Which route you can still use is decided by one date: 15 months after the later of your Revocation Letter (CP-120A) or the day you appeared on the Auto-Revocation List. Inside that window the streamlined route needs no reasonable-cause statement at all. Outside it, every retroactive route needs one covering all three missed years, and Form 1023-EZ is no longer accepted. The post-mark-date route has no deadline and no statement, and it is the one that does not give you back the years you lost.

Route	Deadline	Application forms accepted	Reasonable-cause statement	Exemption takes effect	§6652(c) penalty for the three missed years
Streamlined retroactive	15 months after the LATER of the date of the Revocation Letter (CP-120A) or the date the organization appeared on the Auto-Revocation List	Form 1023, Form 1023-EZ, Form 1024 or Form 1024-A	Streamlined retroactive reinstatement and post-mark-date reinstatement require no reasonable-cause statement	Retroactively reinstated to the date of revocation	Under the STREAMLINED route the same relief carries an ADDITIONAL condition: the organization must also file 'properly completed and executed paper Forms 990-EZ for all such taxable years', except that for any year it was eligible to file Form 990-N no prior-year 990-N or 990-EZ is required.
Retroactive, within 15 months	Not later than 15 months after the later of the date on the organization's revocation letter (CP-120A) or the date the organization appeared on the Revocation List	Form 1023, Form 1024 or Form 1024-A	within 15 months, reasonable cause for at least ONE of the three years suffices	Retroactively reinstated to the date of revocation	the IRS will not impose the Section 6652(c) penalty for failure to file annual returns for the three consecutive taxable years that caused the organization to be revoked if the organization is retroactively reinstated under this procedure
Retroactive, after 15 months	No outer deadline is stated — the route is defined by the application being submitted more than 15 months after the revocation letter or the Revocation List appearance	Form 1023, Form 1024 or Form 1024-A	The statement must establish reasonable cause for the failure to file for ALL THREE consecutive years	Retroactively reinstated to the date of revocation	the IRS will not impose the Section 6652(c) penalty for failure to file annual returns for the three consecutive taxable years that caused the organization to be revoked if the organization is retroactively reinstated under this procedure
Post-mark date	—	Form 1023, Form 1023-EZ, Form 1024 or Form 1024-A	with no reasonable-cause statement required	effective from the post-mark date of their application	—

Streamlined retroactive

Deadline: 15 months after the LATER of the date of the Revocation Letter (CP-120A) or the date the organization appeared on the Auto-Revocation List
Application forms accepted: Form 1023, Form 1023-EZ, Form 1024 or Form 1024-A
Reasonable-cause statement: Streamlined retroactive reinstatement and post-mark-date reinstatement require no reasonable-cause statement
Exemption takes effect: Retroactively reinstated to the date of revocation
§6652(c) penalty for the three missed years: Under the STREAMLINED route the same relief carries an ADDITIONAL condition: the organization must also file 'properly completed and executed paper Forms 990-EZ for all such taxable years', except that for any year it was eligible to file Form 990-N no prior-year 990-N or 990-EZ is required.

Retroactive, within 15 months

Deadline: Not later than 15 months after the later of the date on the organization's revocation letter (CP-120A) or the date the organization appeared on the Revocation List
Application forms accepted: Form 1023, Form 1024 or Form 1024-A
Reasonable-cause statement: within 15 months, reasonable cause for at least ONE of the three years suffices
Exemption takes effect: Retroactively reinstated to the date of revocation
§6652(c) penalty for the three missed years: the IRS will not impose the Section 6652(c) penalty for failure to file annual returns for the three consecutive taxable years that caused the organization to be revoked if the organization is retroactively reinstated under this procedure

Retroactive, after 15 months

Deadline: No outer deadline is stated — the route is defined by the application being submitted more than 15 months after the revocation letter or the Revocation List appearance
Application forms accepted: Form 1023, Form 1024 or Form 1024-A
Reasonable-cause statement: The statement must establish reasonable cause for the failure to file for ALL THREE consecutive years
Exemption takes effect: Retroactively reinstated to the date of revocation
§6652(c) penalty for the three missed years: the IRS will not impose the Section 6652(c) penalty for failure to file annual returns for the three consecutive taxable years that caused the organization to be revoked if the organization is retroactively reinstated under this procedure

Post-mark date

Deadline: —
Application forms accepted: Form 1023, Form 1023-EZ, Form 1024 or Form 1024-A
Reasonable-cause statement: with no reasonable-cause statement required
Exemption takes effect: effective from the post-mark date of their application
§6652(c) penalty for the three missed years: —

Which of those four rows applies to you turns on the two dates in the deadline column, and most organisations know only one of them. Which of the two dates starts your 15-month clock works through where each date is published and why the later one governs. If that window has already closed, what retroactive reinstatement still looks like after 15 months covers the reasonable-cause statement the IRS then asks for across all three missed years, and the application form it stops accepting on that route. And before deciding who prepares the filing, the seven routes back from a revocation and what each one costs sets every option side by side, including doing it yourself.

The streamlined route additionally requires that the organisation has not previously had tax-exempt status automatically revoked, AND was eligible to file Form 990-EZ or 990-N for each of the three years that caused the revocation. The IRS user fee is $275 for Form 1023-EZ and $600 for Form 1023. Every figure above is the value carried in this site’s claim register, re-verified against its primary source on 2026-09-10. Sources: IRS — Automatic revocation: how to have your tax-exempt status reinstated and IRS — Form 1023 and 1023-EZ: amount of user fee.