Uniform Guidance
The government-wide rulebook for federal awards — administrative requirements, cost principles, and audit requirements in one place. Almost every federal notice cites it, and almost every argument about whether a cost is allowable is settled inside it.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called 2 CFR 200 · Uniform Administrative Requirements
In detail
It replaced a scatter of agency-specific circulars, which is why older guidance still circulating uses different numbering for the same rules. An agency may add requirements on top; it may not subtract.
The parts a recipient touches most are the cost principles, the procurement standards, and the audit threshold. All three are stated in the regulation rather than in any notice, which is why a notice can be short and still bind you to a great deal.
Against a notice’s own terms
A notice states what this programme wants. The Uniform Guidance states what every federal award requires. A record carries what the notice published — amounts, eligibility, dates, use of funds — and never restates regulation, because a regulation summarised into a field becomes our claim about the law rather than the agency’s.
How GrantTrove stores it
- Every record links its notice through `source_url`, and the notice is where the citations to the regulation live.
- We publish no compliance guidance and no interpretation of the regulation. That is a deliberate boundary: we are a data product, and legal interpretation is not data.
Common questions
Does the Uniform Guidance apply to state grants?
To federal money passed through a state, generally yes. To a state’s own money, no.
Do you summarise the rules?
No. We link the notice, which cites them. Restating regulation would turn the agency’s rule into our claim.
Can an agency add requirements?
Yes, on top. It cannot remove government-wide ones.