Posting Form 990 images is an ongoing process. In most instances, the time between filing Form 990s and posting them on GuideStar is 5-7 months. However, the total lag time between the end of an organization's fiscal year and the point when its IRS filing is publicly available can be anywhere from 12 to 18 months.

Form 990s must be filed by the 15th day of the fifth month after the end of an exempt organization's accounting period, but they can request filing extensions. So, if an organization’s fiscal year ends on December 31, it might not send its Form 990 to IRS until 11 months later. Also, not all organizations end their fiscal year on December 31.

We receive the latest Form 990s from the IRS every few weeks, convert the images to PDFs, and upload them onto our site.

After converting the Form 990 images to PDFs, we send them to an offsite facility, where the data is digitized. This automatically updates the Income and Assets fields and other financial information that appears on the Financials section of an organization’s profile. It takes about 2 months, from the time we send out the PDFs, to have the digitization process completed.

We do encourage nonprofit organizations to post their most recent 990s themselves if we have not yet received the official version from the government. Learn how to here. Please note, GuideStar does not digitize Forms 990s uploaded by organizations. We only digitize Forms 990s received from the IRS.

To request a copy of an organization's Form 990. You can go to the IRS website at https://www.irs.gov/ and locate form number 4506-A. Fax the completed Form 4506-A to the IRS at 801-620-7896 or mail it to:

Internal Revenue Service
RAIVS Unit MS: 6716
Ogden, UT 84201

GuideStar receives the following Forms 990 from the IRS: 990-EZ, 990-PF and 990-T.

The 990-N is unlike a submission of other 990 documents provided to the IRS. This is because the nonprofit is supplying their data electronically and no paper form is used.  In addition, the Internal Revenue Service does not render the 990-Ns in any sort of an “official” document PDF form that GuideStar would be able to post and analyze. This is why we do not provide 990-Ns from the IRS, however, organizations can upload their 990-N to their nonprofit profile.