Can I claim the federal credit and a state tax-credit scholarship for the same gift?

Programmes, amounts and rules change. Before acting on anything here, check the current details with the official source named in the answer.

You can give to a scholarship programme that sits in both worlds, but you cannot collect two full credits on the same dollars as if the other credit did not exist. The mechanism in the statute is a reduction: under section 25F, the federal credit for a contribution is reduced by any state tax credit you receive for that same contribution. A state tax deduction is a different thing from a state tax credit, and the reduction rule is about credits. You also cannot take a charitable deduction for the same amount you claim the federal credit on. Those coordination rules are law, in the statute itself, not proposals.

How the reduction is applied is where the proposed regulations come in. Under the proposed rule (proposed §1.25F-2 in REG-117199-25, published October 2, 2026), the state credit is subtracted from the contribution before the $1,700 federal cap is applied, rather than subtracted from the capped credit afterwards, and where a state credit covers a mix of gifts it is applied first to contributions not designated for section 25F. Treasury presents that ordering as preserving as much of the federal credit as the statute allows. The proposed regulations are not final, comments are due December 1, 2026, and a public hearing is scheduled for December 15, 2026, and Treasury has said taxpayers may rely on them for 2027 contributions, so the ordering described here may be relied on for 2027 but could still change in the final regulations.

That is as far as a general answer can honestly go, and this page deliberately works no dollar example. What a particular donor ends up with depends on the state programme's credit rate and caps, on how much was designated for section 25F, and on the donor's own tax liability, since the federal credit is nonrefundable with a carryforward of up to five years. If you are considering a gift large enough for the interaction to matter, run your own figures with a qualified tax professional before you give, not after the tax year has closed. This is general information, not tax advice.

Sources: Internal Revenue Code §25F(b) and (f) (federal credit reduced by state tax credit for the same contribution; no charitable deduction for the credited amount); Proposed regulations REG-117199-25, proposed §1.25F-2(c) (state credit subtracted before the $1,700 cap; ordering for mixed gifts) (proposed only; reliance permitted for 2027). Checked October 2026.

Tuition, aid and the federal scholarship tax credit: more questions and answers