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GoodStandingAug 22, 20263 min readGoodStanding dates the 15-month reinstatement clock from the IRS posting date, and 43,090 nonprofits get their window back
A nonprofit that loses its 501(c)(3) gets a letter with a date on it. Count fifteen months from that date and you have the deadline for the cheapest way back: the streamlined route, no written explanation of why three years of filings were missed, exemption restored all the way to the day it was taken. Miss it and the organization files the long route instead, at $600 rather than $275 in IRS user fees, plus a statement establishing cause for all three of the missed years.
GoodStanding prepares every filing that cures an IRS auto-revocation, at a price printed on the page: $79 for the Streamlined Cure Pack, $199 for the Full Reinstatement Pack. The free lookup on its front page takes a nine digit IRS number and answers the only question that decides which of those an organization is still allowed. That answer turns entirely on which date the clock starts on.
Watch the GoodStanding, Get your nonprofit's 501(c)(3) back demo
The rule names two dates and takes the later one
Rev. Proc. 2014-11 sets the streamlined deadline at fifteen months after the later of the date on the revocation letter or the date the organization appeared on the IRS Auto-Revocation List. Those are two different events, and the IRS publishes both in the same bulk file.
The copy of that file ingested on 2026-08-22 holds 1,246,171 rows. Every row carries both dates, and the posting date falls later on every single one. The narrowest gap in the file is 12 days. The median is 117 days. A quarter of the file sits more than a year apart, and the widest case runs 5,782 days.
The letter date is therefore never the date the rule is asking for. GoodStanding's ingest computes the deadline from the posting field and stores it beside the organization, and the lookup prints it as a date with a day count under it.
What the other date costs
Counted across the same file, excluding organizations that already have a reinstatement date:
| Counting the 15-month clock from | the revocation letter date | the list posting date |
|---|---|---|
| Streamlined windows still open | 50,245 | 93,335 |
| Organizations told the cheap route closed when it has not | 43,090 | none |
| Median days of window the choice adds | 0 | 117 |
| Widest single case in the file | 0 | 5,782 days |
| Agrees with "the later of the two" | on no row in the file | on every row |
Almost half of the organizations that still have a streamlined window would read their own letter and conclude they had lost it.
What the lookup will not tell you
Two conditions gate the streamlined route that the registry cannot see: the organization must not have been auto-revoked before, and must have been eligible to file the short return or the electronic postcard for each of the three years. Neither fact is in the file, so the lookup states the clock and stays quiet about eligibility. Both are asked at intake instead and printed as checks on the pack's cover page, with a STOP beside any that fails.
The generator enforces the same line. A streamlined pack whose deadline has already passed throws instead of building, so nobody is handed a filing they are no longer permitted to make.
Check an EIN free: https://goodstanding.thecompound.tech/kd?utm_campaign=compound
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