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To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to permit fees for admissions applications to higher education institutions to be paid from a 529 plan, and for other purposes.
Summary
This bill amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow college application fees to be paid as a qualified expense from a 529 college savings plan. Currently, 529 plans permit tax-free withdrawals for qualified education expenses such as tuition, room and board, and books. The bill expands this list to include fees required to apply for admission to eligible educational institutions. The change takes effect for distributions made after the bill is enacted.
AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.
Sponsor (1)
Actions (2)
- Jan 22, 2026 Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means. · house
- Jan 22, 2026 Introduced in House
Similar bills (6)
Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.
Full text
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January 22, 2026
Ms. Bynum introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means
A BILL
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to permit fees for admissions applications to higher education institutions to be paid from a 529 plan, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Application Fees as Eligible Expenses Act” or the “Application FEES Act”.
SEC. 2. PAYMENT FROM 529 PLAN OF FEES FOR ADMISSIONS APPLICATIONS TO HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS.
(a) In General.—Section 529(e)(3)(A) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by striking “and” at the end of clause (ii), by striking the period at the end of clause (iii) and inserting “, and”, and by inserting after clause (iii) the following new clause:
“(iv) fees required of the beneficiary to apply for admission to any eligible educational institution.”.
(b) Effective Date.—The amendments made by this section shall apply to distributions made after the date of the enactment of this Act. <all>
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