North American Charities: the US, Canada and Mexico Charity Data Hub
The North America charity database on GiveRadar covers 1.34M+ nonprofits across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, each sourced directly from the country's official regulator: the IRS, the Canada Revenue Agency, and Mexico's SAT. Every record carries an integrity assessment, a 0-100 score of disclosure and governance signals that cannot be bought, plus financials where the registry publishes them.
Which North American countries does GiveRadar cover?
GiveRadar keeps separate, searchable data for each North American country, all of it built from official government registry data, and the depth lives one level down on the country pages: search by EIN and read Form 990 financials on the United States page, browse CRA-registered charities with their T3010 filings on the Canada page, and check SAT-authorized donatarias on the Mexico page. Each has its own search, filters, category breakdowns, and per-charity profiles.
United States
1,276,664 records
Sourced from IRS Exempt Organizations Master File + Form 990 filings.
Registry
Canada
61,497 records
Sourced from Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) T3010 Charity Returns.
Registry
Mexico
10,528 records
Sourced from SAT Donatarias Autorizadas.
RegistryNot yet covered: nothing on the mainland. The United States, Canada, and Mexico all run open registers, and all three are here in full. Greenland, Bermuda, and the smaller North Atlantic territories have no separate coverage, and Central America and the Caribbean are grouped on the Latin America charity database rather than here. Counts update as we refresh each country, and every country page carries its own last-updated date.
Look up a North American charity in seconds
Search 1,348,689 organizations by name or national identifier, or run one through the checker to see its registration, disclosure score and filed financials.
Which register does each North American country publish?
Three countries, three regulators, three very different levels of disclosure. The percentages describe what each regulator publishes, not how transparent any single charity is.
| Country | Register | Records | With financials | With officers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States |
IRS Exempt Organizations Master File + Form 990 filings | 1,276,664 | 45% | 46% |
| Canada |
Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) T3010 Charity Returns | 61,497 | 93% | none |
| Mexico |
SAT Donatarias Autorizadas | 10,528 | 92% | 100% |
Canada and Mexico publish accounts for almost every registered organization, because filing them is a condition of the status. The United States figure is lower only because it counts every organization in the Exempt Organizations Master File, including the many small filers whose latest Form 990 has not been processed yet.
How are charities regulated in North America?
Charities in North America are regulated nationally, through three separate systems: 501(c) tax-exempt status granted by the IRS in the United States, registered charity status under the Canada Revenue Agency, and donataria autorizada authorization from the SAT in Mexico. There is no continent-wide register, so a nonprofit operating in all three countries holds three separate registrations.
How many nonprofits are there in North America?
GiveRadar holds 1,348,689 across the three countries, and unlike most of the world that number is close to the real total, because all three regulators publish. The catch is that the three counts are not the same kind of thing: the United States figure counts every tax-exempt organization in the IRS master file, Canada's counts charities the CRA has registered, and Mexico's counts only the donatarias autorizadas cleared to issue tax-deductible receipts. Comparing them like for like is the mistake to avoid.
What does each regulator publish?
All three publish openly, which is why North American coverage here is registry-sourced end to end. US tax-exempt organizations appear in the IRS Exempt Organizations Master File and file Form 990 returns disclosing revenue, expenses, and officer compensation. Canadian registered charities file the annual T3010 information return, which the CRA publishes. Mexican donatarias autorizadas appear on the SAT's annual authorization list and file transparency reports. Full provenance per country is on the data sources page.
What does a North American charity record on GiveRadar contain?
Registration identity first: legal name, the national identifier (an EIN in the United States, a CRA business number in Canada, an RFC in Mexico), legal form, and status. Financial figures follow wherever the regulator publishes them, and in this region that is most of the time: 93% of Canadian records and 91% of Mexican records carry financials, against 45% of the far larger US set, where the gap is filers whose latest Form 990 is not yet processed. GiveRadar normalizes all three systems into one schema, so a US 501(c)(3), a CRA-registered charity, and a SAT donataria can be read side by side, each with a free 0-100 integrity assessment that scores disclosure rather than impact and cannot be bought.
How to verify a charity in North America
To verify a charity in North America, check it against the official register of its country: the IRS for the United States, the CRA for Canada, or the SAT for Mexico. Or search all three at once with the GiveRadar charity checker. The routine:
Find the exact organization. Search by name, or by identifier: EIN in the US, CRA registration number in Canada, or the SAT register entry in Mexico. Similar names are common; the identifier settles it.
Confirm registration status. A record on GiveRadar shows the charity's official registry source and registration details.
Read the integrity assessment. The 0-100 score measures disclosure: registration, financial transparency, governance, contact availability, and data recency. It is not a rating of impact, and charities cannot pay to change it. Scoring details are on the methodology page.
Check the filings. Recent financial filings are a good sign; a filing gap of five years or more raises a red flag on the record.
For the full check-before-you-give routine, see the donor guide.
Can I access North American charity data through an API?
Yes. Every North American record on this page is available through the GiveRadar REST API and MCP server, with a free tier and paid tiers for volume. See the charity data API page for endpoints, fields, and pricing. Query one country with /api/v1/search/?q={name}&country=US, swapping in CA or MX (the q parameter is required; an EIN works as the query). The same records are reachable over MCP, so an agent can read registration, filed financials and integrity assessments across all three regimes without scraping.
Frequently asked questions about North American charities
How many charities are there in North America?
GiveRadar holds 1,348,689 records across the United States, Canada and Mexico, all three from the country's own regulator: the IRS, the Canada Revenue Agency and the SAT.
The three counts measure different things, which is the trap in any continental total. The US number counts every organization in the IRS Exempt Organizations Master File, Canada's counts CRA-registered charities, and Mexico's counts only the donatarias autorizadas cleared to issue tax-deductible receipts.
Is there a single North American charity register?
No. There is no continental register and no cross-border recognition: a nonprofit operating in all three countries holds three separate registrations.
501(c) tax-exempt status comes from the IRS, registered charity status from the CRA, and donataria autorizada authorization from the SAT. GiveRadar imports all three and normalizes them into one schema, so a 501(c)(3), a CRA-registered charity and a SAT donataria can be read side by side without pretending the statuses are equivalent.
Can a US charity claim tax-deductible status in Canada or Mexico?
Not automatically. Each country's tax deduction follows its own registration, so a US 501(c)(3) is not deductible for a Canadian or Mexican donor unless it also holds status there.
Cross-border giving usually runs through an intermediary that holds status in the donor's country, or through the limited relief in the US-Canada and US-Mexico tax treaties. GiveRadar shows each organization's registration per country so you can see which statuses it actually holds rather than assuming.
What does each North American regulator publish?
All three publish openly, but not the same things:
- United States: the IRS Exempt Organizations Master File plus Form 990 returns with revenue, expenses and officer compensation
- Canada: the CRA's registered charity listing with the annual T3010 information return
- Mexico: the SAT's annual donatarias autorizadas list plus transparency reports
That difference is why financial coverage looks uneven on this page. It reflects what each regulator collects, not how transparent the charities are.
How do I find the largest charities in North America?
Search by country and sort by revenue. Open the search page, filter to the United States, Canada or Mexico, set Sort to Revenue, and the largest organizations by reported income come first.
This is the one region where a revenue ranking is broadly meaningful, because all three regulators publish accounts. Even so, "largest" means reported income, not impact, and US organizations whose latest Form 990 has not been processed will rank lower than they should. GiveRadar publishes no paid or editorial rankings.
Related pages
Search 1.34M+ charities and nonprofits in North America
Open a country page to see the organizations we hold for it and how they are sourced, or search the whole database by name.