Getting Started in USA Spending

What is this system?

USA Spending a government-wide system designed to provide the public with information on how some types of federal funding are spent. For the purposes of grants and other types of financial assistance, USA Spending allows anyone to see who has received a grant, how much that grant was for, general information about a grant’s scope, and any subgrants lager than $30,000.

Application & Subgrant Information in USA Spending

No grant award data is inputted directly by the awardees into USA Spending. Instead, USA Spending receives award and other financial data from various financial assistance systems and then displays that data for the general public to view. Information from the Project Abstract Summary that applicants complete and submit in Grants.gov is passed through to USA Spending if a grant application is selected for funding. Likewise, information on larger subgrants that are greater than or equal to $30,000 is entered by prime grant recipients into the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act Subaward Reporting System (FSRS) which then feeds this data into USAspending.

In order to influence the grant data that is publicly visible in USA Spending, recipients must enter information on their grant into other financial assistance systems. 

Who uses this system?

Anyone can use this system at any time to view award data by recipient (grantee name), by Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance/Assistance Listing number, or other search parameters. Grantees and subgrantees do not directly enter data in USA Spending.

When is this sytem used?

This system may be accessed at any time in the lifecycle of an award. It will only be populated with grant data if a project is selected for funding and will only be populated with subgrant data for those subgrants greater than or equal to a specified dollar amount, currently $30,000.