Formation & registration
Ohio runs two separate registration regimes — charitable trusts under the administrative code, and charitable organizations under Revised Code chapter 1716 — and secondary sources routinely conflate them. The exemptions a co-op cares about live in § 1716.03, and there are two that commonly apply.
Administered by Ohio Attorney General — Charitable Law Section
Every source below is the agency or legislature that makes the rule. We do not cite compliance vendors.
These came out of reading the cited source rather than summarizing other summaries. Each one is a place where the answer you will find first is inaccurate in a way that changes what a co-op has to do.
Commonly repeated
Ohio exempts organizations under $25,000, and membership dues do not count toward that figure. Several commercial compliance guides say this.
What the source says
The exclusion in the statute is for grants or awards from government or from 501(c)(3) organizations. Membership dues are not mentioned, and a co-op funded mainly by family fees should assume those fees count toward the $25,000. Getting this backwards is the difference between filing and not filing.
Ohio Rev. Code § 1716.03Commonly repeated
The $25,000 exemption lives in Ohio Administrative Code 109:1-1-02, where several guides point.
What the source says
It does not. That rule carries five categorical exemptions and no dollar figure at all, because it governs charitable TRUST registration. Ohio runs two registration regimes and the guides merge them. The dollar exemption is in Revised Code § 1716.03, on the charitable organization side.
Ohio Admin. Code 109:1-1-02A charitable organization must file a registration statement with the Attorney General before soliciting contributions in Ohio, unless it is exempt under § 1716.03. Separately, an organization required to register whose contributions for the last year were under $5,000 pays no registration fee — note that this is a fee waiver, not an exemption from filing.
Among the exemptions in § 1716.03 is one for entities that solicit only from their existing membership or employees. For a co-op funded by member family fees rather than public appeals, this is usually the more natural fit of the two available exemptions.
An organization is exempt where it does not receive gross revenue above $25,000 in the preceding fiscal year AND does not compensate any person primarily to solicit contributions. What is excluded from that figure is grants or awards from government or from 501(c)(3) organizations — NOT membership dues, which several secondary sources wrongly claim. Once revenue exceeds $25,000, registration must follow within 30 days.
Section 1716.03 also exempts religious organizations and organizations controlled by them, and separately exempts booster clubs serving public school students. Whether a particular church-hosted co-op falls inside the religious exemption is a judgement about that organization’s structure and control, not something a table can decide — take it to counsel rather than assuming.
We publish this rather than hiding it. A gap is a question for your accountant or attorney, not a suggestion that nothing applies.
This page covers forming and registering the organization. Whether your volunteers must be screened is governed by a different set of laws, which we maintain separately with its own citations — so the two can never quietly disagree with each other.
Ohio volunteer screening requirementsOnly states we have actually read the law for appear here. We would rather cover three states honestly than fifty by extrapolation — if your state is missing, that is why.
Back to the homeschool co-op toolkitThis page is general information, not legal or tax advice. Statutes are amended, agencies reinterpret them, and how any of this applies turns on facts specific to your co-op. Verify against the cited source before you file anything, and take structure and exemption questions to an accountant or attorney licensed in Ohio.
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