Hi all,
Recently, my homebrew club’s PayPal account was shut down because it was a Personal Account but we were using it to collect membership dues and entry fees for our competitions.
What’s the move? Should we use PayPal Business Account? Do we need to incorporate as a non-profit first? (We are not registered as 501c)
Furthermore, does AHA provide help with becoming a 501c? I clearly don’t know anything about this stuff.
Thanks for the advice
Hello. Some solid resources on Homebrewersassociation.org (search ‘501’).
In 2026, AHA is researching club support services and we have a Clubs Committee.
No matter what, yes highly reccomend a business bank account (you do not have to incorporate as a nonprofit to run a club but most do).
Also consider AHA Club Insurance program to protect club and offices from liability. It’s free if 75% of club members are also AHA members.
Lastly come to Homebrew Con in June! There will be a club officer bootcamp for club leaders to support and learn from each other. Some clubs even cover or reimburse travel to HBC as professional development.
Cheers, Julia - AHA Exec Director
Way back in the day we registered as a non-profit with the state, but never went through the full process for non-profit with the Federal. I’m not sure if that is available in your state. That allowed us to get an EIN which allowed us to open the bank account. We made sure to never make any interest on the money. That then allowed us to sign up with PayPal as a non-profit business type, but it was not easy to accomplish the task. PayPal’s fees are very annoying so it might be better to use a different platform.
Be careful with PayPal/Venmo buisiness accounts, they take a chunk of each deposit. I think for our last $500 deposit, $15 went to their fee structure.
Did the club have to submit a tax return each year?
No we did not file tax returns. We made sure to never have any interest income. The only income the club had were dues which had been collected and if any money was left over after the annual competition.
I believe had we completed the process of becoming a non-profit with the Feds we would have been required to file taxes.
Cool, thanks for the insight
If you successfully become a 501cX (The Falcons are a 501c7), you do have to file an annual report with the IRS, but if your income level is below a certain floor (back in 2000 it was $20K and it’s gone up since then) then all you have to do is submit an annual affidavit that “we didn’t breach the minimum - kthxby”