Federal Money Has Rules. Half of What You Have Read About Them Is Out of Date.

The thresholds changed in 2024. Most checklists, templates and consultants never updated. Find out where you actually stand in about ninety seconds.

Watching: OMB proposed rule, comments closed 13 July 2026

$0New audit trigger
0%De minimis rate
0State rules mapped
0Fabrications we caught
Tool 01 · Threshold check

Do You Need a Single Audit?

Total federal money you spent in your fiscal year, including pass-through from a state or another nonprofit.

$
$0$1.25M$2.5M
No Single Audit

Enter your federal spend to see where you stand.

2 CFR 200.501 · trigger $1,000,000
Counts toward it
  • Direct federal awards
  • Pass-through from a state agency
  • Pass-through from another nonprofit
  • Federal loan and loan guarantee balances
Does not count
  • Foundation and corporate grants
  • Individual donations
  • Program fees and earned revenue
  • State money that is not federal in origin

The 2024 revision moved this line up from the old trigger, so some organisations that needed an audit last year no longer do.

Tool 02 · De minimis

The 15 Percent You May Not Be Claiming

Your modified total direct cost base, roughly your direct costs less equipment and the part of each subaward above $50,000.

$
$0$1M$2M
Old de minimis, 10 percent$0
Current de minimis, 15 percent$0
$0

a year in indirect recovery you can claim without negotiating a rate, if your awards allow indirect and you have not already elected a rate.

2 CFR 200.414. The de minimis rate applies to MTDC, not to your whole budget. Some funders cap indirect below this by statute, and your election has to be documented and applied consistently.

Effective 1 October 2024

Six Numbers Moved. Almost Nothing Else Was Rewritten.

If a checklist, template or advisor is still quoting the struck-through figure, it predates the revision. That is the fastest way to tell whether guidance you are holding is current. Each citation links to the live eCFR text.

Single Audit Trigger, Federal Spend in a Year
$750,000
$1,000,000
2 CFR 200.501 →
De Minimis Indirect Cost Rate
10% MTDC
15% MTDC
2 CFR 200.414 →
Equipment and Supplies Capitalization
$5,000
$10,000
2 CFR 200.1 →
Subaward Amount Included in MTDC
first $25,000
first $50,000
2 CFR 200.1 →
Fixed Amount Subaward Ceiling
$250,000
$500,000
2 CFR 200.333 →
Micro-Purchase Self-Certification Ceiling
$10,000
$50,000
2 CFR 200.320 →

The mistake nearly every summary makes

FAR procurement thresholds moved separately and later, at 90 FR 41872 effective 1 October 2025: micro-purchase $15K and simplified acquisition threshold $350K. Different authority, different date. Mixing them with the 2 CFR figures above is the most common error we find in material sold to nonprofits.

Interactive

Click Your State. Get the Truth About It.

Two questions, one map. Which states run their own grant management framework on top of the federal rules, and which states require you to register before you solicit a dollar.

Myth busters

Three Things You May Have Read That Are Not True.

All three circulate in AI-generated compliance material sold to nonprofits. Open each card. A funder who checks a citation and finds nothing there has learned something about the organisation that quoted it.

Get Told the Day a Threshold Moves.

The knowledge on this page stays free and open. Add your email and we will send the things worth gating:

  • A plain-language alert within days of any movement on the OMB rule
  • The Single Audit readiness checklist
  • The indirect cost worksheet and the state registration matrix
  • A seat at the next compliance workshop

Double opt-in. No spam, unsubscribe anytime. We never put your address in a link.

Live tracker

OMB Wants to Make 2 CFR Binding. Here Is Exactly Where That Stands.

Right now 2 CFR is guidance that agencies adopt. The proposed rule would make it regulation. It is not final, and it does not apply to your awards today. We are watching the docket so you do not have to.

29 May 2026

Published

Proposed rule enters the Federal Register at 91 FR 32198.

May to Jul

Comment Period

Forty five days for the public and the sector to respond.

13 Jul 2026

Comments Closed

OMB is reviewing the docket. This is where it sits today.

Not scheduled

Final Rule

No date announced. If it lands, every guide written before it goes stale at once.

Nothing here changes what you must do today

A proposed rule creates no obligation. Do not restructure anything because of it. We publish a plain-language summary within days of any movement, and you can have that in your inbox rather than checking a docket yourself.

Tool 03 · Quick check

Which 990 Are You Filing?

Two numbers decide it. Three consecutive years of not filing revokes exempt status automatically, and that is the single most avoidable way a nonprofit loses everything.

$
$

Late filing runs $25 to $130 per day depending on organisation size. The 990-EZ needs both tests met, not either one.

Your form

990-N

Gross receipts normally at or under $50K. The electronic postcard, eight fields, no financials.

Your form

990-EZ

Receipts under $200K and assets under $500K. Both tests must be met.

Your form

Form 990

Above either 990-EZ limit. The full return, schedules included.

Our rules

Publishing Compliance Guidance Creates an Obligation.

These are the three rules we hold ourselves to, stated in public so you can hold us to them too.

01

Primary Sources Only

Every figure traces to the Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations, a state statute or an IRS instruction. Never to another summary, and never to a model’s recollection of one.

02

Dated or Pulled

Each page carries the date its citations were last checked. If that date falls outside the current quarter, the page comes down until somebody rechecks it.

03

Corrections in Public

When we get something wrong we log it with the date and what changed. Silent edits are how a resource quietly becomes untrustworthy.

Every citation on this page verified 7 August 2026

Find Out What a Funder Sees When They Look You Up.

A free twenty minute readiness review. We check your public filings before the call and walk you through it. No deck, no obligation, and you keep the scorecard either way.

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