South Carolina Charity Registration: The $25,000 and $10,000 Gross-Revenue Exemption Tests

The short answer

South Carolina charity registration is annual, costs $50, and has to be in place before the organization solicits. There are exemptions, but they are filings rather than statuses, and since May 18, 2026 the two revenue-based ones have been measured on gross revenue at $25,000 and $10,000 rather than on contributions at $20,000 and $7,500.

The two branches are not one rule with two numbers. The $25,000 branch carries four conditions and a paid fundraiser defeats it. The $10,000 branch is lower but survives a paid fundraiser. Which one an organization can use, or whether it can use either, decides whether it files a $50 registration or a no-fee exemption application, and getting it wrong is what unregistered solicitation looks like in practice.

First question: is this solicitation at all?

The Solicitation of Charitable Funds Act defines solicitation and contribution broadly, and the channel is rarely the escape route people hope it is. Mail, telephone, email, a website, social media, an event, and an in-person ask can all fall within the Act when they request a contribution or represent that a contribution will be used for a charitable purpose.

A passive web presence that does not request anything is fact specific. That is a reason to look at the actual wording of what you publish, not a reason to assume that online activity sits outside the statute. Deciding a channel is uncovered is a legal conclusion about specific text, and misclassifying one leads to unregistered solicitation and enforcement rather than to a warning.

The practical step is unglamorous: list the channels the organization actually plans to use, and check them against the definitions before anything launches, not after the first gift arrives.

Second question: outside the definition, or exempt from registration?

These two sound like the same thing and are not. An organization can be outside the definition of a charitable organization entirely, in which case the registration provisions never reach it. Or it can be squarely within the definition and qualify for an exemption from registration, in which case the Act reaches it and gives it a different filing.

A religious organization meeting the exact statutory definition can be outside the definition. Religious identity alone is not sufficient, because every definitional element has to be satisfied, and the analysis is about the statutory text rather than about how the organization describes itself.

The consequence is procedural and easy to get backwards. Only the second situation produces an exemption application. An organization outside the definition that files one has filed something it never owed; an organization inside the definition that assumes it is outside has skipped a filing it did owe. Document the exact statutory basis for whichever conclusion you reach, and keep it, because that document is the answer to the question a regulator will ask.

The $25,000 branch, and the four conditions attached to it

Effective May 18, 2026, this branch applies when gross revenue is not in excess of $25,000 and all of the following also hold: the organization has an IRS exemption letter; all of its functions, including fundraising, are performed by persons compensated no more than $500 in a year; no assets or income inure to or are paid to an officer or member; and no professional solicitor, fundraising counsel, or commercial co-venturer conducts the fundraising.

Every one of those is a condition, not a factor to weigh. The $500 compensation ceiling is the one that surprises people, because it covers all functions rather than only fundraising, and the inurement condition is separate from it. The professional-fundraising condition is the one that most often removes the branch: hire a solicitor, retain fundraising counsel, or run a campaign with a commercial co-venturer, and this branch is unavailable no matter how small the revenue is.

The amount itself is a boundary rather than a range. Exactly $25,000 remains within the branch. Only gross revenue in excess of $25,000 crosses it. Reading the threshold as "at least $25,000" flips the boundary case and produces a registration that was not required, or worse, a conclusion that the organization already lost an exemption it still had.

The $10,000 branch is a different rule, not a smaller one

Effective the same date, an organization with gross revenue not in excess of $10,000 may use this separate branch regardless of whether it uses a professional solicitor, fundraising counsel, or commercial co-venturer. That is the substantive distinction between the two branches, and it is why they must not be merged into one tiered test.

The practical effect is that a very small organization working with a paid fundraiser has exactly one revenue-based route, and it is the $10,000 one. An organization between $10,000 and $25,000 with a paid fundraiser has neither and registers. Merging the branches applies the wrong IRS-letter and professional-fundraiser conditions to the wrong organization in both directions.

The boundary works the same way as the other one. Exactly $10,000 remains within the branch, and only gross revenue in excess of $10,000 ends it. This is also not the former $7,500 contribution branch renumbered: Act 170 changed both the amount and the metric, and the metric is now current-fiscal-year gross revenue rather than contributions.

Crossing a threshold starts a 30-day clock

An organization that unexpectedly goes past the applicable amount does not become retroactively unregistered for the whole year. It registers and reports within 30 days after gross revenue first exceeds the threshold.

That is a genuine safe harbour and it is worth building for. It means the operational task is watching gross revenue against the branch you are relying on, with enough visibility to notice the crossing when it happens rather than at year end. An organization that discovers the crossing four months later has lost the 30 days, and the fine and enforcement exposure below is the same whether the delay was deliberate or bookkeeping.

It also means the branch you rely on determines which number you watch. On the $25,000 branch the watch is on $25,000 and on every one of the four conditions, because engaging a professional solicitor mid-year removes the branch without any revenue changing at all. On the $10,000 branch the watch is on $10,000 alone.

The other exemption branches are not revenue tests

Several branches have nothing to do with size. They cover qualifying educational institutions soliciting from listed constituencies, persons raising all funds without deduction for a named individual, organizations soliciting exclusively within their own membership, congressionally chartered veterans organizations, and governments subject to state disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Each has to be applied exactly as written, and overbroad use of one produces unregistered solicitation.

Most of these branches also require that fundraising not be conducted by professional solicitors, fundraising counsel, or commercial co-venturers. So the professional-fundraising condition is not a quirk of the $25,000 branch; it runs through most of the exemption structure, and the $10,000 branch and the public-school branch are the notable places it does not.

Public school districts and the public pre-K through 12 schools within them are their own branch, and it applies regardless of professional fundraiser use. It is separate from private educational-institution treatment and does not extend to private schools or to independent education nonprofits that support public schools.

Exemption is a filing every year, with no published due date

An organization within the definition that claims any of these exemptions files the Annual Application for Registration Exemption every fiscal year. There is no fee. The form asks the organization to select one qualifying branch and to supply current financial information and fundraising-actor disclosures, and the chief executive and chief financial officer sign it.

Two things follow. The first is that an expired or unsupported exemption leaves solicitations unregistered and pulls the organization back into ordinary reporting, so the annual filing is the exemption rather than evidence of it. The second is a genuine gap in the public record: current statute, form, and portal instructions do not publish one universal numeric due date for this application.

That gap has a specific trap in it. South Carolina does publish a hard date for the annual financial report, the fifteenth day of the fifth month after fiscal year end, and it is tempting to assume the exemption application shares it. It does not, and the guide does not assign it that date. File for the current fiscal year before relying on the exemption, and confirm timing in the charities dashboard for your own filing rather than inheriting a deadline from a different filing.

If you do have to register

The Registration Statement is filed before solicitation with the $50 fee, then annually. It asks for legal and former names, EIN, purpose, offices and affiliates, officers and directors, other-state solicitation authority, enforcement history, fundraising relationships, the IRS determination letter where the organization has one, and the prior financial report or an accepted federal return. The chief executive or president and the chief financial officer or treasurer both sign, and an incomplete or unsigned filing can be returned, which leaves the organization unregistered while it thinks it has filed.

An organization without an IRS determination letter discloses its actual tax status rather than leaving the item blank. The state filing grants no federal exemption and does not wait on one.

Renewal has a timing rule that runs the opposite way from most deadlines. Current paper instructions state that a renewal cannot be accepted more than six weeks before the existing registration expires, so the risk is filing too early as well as too late. The online dashboard may control the exact available renewal window, so check the dashboard for the current cycle.

A decision framework

One. List the fundraising channels the organization will actually use and check them against the statutory definitions of solicitation and contribution. If nothing you do requests a contribution or represents that one will be used for a charitable purpose, document why, in the statute’s terms.

Two. Decide whether the organization is outside the definition of a charitable organization or inside it. Write down the exact statutory basis. Only "inside and exempt" leads to an exemption application.

Three. If inside, test the branches in the order the facts allow. Is gross revenue not in excess of $10,000? That branch works even with a paid fundraiser. Otherwise, is gross revenue not in excess of $25,000 and are all four conditions satisfied, including the $500 compensation ceiling and no professional fundraising actor? Otherwise, does a non-revenue branch fit exactly, remembering that most of those also exclude professional fundraising actors? If none fits, register.

Four. Whichever path applies, file annually: the exemption application for the current fiscal year, or the Registration Statement with its $50 fee and its six-week renewal limit. Then set a monitor on the number and the conditions your branch depends on, so a crossing starts the 30-day clock on the day it happens.

Five. Keep the annual financial report on its own calendar. It is a separate duty from both registration and the exemption application, it is due on the fifteenth day of the fifth month after fiscal year end, and late filing can draw a $10 daily fine capped at $2,000 per separate violation. The full South Carolina guide at 501c3.help/states/south-carolina/ carries each of these as its own entry with its own official source.

What happens when the analysis is wrong

Chapter 56 gives the Secretary of State real tools. The office may investigate, subpoena records, audit, reject filings, impose administrative fines up to $2,000 for each violation after the statutory notice and cure process, and seek injunctive relief. The statute generally provides 15 days to cure before specified administrative fine action, so responding to a notice quickly is worth more than arguing about it slowly.

Noncompliance can also suspend fundraising outright and expose responsible individuals to civil or criminal liability, and specific contract and donor-list violations carry additional penalty formulas of their own. There is a public complaint route as well, which means the first notice does not always come from a missed filing on the agency’s side.

None of that is a reason to over-file. It is a reason to write the exemption analysis down while it is fresh, with the statutory branch named and the conditions checked, so that the answer exists before anyone asks for it.