What 2 CFR 200 is, in plain English

If your organisation takes federal grant money, almost all of the rules that govern what you do with it live in one place: 2 CFR Part 200, known as the Uniform Guidance. When an award letter says it is “subject to 2 CFR Part 200”, that single line imports hundreds of pages of requirements. This is what those requirements are, how they are organised, and which parts actually touch your week.

What it is

2 CFR Part 200 is the Office of Management and Budget’s uniform set of administrative requirements, cost principles, and audit requirements for federal awards. It consolidated a scatter of older OMB circulars (the ones people still call A-110, A-122, A-133) into a single framework in 2014, and was substantially revised in 2024. Most federal grant-making agencies adopt it, so for a typical nonprofit it is the rulebook, not one of several.

The practical consequence is the one in the award letter: you do not get to read only the parts you were handed. “Subject to 2 CFR Part 200” means the whole of it applies, and the sections relevant to what you actually do — procurement, subawards, cost principles, audit — are yours to find.

How it is organised

The Part is split into subparts, and it helps to know which one holds what:

• Subpart A — definitions (including the thresholds everything else references).
• Subpart B — general provisions.
• Subpart C — pre-award: how funding opportunities and applications work.
• Subpart D — post-award requirements. This is the operational core: reporting, budget and program revisions, property and equipment, procurement, subrecipient monitoring, closeout and record retention.
• Subpart E — cost principles: what costs are allowable, and how indirect costs work.
• Subpart F — audit requirements: the Single Audit.

The parts that touch your day-to-day

Most of the compliance load a grant-funded team actually feels comes from a handful of sections. Here is the map, with where each one is covered in more depth:

• Deadlines, closeout and records (Subpart D) — the 120-day closeout, the record-retention clock, and no-cost extensions.
• Money and budgets (Subpart E) — the de minimis indirect rate, cost share and match, and budget-versus-actual.
• Approvals and subawards (Subpart D) — what needs prior approval, and your duties for subrecipient monitoring.
• Audit (Subpart F) — the $1,000,000 Single Audit threshold.

This is the ground Grantwell is built on. It reads the award, finds the obligations 2 CFR 200 and the award’s own terms create, and turns them into dated, owned tasks — so the framework becomes a calendar you work from rather than a document you were told applied.

This guide is general information about how grant compliance work is commonly organised, not legal, audit or accounting advice. Grant rules change, and terms vary by funder and award — always check your own award documents and the current regulation, and talk to your auditor about your specific circumstances.