-year clock.

Multiple Carryovers and the Five-Year Clock

When you have carryovers from more than one prior year, use the oldest one first. If you have a $25,000 carryover from 2022 and a $40,000 carryover from 2024, exhaust the 2022 amount before touching the 2024 amount.¹

Older carryovers are closer to expiring. Each has a five-year life span from the donation year. A carryover from a 50% limit contribution made in 2022 must be fully used by the end of 2027, or whatever remains vanishes for good.⁵

Because of that, the worksheet has to track each year’s balance separately. You can’t lump a 2022 carryover together with a 2024 carryover even when they share a percentage category. Each has its own balance and its own expiration. List each prior year on its own line so you can apply them in order and see which balances are about to run out.

There’s one more ordering rule. Carryovers from contributions to public charities (50% limit organizations) must be used before current-year contributions to private foundations and similar organizations that fall under lower percentage limits.¹

One exception to the five-year clock: carryovers from qualified conservation contributions, typically conservation easements, get a 15-year carryforward period.¹

The Standard Deduction Trap

This one catches people off guard. If you take the standard deduction instead of itemizing in a given year, your carryover balance still shrinks. Under the regulations, the carryover is reduced by the amount you could have deducted had you itemized, even though you didn’t actually claim it.⁵

Say you have a $50,000 carryover and your AGI limits would have allowed a $30,000 charitable deduction had you itemized. Even if the standard deduction gives you a larger overall benefit, the IRS treats $30,000 of your carryover as used. You carry only $20,000 forward.

For 2026, the standard deduction is $16,100 for single filers and $32,200 for married couples filing jointly.⁶ If your total itemized deductions plus the carryover would exceed the standard deduction, itemizing is almost certainly the better move: you get the actual tax benefit and preserve the remaining balance. Run the numbers both ways before filing.

The trap combines with the five-year window in an unforgiving way. Every year counts against the clock whether you itemize or not. If a large carryover is nearing expiration, bunching gifts into a different year or accelerating income can free up AGI room to absorb more of it before it’s gone.

Divorce and Death

Divorce

When a married couple with a joint carryover divorces and starts filing separately, the carryover doesn’t simply split in half except in community property states, where equal allocation is the default. The IRS regulation requires the joint carryover to be allocated based on what each spouse’s separate carryover would have been if they had filed separately in the year the excess contribution was made.⁵

In practice, you look at which spouse’s income or property funded the donation, what each spouse’s separate AGI would have been, and what each spouse’s separate deduction limit would have produced. If one spouse earned most of the income and made the entire donation, that spouse may be allocated most or all of the carryover.

Death

Unused charitable carryovers are lost at death. A carryover allocable to a deceased spouse can’t be used in any year after the year of death. It can be claimed on the decedent’s final return covering the period up to the date of death, or on a joint return for the year in which the death occurred.⁵

A surviving spouse filing jointly in the year of death can still use the deceased spouse’s carryover on that final joint return. Starting the following year, the deceased spouse’s portion is gone. The surviving spouse’s own share remains available under the normal five-year rules. Sorting out each spouse’s allocable share follows the same method used in divorce situations.

Records to Keep Behind the Worksheet

Because a carryover deduction spans multiple years, the records that support it need to survive longer than usual.

For any single donation of $250 or more, keep the written acknowledgment from the charity. It must be contemporaneous, meaning received by the earlier of your filing date or the return due date including extensions.⁷
For non-cash gifts totaling over $500, file Form 8283 with the return that first claims the deduction. Gifts over $5,000 require a qualified appraisal and completion of Section B of that form.⁸
Keep Worksheet 2 (or your tax software’s equivalent) from the year the carryover was generated and from every subsequent year you applied a portion of it. Those worksheets are your audit trail: they prove the original excess, the amounts used each year, and the remaining balance.
Retain the qualified appraisal for any non-cash donation over $5,000. If the IRS questions the deduction in a later carryover year, you’ll need the original valuation.⁸

Hold these records for at least three years after filing the return on which you claim the last portion of the carryover. A carryover can span five years past the donation year, so documents for a large gift may need to survive eight years or more from the original donation date.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 526, Charitable Contributions
2
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Schedule A Form 1040
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 US Code 170 – Charitable, Etc., Contributions and Gifts
4
eCFR. 26 CFR 1.170A-8 – Limitations on Charitable Deductions by Individuals
5
eCFR. 26 CFR 1.170A-10 – Charitable Contributions Carryovers of Individuals
6
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026
7
Internal Revenue Service. Charitable Contribution Deductions
8
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8283