Donor-Advised Fund Gifts of Real Estate and Private Shares 2026

What a donor-advised fund is in the Code, and why the sponsor decides

Section 4966(d)(2) defines a DAF as a fund or account “which is owned and controlled by a sponsoring organization”, separately identified by a donor's contributions, over which the donor “has, or reasonably expects to have, advisory privileges”. The word that matters for an illiquid asset is “controlled”. The deduction itself depends on it: under 26 U.S.C. 170(f)(18)(B), no deduction is allowed unless the donor gets a written acknowledgment from the sponsor “that such organization has exclusive legal control over the assets contributed”.

For a property or a block of private shares, that means three things (our reading). The sponsor, not the donor, decides whether to accept the asset, when to sell it and to whom. The sponsor carries the asset's taxes and liabilities while it owns it, which is why every written policy below is about marketability, debt and cost. And the sponsor is a public charity under section 170(b)(1)(A), which is what gives the donor the fair-market-value deduction that a private foundation would not.

Source: 26 U.S.C. 170 and 4966, United States Code 2024 edition (govinfo.gov), read October 12, 2026.

Basis and gain carry over in the other direction too. For property used in a business, Publication 526 (2025) says it “is considered ordinary income property to the extent of any gain that would have been treated as ordinary income because of depreciation”, and the deduction for ordinary income property is “its FMV minus the amount that would be ordinary income or short-term capital gain”. For a rental building, how much of the gain is ordinary income depends on the recapture rules our depreciation recapture guide walks through; for an LP interest, it depends on the partnership's own assets (our reading).

What changed on January 1, 2026

Pub. L. 119-21, signed July 4, 2025, rewrote four charitable rules. Each applies to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025, and none of the four sections contains an end date (our reading of their text), so a gift on December 31, 2026 and one on January 1, 2027 fall under the same rules, apart from the inflation-indexed bracket thresholds. The premise that something expires at the end of 2026 is not in the statute.

Sources: Pub. L. 119-21, sections 70111, 70424, 70425 and 70426 (govinfo.gov); 26 U.S.C. 170(p) (2024 edition); Rev. Proc. 2025-32, Tables 1 and 3. Corporations get a separate 1% floor (section 70426).

The non-itemizer rule is the one most summaries get half right. The amendment only changed the dollar amounts in section 170(p); the exclusions in that subsection stayed, and they deny the deduction for contributions to a 509(a)(3) supporting organization or “for the establishment of a new, or maintenance of an existing, donor advised fund”. It is also limited to contributions made in cash. A non-itemizer giving a property to a DAF gets no deduction from it (our reading).

Which sponsors accept real estate and private shares, in their own words

The law lets a DAF take almost anything; the sponsors' written policies decide what they actually take. We read each policy as published on October 12, 2026.

Sources: the documents named in the second column; full citations in the CSV and at the end of this page. Fidelity Charitable's web pages refused our direct downloads (HTTP 403); its fees text was read through a fetch tool, and the fact sheet PDF was read in full.

The sentences that decide most cases:

• Fidelity Charitable on marketability: “We must be able to find liquidity within a reasonable period of time.” On liabilities: “We generally will not incur actual or contingent liabilities with respect to the asset.” It also says it “sells the contributed asset at its discretion” and reports a sale within three years on Form 8282. Its fact sheet claims more than $15.5 billion of complex assets processed since inception.
• DAFgiving360: “All assets listed below are considered on a case-by-case basis only.” And: “DAFgiving360 will not hold assets at an account holder's request.”
• Vanguard Charitable: “Donations of complex assets require prequalification, higher minimum contribution amounts, and additional processing time.”
• NPT: “The property is not under contract for sale.” and “NPT will not hold or renovate real estate.” Its due diligence “takes an average of 3 to 6 months”.
• Bank of America: “The minimum contribution for non-publicly traded financial assets (except for real estate) is $250,000.”

What the sponsors' IRS returns show

Every sponsor reports DAF totals on Schedule D and non-cash gifts by type on Schedule M of Form 990. We parsed the e-filed XML of the four largest national sponsors from the IRS's own bulk data for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025 (and 2024 where it is published), with a script saved alongside the data.

Source: IRS Form 990 e-file XML, Schedules D and M, from the IRS TEOS bulk files 2026_TEOS_XML_05A and 05B (object IDs 202601389349301700, 202611199349300601, 202621329349306657, 202601289349302480). Amounts rounded from whole dollars; exact values in the CSV.

Four readings, all ours:

• Real estate is rare at the national sponsors. All four returns either leave the three real estate groups of Schedule M empty or omit them. A property may still reach a sponsor wrapped in an LLC, which Schedule M would count as an LLC interest, so a sponsor reporting no real estate does not prove it received none.
• Private interests are a small slice in count, not in dollars. Across the four, 665 gifts of closely held stock or partnership, LLC or trust interests carried $3.98 billion, 6.81% of $58.47 billion of DAF contributions, against 486,631 gifts of listed securities.
• Each sponsor has a different mix. NPT took 19 gifts of closely held stock worth $1.18 billion, about $62 million each on average; DAFgiving360 took 29 worth $14.4 million. A sponsor's appetite shows in its own return.
• The trend is up at the largest sponsor. Fidelity Charitable's closely held stock gifts rose from 126 ($228.6 million) in fiscal 2024 to 306 ($464.2 million) in fiscal 2025, and its partnership, LLC and trust interests from 129 to 137. NPT went the other way on count: 186 closely held gifts in fiscal 2024, 19 in fiscal 2025.

Giving a property: the appraisal, the mortgage and the sale

The appraisal. For any property claimed above $5,000, the donor must obtain “a qualified appraisal of such property” (26 U.S.C. 170(f)(11)(C)); above $500,000 the appraisal is attached to the return (170(f)(11)(D)). The regulation fixes the window: the report must be “signed and dated by the qualified appraiser no earlier than 60 days before the date of the contribution” (26 CFR 1.170A-17(a)(4)), and the fee “cannot be based to any extent on the appraised value of the property” (1.170A-17(a)(9)). The donor, the donee and a party to the transaction in which the donor acquired the property are not qualified appraisers for the property (1.170A-17(b)(5)). The sponsor signs Part V of Form 8283 Section B as donee; the Form 8283 instructions say “Form 8283 is an appraisal summary. It is not an appraisal.”

The date of the gift. Publication 561 (Rev. December 2025): “the date of a contribution is the date on which the property is delivered to the charity or the title transfer date”. For a December gift, that is the date the deed reaches the sponsor's entity, not the date the paperwork starts.

A mortgage. Debt turns the gift into a part-sale. The regulation is explicit that “the amount of the indebtedness must be treated as an amount realized”, even when the charity does not assume it (26 CFR 1.1011-2(a)(3)), and the basis is split between the sale part and the gift part (1.1011-2(b)). On the charity's side, 26 U.S.C. 514(c)(2)(A) treats a mortgage on gifted property as the charity's own acquisition indebtedness unless the five-year exception in 514(c)(2)(B) applies, which makes part of the income and of the sale gain unrelated business income. That is the reason behind NPT's “debt-free” condition and Fidelity's refusal of “actual or contingent liabilities” (our reading).

A sale already lined up. In T.C. Memo. 2023-34 the donor gave shares of a family company to Fidelity Charitable's DAF days before a sale closed. The Tax Court taxed the gain to the donor, holding that “a donor must bear at least some risk at the time of contribution that the sale will not close”, and found that the appraisal “failed to substantially comply” with the qualified appraisal rules. Real estate under contract runs into the same doctrine; NPT does not accept it at all. Our charitable remainder trust guide covers the same case from the side of a trust that pays the donor an income.

Giving non-traded REIT, BDC, Reg A or LP shares

This is where the site's readers differ from the typical DAF donor: their appreciated asset is often a non-traded REIT or BDC, a Reg A offering or a fund LP interest that cannot be sold on an exchange.

Sources: 26 CFR 1.170A-13 and 1.170A-16 (eCFR, current to October 8, 2026); IRS Publication 561 (Rev. December 2025); 26 U.S.C. 170(e).

Three details matter for an unlisted share:

• NAV is not an appraisal. Publication 561 says stock without quoted prices calls for a professional because “the analysis requires consideration of factors similar to those used to value an interest in a business”, and that restricted securities “usually trade at a discount in relation to freely traded securities”. A non-traded REIT's published NAV is a sponsor estimate of the assets; the price a buyer would pay for a share that can only be redeemed in limited monthly or quarterly amounts can be lower (our reading). Our NAV REIT redemption tracker shows how those limits have worked in 2026.
• The old $10,000 shortcut is gone. 26 CFR 1.170A-13(c)(2)(ii)(B)(1) still prints an exception for nonpublicly traded stock claimed at more than $5,000 but not more than $10,000. The newer substantiation rule, 1.170A-16, applies to contributions after July 30, 2018 and lists only four exceptions: publicly traded securities, certain intellectual property, qualified vehicles and inventory (our reading). The Form 8283 instructions put it plainly: “A separate, qualified appraisal is required for any gift of property valued in excess of $5,000.”
• The issuer has to cooperate. DAFgiving360 says acceptance of restricted securities “is subject to the marketability of the securities and the issuer's approval of the sale”. For a non-traded REIT or BDC, the transfer agent must re-register the shares to the sponsor, and Publication 561 dates the gift at that transfer (our reading).

Excess business holdings and UBTI: the two taxes the sponsor worries about

Excess business holdings. 26 U.S.C. 4943(e)(1): “a donor advised fund (as defined in section 4966(d)(2)) shall be treated as a private foundation.” For a private company, the fund's permitted holding is 20% of the voting stock minus what the donor and family own (4943(c)(2)(A)), with a 2% de minimis (4943(c)(2)(C)). Excess holdings that arrive by gift are treated as held by a disqualified person for 5 years (4943(c)(6)); after that, the tax is 10% of the excess holdings and then 200% if they are not sold (4943(a) and (b)). That is why DAFgiving360 caps any business interest at 20% and why a community foundation such as Stark refuses business interests that would trigger section 4943.

Unrelated business taxable income. A sponsor that owns an LP interest must include “its share (whether or not distributed) of the gross income of the partnership from such unrelated trade or business” (26 U.S.C. 512(c)(1)). Real estate funds that borrow, or that run operating businesses such as hotels or senior housing, produce that income (our reading; see our K-1 vs 1099-DIV guide). Fidelity Charitable escrows “a portion of the gross proceeds for Unrelated Business Income Tax”; DAFgiving360 reserves at least $500 per publicly traded partnership gift through the end of the following year. The tax is the sponsor's, but the money comes out of the donor's account.

Year-end 2026: what the calendar looks like for an illiquid gift

A gift counts for 2026 only if it is complete by December 31, 2026. For an illiquid asset the steps take months, not days (our reading of the policies above):

Sources: NPT Real Estate Contribution Guidelines; Vanguard Charitable year-end deadlines page read October 12, 2026; IRS Publication 561; 26 CFR 1.170A-17; Form 8283 instructions (Rev. December 2025); Fidelity Charitable complex assets fact sheet.

Read against NPT's own average, a real estate gift that starts due diligence in mid-October 2026 would need to come in at the short end of 3 to 6 months to close in 2026 (our arithmetic on the dates). For a non-traded REIT position, the transfer agent's processing time is the constraint (not verified: no transfer agent publishes a 2026 cut-off we could find).

A DAF, a private foundation or a charitable remainder trust

Sources: 26 U.S.C. 170, 4943, 4967 (2024 edition). The CRT column is covered in our charitable remainder trust guide; the exception for CRTs from 4943 is our reading, not verified in this page's sources.

After the gift: what the DAF cannot do for the donor

Two excise taxes in subchapter G keep a DAF from becoming a way back to the donor. A distribution “to any natural person” is a taxable distribution taxed at 20% to the sponsor and 5% to a fund manager who agreed to it, up to $10,000 (26 U.S.C. 4966(a) and (b)(2)). A distribution that gives a donor or advisor “a more than incidental benefit” is taxed at 125% of the benefit to the person who advised it or received it (4967(a)(1)). In practice, the property cannot be sold back to the donor or a relative at a discount, and NPT bars any broker commission that would benefit “a disqualified person as to the DAF”. Proposed regulations on taxable distributions under section 4966 appear in the Federal Register on January 9, 2024, with hearing notices on February 29 and April 19, 2024; our search of the Federal Register on October 12, 2026 found no final rule.

For the gain that a gift avoids, our capital gains tax on real estate guide has the rates; for property that is better kept until death, see step-up in basis for inherited real estate.

What a holder of property or unlisted shares can do with this

These are the questions the documents above raise; none of them is a recommendation for a particular gift.

• Ask the sponsor for its written acceptance criteria before anything else. The table above shows that the answer differs by sponsor and by asset: one large sponsor does not list real estate at all, another wants $2 million and no debt, another wants $250,000 for non-public assets.
• Check the holding period. Shares or property held 1 year or less are deducted at basis under 170(e)(1)(A). For a non-traded REIT bought through a distribution reinvestment plan, each lot has its own date (our reading).
• Check for debt. A mortgage on the property, or a share of partnership debt that comes with an LP interest, is treated as an amount realized under 26 CFR 1.1011-2 and can create taxable gain at the time of the gift.
• Count the 2026 limits. 30% of the contribution base for property, the 0.5% floor, and the 2/37 reduction if taxable income is above $768,700 (joint) or $640,600 (single). The carryover lasts 5 years.
• Line up the appraiser early. The appraisal must be dated within 60 days before the gift or after it, by someone who is not the donor, the sponsor or the person who sold the asset to the donor, for a fee not tied to the value.
• Do not sign a sale first. T.C. Memo. 2023-34 is the reference case on a DAF gift made after a sale was practically settled.
• Ask who pays. Due diligence, title insurance, transfer taxes, carrying costs, UBIT reserves and liquidation fees come out of the donor's pocket or the DAF account in every policy we read.

The work in that list belongs to a CPA, a tax or real estate attorney and a qualified appraiser. We do not show an adviser-matching box on this page, because a financial-adviser match does not supply any of the three, and an appraiser must be independent of the people involved in the gift.

FAQ

Sources, read and saved on October 12, 2026: 26 U.S.C. 170, 512, 514, 1011, 4943, 4966 and 4967 (United States Code 2024 edition, govinfo.gov); Pub. L. 119-21, sections 70111, 70424, 70425 and 70426 (govinfo.gov); 26 CFR 1.170A-1, 1.170A-4, 1.170A-13, 1.170A-16, 1.170A-17 and 1.1011-2 (eCFR, current to October 8, 2026); Rev. Proc. 2025-32; IRS Publication 526 (2025), Publication 561 (Rev. December 2025), Form 8283 and its instructions (Rev. December 2025); U.S. Tax Court, T.C. Memo. 2023-34, docket 18606-19; Federal Register API search for IRS documents on donor advised funds; Fidelity Charitable complex assets fact sheet (532601.9.0) and fees and minimums FAQ (read through a fetch tool after HTTP 403); DAFgiving360 Program Policies (updated August 2026) and its page on donating real estate; Vanguard Charitable complex assets, fees and minimums, year-end deadlines and Policies and Guidelines (updated January 9, 2026) pages; National Philanthropic Trust Real Estate Contribution Guidelines (NPT FOR RECG 0822); Bank of America Charitable Gift Fund Program Guidelines (Version 3.2024); Stark Community Foundation Gift Acceptance Policy; IRS Form 990 e-file XML for Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, Donor Advised Charitable Giving, Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program and National Philanthropic Trust, fiscal years ended June 30, 2024 and 2025, from the IRS TEOS bulk data, parsed with our own saved script. Sums, shares and averages are our arithmetic; interpretations marked "our reading" are ours. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.