How to Fill Out Arizona Form 352: Foster Care Tax Credit

To fill out Arizona Form 352, list each cash donation you made to a Qualifying Foster Care Charitable Organization in Part 1, add any unused credit carried forward from the prior five years in Part 2, total the two in Part 3, and attach the completed form to your Arizona income tax return along with Form 301. For the 2026 tax year, the credit caps at $632 for single, head-of-household, and married-filing-separate filers, and $1,262 for married couples filing jointly.¹ The credit is nonrefundable: it can zero out your Arizona tax but won’t produce a refund on its own.

One boundary before you start. Form 352 is only for Qualifying Foster Care Charitable Organizations (QFCOs). Donations to a general Qualifying Charitable Organization go on Form 321 instead, and using the wrong form will delay or deny the credit.² Also, only cash counts. Property, goods, clothing, and volunteer time don’t qualify, no matter the value.

What to Gather First

You’ll need four things on the desk:

Your donation receipt from each QFCO, showing the dollar amount and date.
The five-digit QFCO code for each organization. It may appear on your receipt. If not, look it up on the Arizona Department of Revenue’s published QFCO list for the applicable tax year — note that it’s a separate PDF from the QCO list.¹
Prior-year returns if you claimed QFCO credits in any of the previous five years and had unused amounts to carry forward.
Your Social Security number and your name exactly as it appears on your main Arizona return.

Working Through the Three Parts

Part 1: Current Year’s Contributions

For each donation, enter the date, the five-digit QFCO code, the organization’s name, and the cash amount. The form has rows for up to three organizations. If you donated to more, fill out the continuation sheet on page 3 and attach it.³

Total your contributions and compare that total to the cap for your filing status. For 2026, that’s $632 for single, head of household, or married filing separately, and $1,262 for married filing jointly.¹ Your current-year credit is the smaller of the two numbers. Married couples filing separately may each claim up to half of the joint limit.

Part 2: Credit Carryover From Prior Years

If you claimed the QFCO credit in any of the five preceding tax years but couldn’t use the full amount because your tax liability was too low, the unused portion carries forward. List each prior year’s unused balance here. Arizona statute allows carryforward for up to five consecutive tax years after the year the credit was established, and any amount not used in that window expires.⁴ Pull the figures from your prior-year Form 352 and Form 301 worksheets.

Part 3: Total Available Credit

Add your current-year credit from Part 1 to any valid carryover from Part 2. That sum is your total available credit for the year. The annual cap applies to the current year’s contribution only, not to the combined total with carryover amounts.⁵ Transfer the Part 3 total to Arizona Form 301, which tracks all your nonrefundable credits and sets the order they apply against your tax. Because the credit is nonrefundable, the amount you actually use in any given year can’t exceed the tax you owe; anything left simply carries into the next year.³

Attaching Form 352 to Your Return

Form 352 never goes to the Department of Revenue by itself. Attach it to your Arizona individual income tax return — Form 140 for full-year residents, Form 140NR for nonresidents, or Form 140PY for part-year residents — along with Form 301 and any continuation sheet.² On Form 301, the QFCO credit sits on its own line, separate from the QCO credit, and the stacking order matters: once credits reduce your tax to zero, anything left over carries forward rather than refunding.⁶

Most commercial tax software will populate Form 352 and Form 301 automatically once you enter the QFCO donation. Taxpayers with adjusted gross income of $89,000 or less can use ADOR’s Free File Alliance for free guided preparation and e-filing.⁷

Choosing Which Tax Year to Claim

Cash contributions made between January 1 and April 15 of the following year can be applied to either the current tax year or the one that just ended. A donation made in February 2026, for example, can go on your 2025 return filed that spring, or wait and ride on your 2026 return filed in 2027.¹

The caps differ by year. For 2025 the maximums are $618 single and $1,234 joint; for 2026 they rise to $632 and $1,262. If an early-2026 donation would exceed the 2025 cap, applying it to 2026 may let you use more of it. Whichever year you choose, the contribution is treated as if it were made on the last day of that tax year. If you claim an early-year donation on the prior year’s return, make a corresponding adjustment on your current-year Arizona Schedule A to avoid double-counting the deduction.⁸

How the Federal Deduction Interacts

Claiming the Arizona QFCO credit doesn’t automatically bar you from deducting the same donation federally if you itemize. But IRS rules require donors to reduce the federal charitable deduction by the amount of any state tax credit received that exceeds 15% of the donation. Because Arizona’s QFCO credit returns the full dollar amount of the gift, that reduction effectively eliminates most or all of the federal deduction for the same contribution. If this matters to your return, check IRS guidance on state tax credit quid pro quo rules or speak with a tax professional.

Records to Keep

Hold your donation receipts, the completed Form 352, and supporting schedules for at least four years from the return’s due date or the date you actually filed, whichever is later. That matches Arizona’s statute of limitations for individual income tax.⁹ If you’re carrying credit forward, keep the records from the original donation year until the carryforward period runs out and the four-year retention window has closed on the final return that used the credit.

1
Arizona Department of Revenue. Credits for Contributions to QCOs and QFCOs
2
Arizona Department of Revenue. Arizona Form 352 Instructions – Credit for Contributions to Qualifying Foster Care Charitable Organizations
3
Arizona Department of Revenue. Arizona Form 352 – Credit for Contributions to Qualifying Foster Care Charitable Organizations
4
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 43-1088 – Credit for Contribution to Qualifying Charitable Organizations and Qualifying Foster Care Charitable Organizations
5
Arizona Department of Revenue. Arizona Form 352 Instructions – Credit for Contributions to Qualifying Foster Care Charitable Organizations
6
Arizona Department of Revenue. Nonrefundable Individual Arizona Tax Credits and Recapture
7
Arizona Department of Revenue. Free Electronic Filing for Individuals
8
Arizona Department of Revenue. Arizona Form 352 Instructions – Credit for Contributions to Qualifying Foster Care Charitable Organizations
9
Arizona Department of Revenue. Record Keeping