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Methodology and plain-English definitions

Federal spending data is precise but easy to misread. This page explains what each number on this site means, where it comes from, and what it can't tell you.

The fiscal year

The federal fiscal year (FY) runs from October 1 to September 30 and is named for the calendar year it ends in. FY 2026 ran from October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026. Every year filter on this site uses fiscal years.

Obligations

An obligation is a legally binding promise to spend money — signing a contract, approving a grant, or issuing a loan. Most dollar figures on this site are obligations. Obligations can be negative when an agency reduces or cancels an earlier commitment (a "de-obligation").

Outlays

An outlay is money actually paid out of the Treasury. Outlays usually trail obligations: a five-year construction contract may be obligated in one year and paid out over many. Agency pages show both.

Award amount, and potential value

For an individual award, the total obligated amount is everything committed on that award to date across all its modifications. For contracts, the potential value with all options is the most the contract could be worth if every option were exercised — often far more than is ever spent.

Budgetary resources

An agency's budgetary resources are the total funds it was allowed to obligate in a year, including new appropriations and unspent balances carried forward. Only part of an agency's obligations become awards; the rest pays for salaries, rent, interest on the debt and transfers between government accounts. That is why the Treasury and Social Security Administration look enormous in agency totals but smaller in award data.

Award types

  • Contracts buy goods and services for the government.
  • Contract vehicles (IDVs) are umbrella agreements, such as GSA schedules, that other orders are placed against. Search shows them separately so they are not double-counted with the orders.
  • Grants include block, formula, project and cooperative agreements — for example Medicaid payments to states or research grants to universities.
  • Direct payments go to individuals or organizations for a specific purpose (for example farm programs) or with unrestricted use (for example some insurance and benefit programs).
  • Loans are shown at face value. Because most loans are repaid, their face value is not a cost to taxpayers, so we leave loans out of "total spending" figures and show them separately.
  • Other assistance covers insurance and other financial assistance.

Place of performance

State pages assign awards to the state where the work happens or the money is used (the "place of performance"), not to where the recipient is headquartered. Awards performed abroad or without a valid state are not counted in any state. Per-resident figures divide that total by the population USAspending reports for the state, currently a 2017 Census Bureau estimate, so treat them as approximate.

Recipients and "multiple recipients"

Recipients are identified by their Unique Entity ID (UEI) in the federal System for Award Management. Payments to individuals are aggregated and not published by name; USAspending labels these "multiple recipients", and so do we. State governments often rank among the largest recipients because they receive Medicaid and other formula grants that they pass on to providers and residents.

Data timing and revisions

  • Agencies report award data within days, but Department of Defense contracts are published after a 90-day delay for security reasons. Recent fiscal years therefore under-count defense contracts at first.
  • The most recent fiscal year shown (FY 2026) is still being completed as agencies submit final reports, so its totals will change.
  • Agencies correct records frequently. Figures on this site reflect the USAspending data available when we last imported it, shown at the bottom of each page.
  • Dollar amounts are nominal (not adjusted for inflation) and rounded on summary pages.

What this data does not show

An award is not evidence of fraud, waste or wrongdoing, and a large total says nothing about whether money was well spent. USAspending does not include classified spending, and some agencies' coverage is incomplete. For the official record of any award, follow the USAspending.gov link on its page.

How we build the pages

Summary pages (agencies, states, years, recipients, grants and contracts) are generated from the USAspending.gov API v2 and refreshed periodically; each page shows when the source data was last updated and when we imported it. Search and award detail pages query the USAspending.gov API live from your browser. We only publish summary pages that have real data behind them.

Data last updated by USAspending.gov: November 4, 2026. Imported by WhereTaxMoneyGoes: November 6, 2026.