BMF Data Catalog

The IRS Business Master File (BMF) is the authoritative registry of tax-exempt organizations in the United States. NCCS provides BMF data in several formats to support different research needs.

For background on what the BMF contains, its scope limitations, and guidance on choosing the right dataset, see the BMF overview page.

This catalog is organized by dataset type. Each section includes download links, documentation, and guidance on when to use that dataset.

Transformed BMF

The Transformed BMF applies standardized cleaning and validation to monthly IRS releases. Each file includes standardized column names, quality flags identifying potential data issues, and documentation of all transformations applied.

Use when: You need current BMF data with consistent formatting and documented quality checks.

Documentation: BMF Processing Guide — explains how NCCS cleans and transforms raw IRS data, including field definitions and quality checks | Source code

For background on this dataset, see the BMF overview page.

Recent Releases

Release Dataset Data Dictionary Quality Report
2026-01 Download Dictionary Report
2025-12 Download Dictionary Report
2025-11 Download Dictionary Report
2025-10 Download Dictionary Report
2025-09 Download Dictionary Report

Older Releases

Transformed BMF files are available monthly from June 2023 through the present. To access older releases, construct URLs using these patterns:

File Type URL Pattern
Dataset https://nccsdata.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/processed/bmf/{YYYY_MM}/bmf_{YYYY_MM}_processed.csv
Data Dictionary https://nccsdata.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/processed/bmf/{YYYY_MM}/bmf_{YYYY_MM}_data_dictionary.csv
Quality Report https://urbaninstitute.github.io/nccs-data-bmf/quality-reports/bmf_{YYYY_MM}_quality_report.html

Replace {YYYY_MM} with the desired year and month (e.g., 2023_06 for June 2023).

Unified BMF

The Unified BMF consolidates all historical BMF releases into a single file, with one row per organization that has ever held tax-exempt status. This enables longitudinal analysis without merging multiple annual files.

Features include:

  • ORG_YEAR_FIRST and ORG_YEAR_LAST variables tracking when organizations entered and exited the BMF
  • Most recent address geocoded to Census block
  • FIPS codes at block, tract, county, and state levels for merging with Census data
  • Metropolitan area codes using current CBSA definitions

Use when: You need to track organizations over time, build historical sampling frames, or link nonprofit data to Census geographies.

Coverage: 1989 through mid-2025 (update pending)

Related resources: NCCS Census Crosswalk for aggregating to additional geographic levels

For background on this dataset, see the BMF overview page.

Downloads

Files are organized by state/territory. Unmapped records are in the “Unmapped” file.

Download Data Dictionary

Download Link Size State/Territory
DOWNLOAD 3.9 mb Alaska
DOWNLOAD 18 mb Alabama
DOWNLOAD 12.1 mb Arkansas
DOWNLOAD 0.1 mb American Samoa
DOWNLOAD 21.1 mb Arizona
DOWNLOAD 149.5 mb California
DOWNLOAD 25.5 mb Colorado
DOWNLOAD 17.7 mb Connecticut
DOWNLOAD 14.8 mb District of Columbia
DOWNLOAD 6.2 mb Delaware
DOWNLOAD 78.1 mb Florida
DOWNLOAD 41.2 mb Georgia
DOWNLOAD 0.1 mb Guam
DOWNLOAD 6.3 mb Hawaii
DOWNLOAD 19.9 mb Iowa
DOWNLOAD 6.9 mb Idaho
DOWNLOAD 58.5 mb Illinois
DOWNLOAD 31.2 mb Indiana
DOWNLOAD 13.3 mb Kansas
DOWNLOAD 16.1 mb Kentucky
DOWNLOAD 17.8 mb Louisiana
DOWNLOAD 31.3 mb Massachusetts
DOWNLOAD 31 mb Maryland
DOWNLOAD 6.8 mb Maine
DOWNLOAD 41.6 mb Michigan
DOWNLOAD 28.6 mb Minnesota
DOWNLOAD 30.3 mb Missouri
DOWNLOAD 0.1 mb Northern Mariana Islands
DOWNLOAD 10.8 mb Mississippi
DOWNLOAD 7.3 mb Montana
DOWNLOAD 39.4 mb North Carolina
DOWNLOAD 4.5 mb North Dakota
DOWNLOAD 9.9 mb Nebraska
DOWNLOAD 6.4 mb New Hampshire
DOWNLOAD 38.6 mb New Jersey
DOWNLOAD 8.3 mb New Mexico
DOWNLOAD 10.4 mb Nevada
DOWNLOAD 84.1 mb New York
DOWNLOAD 54.1 mb Ohio
DOWNLOAD 16 mb Oklahoma
DOWNLOAD 18.7 mb Oregon
DOWNLOAD 57.9 mb Pennsylvania
DOWNLOAD 2 mb Puerto Rico
DOWNLOAD 5.1 mb Rhode Island
DOWNLOAD 20.3 mb South Carolina
DOWNLOAD 5.2 mb South Dakota
DOWNLOAD 26.4 mb Tennessee
DOWNLOAD 99.8 mb Texas
DOWNLOAD 8.6 mb Utah
DOWNLOAD 1.6 mb Unmapped
DOWNLOAD 37.5 mb Virginia
DOWNLOAD 0.4 mb U.S. Virgin Islands
DOWNLOAD 4.6 mb Vermont
DOWNLOAD 30.6 mb Washington
DOWNLOAD 27.4 mb Wisconsin
DOWNLOAD 8.8 mb West Virginia
DOWNLOAD 3.7 mb Wyoming

Raw BMF Archives

NCCS archives unmodified monthly BMF files as released by the IRS on their Exempt Organizations Business Master File Extract page. These files use the IRS’s original schema and variable names.

Use when: You need to replicate analysis built on raw IRS files from a specific point in time, or require data exactly as the IRS published it.

Coverage: June 2023 to present (monthly snapshots)

Documentation: IRS data dictionary

For background on this dataset, see the BMF overview page.

Downloads

Files are available from the public nccsdata S3 bucket using this URL pattern:

https://nccsdata.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/raw/bmf/{YYYY-MM}-BMF.csv

Recent releases:

Release Download
2026-01 Download
2025-12 Download
2025-11 Download
2025-10 Download
2025-09 Download

For older releases back to June 2023, replace {YYYY-MM} in the URL pattern above (e.g., 2023-06-BMF.csv).

Legacy BMF

Historical BMF files produced by NCCS between 1989 and 2022. These files retain their original schemas, which vary across years. Data dictionaries are available for most but not all years.

Use when: You need to replicate historical NCCS analyses or require BMF data in its original pre-transformation format.

Coverage: 1989–2022

Note: Column names are not standardized across files. For longitudinal work, consider the Unified BMF or wait for the forthcoming Harmonized Legacy BMFs (expected Q1 2026).

For background on this dataset, see the BMF overview page.

Downloads

The files below link to archived BMF files from the legacy NCCS website. Some data dictionaries are incomplete.

Download Link Data Dictionary Size Month Year
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 123.3 mb 06 1989
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 223.4 mb 08 1995
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 236.6 mb 06 1996
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 242.2 mb 10 1997
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 249 mb 09 1998
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 253 mb 12 1999
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 262.5 mb 05 2000
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 272.2 mb 07 2001
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 289.3 mb 01 2002
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 286.7 mb 07 2002
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 285.5 mb 01 2003
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 314.2 mb 07 2003
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 309.3 mb 11 2003
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 308.9 mb 04 2004
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 300.3 mb 12 2004
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 306.7 mb 07 2005
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 314.2 mb 11 2005
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 318.4 mb 01 2006
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 316.8 mb 05 2006
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 316.3 mb 11 2006
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 311 mb 01 2007
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 304.6 mb 04 2007
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 297.7 mb 09 2007
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 286.1 mb 01 2008
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 291.1 mb 04 2008
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 293.3 mb 06 2008
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 304.9 mb 10 2008
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 299.1 mb 12 2008
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 323.3 mb 01 2009
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 303.4 mb 04 2009
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 306.7 mb 07 2009
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 382.5 mb 10 2009
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 380.4 mb 01 2010
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 410.8 mb 04 2010
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 411.6 mb 05 2010
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 415.5 mb 07 2010
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 382.1 mb 08 2010
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 374.9 mb 11 2010
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 338.5 mb 06 2011
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 340.9 mb 07 2011
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 342.1 mb 08 2011
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 340.8 mb 09 2011
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 341.4 mb 10 2011
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 342.2 mb 11 2011
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 342.6 mb 12 2011
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 308.2 mb 02 2012
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 336.1 mb 03 2012
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 310 mb 04 2012
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 339.2 mb 06 2012
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 338.4 mb 07 2012
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 338.7 mb 08 2012
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 338.7 mb 10 2012
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 338.9 mb 11 2012
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 339.4 mb 12 2012
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 337 mb 02 2013
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 332.3 mb 03 2013
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 333.9 mb 04 2013
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 334.2 mb 05 2013
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 334.7 mb 06 2013
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 335.3 mb 07 2013
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 330.7 mb 08 2013
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 331.2 mb 09 2013
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 339.7 mb 10 2013
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 331.7 mb 12 2013
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 334.5 mb 02 2014
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 336.3 mb 04 2014
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 337.5 mb 06 2014
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 343.2 mb 09 2014
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 349.5 mb 11 2014
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 351.1 mb 12 2014
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 353.5 mb 02 2015
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 356.7 mb 04 2015
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 358.5 mb 05 2015
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 361.1 mb 07 2015
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 359.9 mb 09 2015
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 363.5 mb 11 2015
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 363.7 mb 12 2015
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 366.4 mb 02 2016
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 367.7 mb 03 2016
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 368.4 mb 04 2016
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 368.3 mb 08 2016
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 344.8 mb 09 2017
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 339.5 mb 12 2017
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 330.5 mb 12 2018
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 374.9 mb 08 2019
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 375.9 mb 04 2020
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 377.1 mb 01 2022
DOWNLOAD PROFILE 345.8 mb 08 2022

In Development

The following datasets are currently in progress. Expected timelines are estimates and subject to change.

Dataset Description Expected
Harmonized Legacy BMFs Legacy files (1989–2022) with standardized column names aligned to Transformed BMF schema Q1 2026
Metadata Tables Track changes in organization names, addresses, and NTEE codes over time Q1 2026
Unified BMF v2.0 Updated Unified BMF with late 2025 data and new architecture Q1 2026

For details on these planned releases, see the BMF overview page.

Release Status

Dataset Status Coverage Documentation
Transformed BMF Available June 2023–present BMF Processing Guide
Unified BMF Available 1989–mid-2025 Data dictionary
Raw BMF Archives Available June 2023–present IRS data dictionary
Legacy BMFs Archived 1989–2022 Per-file dictionaries above
Harmonized Legacy BMFs Planned (Q1 2026) 1989–2022 TBD
Metadata Tables Planned (Q1 2026) 1989–present TBD
Unified BMF v2.0 Planned (Q1 2026) 1989–late 2025 TBD

Contact

Questions or feedback about BMF datasets? Visit our contact page.