Federal fiscal year
The federal government’s budget year, running from 1 October to 30 September. It sets the rhythm of when notices appear and when agencies are in a hurry, and it does not line up with a calendar year or with most organisations’ own fiscal years.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called FFY · Federal FY
In detail
The practical consequence is a seasonal shape to the calendar: a wave of notices after appropriations settle, and a rush of obligations in the last weeks of September as agencies commit money that would otherwise lapse.
When appropriations are late, notices slip with them. A programme that ran in March last year may not appear in March this year for reasons that have nothing to do with the programme.
Against a funder’s data year
On a funder record, `fiscal_year` and `data_year` describe the year a filing covers, which is the funder’s own fiscal year and frequently not the federal one. A giving figure from a 2023 filing is a 2023 fact whatever year you read it in, and the record says so beside the number rather than leaving it to be assumed.
How GrantTrove stores it
- Funder financial figures carry `fiscal_year`, `data_year` and `data_source`, so a figure is never shown without the year it describes.
- `posted_at` and `first_seen_at` on a grant record separate when the source posted a notice from when we first saw it, which are different facts and are frequently different dates.
Common questions
When do most federal notices appear?
In waves after appropriations settle, with a concentration of obligations before 30 September. There is no fixed schedule.
Do you show a fiscal year on grants?
We show `posted_at` from the source and `first_seen_at` from our own crawl. A fiscal year is not stated on most notices.
Why is a programme late this year?
Frequently appropriations. It is not visible in the data, and we do not speculate about it on a record.