529 money works for homeschooling now. The record has to match.

Since July 2025, federal law lets 529 funds cover the things homeschool families actually buy (curriculum, books, online materials, tutoring, standardized test fees, dual enrollment), and from tax year 2026 the annual K–12 limit is $20,000 per student. What did not change: at tax time, whoever withdrew the money has to show the expenses that justify it. A family either keeps that record as purchases happen, or sits down in April and tries to reconstruct a year of receipts.

What changed in 2025

The 2025 federal tax law expanded what counts as a K–12 qualified 529 expense. The list now includes:

Category	Examples
Curriculum and curricular materials	The math program, the writing curriculum, unit studies
Books and instructional materials	Readers, reference books, lab kits
Online educational materials	Subscriptions and courseware used for instruction
Tutoring outside the home	By a qualified tutor unrelated to the student
Standardized test fees	AP exams, college-admission tests, achievement tests
Dual enrollment fees	College courses taken during high school
Educational therapies	For students with disabilities

The expanded categories apply to withdrawals made after July 4, 2025. The annual K–12 distribution limit is $10,000 for tax year 2025 and $20,000 per student from tax year 2026.

The two catches worth knowing before you withdraw

First: federal law ties K–12 529 expenses to enrollment or attendance at a school, and whether a homeschool counts can depend on how your state classifies home education. IRS guidance on the home-education question is pending. Texas treats a homeschool as a private school; Arizona defines it as a nonpublic school; other states read differently. Nobody can promise you a blanket answer today, which is exactly why the record matters: dated, itemized, receipt-backed expenses serve you under any reading.

Second: your state’s income tax may not follow the federal rules. California, for example, does not conform to the K–12 expansion at all. A withdrawal can be federally qualified and still taxed by the state. Both questions have specific answers for your situation: from your 529 plan administrator or a tax professional, not from a web page.

One expense record, every document

On Eformogi the expense record is captured once, as purchases happen: item, vendor, educational purpose, amount, about thirty seconds each, free. The documents are views over that record:

The 529 expense file: the tax year itemized by date and category, with the federal category list alongside and totals that never guess (an amount that can’t be read as money is listed as typed and left out of the sums).
The ESA quarterly report: the same record, shaped to your program’s reporting window instead of the tax year.

One purchase is claimed once (an expense paid with ESA or scholarship funds does not belong on the 529 file), but nothing is ever double-entered. And the same capture habit feeds the family-issued verifiable transcript colleges and programs can check directly at a public link, no account on their end.

Generate the file from the record

The record is free for families, forever: capture, the expense log, the portfolio vault, the transcript, verification, export. Generating filled-in artifacts from it (the annual 529 expense file with totals and the federal reference list, the ESA quarterly with the program window computed) is the one optional paid family service, part of Family Pro, $99 per year. Every document previews filled-in, free, before any decision to pay. The file states your record; it is not tax advice and never renders a verdict on what qualifies.

Why a family-owned record

No agency collects this record for you. The tax system asks the family to keep it and produce it if asked. That makes the family record the record: years of purchases, work, and progression, owned and portable across programs, funding sources, and states. The 529 file and the ESA report are documents that record produces, not the place it lives. Read the sovereignty contract.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use a 529 plan for homeschool expenses?

Often, for the expense categories: since July 2025, federal law lists K-12 curriculum and curricular materials, books and instructional materials, online educational materials, tutoring outside the home by a qualified tutor, standardized test fees, dual enrollment fees, and educational therapies for students with disabilities as qualified 529 expenses. Whether a given family's expenses qualify can depend in part on how their state classifies their education arrangement, and IRS guidance on home education is still pending, so keep records that would satisfy either reading, and confirm treatment with your plan administrator or a tax professional.

What K-12 expenses are 529-qualified under the 2025 law?

The expanded federal list: tuition at a public, private, or religious school; curriculum and curricular materials; books and other instructional materials; online educational materials; tutoring or educational classes outside the home by a qualified tutor; standardized test fees, including AP and college-admission tests; dual enrollment fees; and educational therapies for students with disabilities. The expanded categories apply to withdrawals made after July 4, 2025.

How much can I withdraw from a 529 for K-12 each year?

The annual K-12 distribution limit is $20,000 per beneficiary starting with tax year 2026 (doubled from the previous $10,000). The limit applies per student, per year, across all 529 accounts for that student.

Does my state follow the new federal 529 rules?

Not automatically. 529 plans are state-run, and state income-tax treatment of K-12 distributions varies. California, for example, does not conform to the federal K-12 expansion. A withdrawal can be federally qualified and still taxed by your state, so the state question is worth a specific answer from your plan or tax professional before you withdraw.

What records do I need for 529 withdrawals?

The taxpayer reconciles the year's 529 distributions against qualified expenses at tax time, and the burden of showing the match is on the family. That means dated, itemized records (what was purchased, from whom, for what educational purpose, and for how much), plus the receipts behind them. A record kept as purchases happen beats a shoebox reconstruction in April.

Can I count the same purchase against my ESA and my 529?

No: one purchase, one funding source. A purchase paid with ESA or scholarship funds does not belong on a 529 expense file. On Eformogi the same captured expense record produces both documents, so nothing is double-entered, but each purchase is claimed once.

What does this cost?

The record is free for families, forever: capture, the expense log, the portfolio vault, the verifiable transcript, verification, export. Generating filled-in artifacts, like the annual 529 expense file or an ESA quarterly report, is the one optional paid family service, part of Family Pro at $99 per year, and every document previews filled-in, free, first.