Do federal grants require matching funds?

Some do and most listings do not say. Across 459 grants in this database, 113 carry a specific cost-sharing statement and 346 carry only the phrase "no cost sharing or matching requirement is indicated". That phrase records the absence of a statement, not the absence of a requirement.

What percentage match do federal grants usually require?

Of the 113 listings that address it, only 13 give a number. Those run from 10% to 75%, and 5 of them sit at 25%. Everything else is qualitative: "significant leverage", "in-kind contributions", "equity".

Can I assume no match is needed if the listing does not mention one?

No. The listing reflects what was captured from the notice, not the full terms of the award. Treat silence as a question for the programme officer, and budget for the possibility until you have an answer in writing.

Data study August 2026 · 8 min read

346 of 459 Federal Grant Listings Do Not Say If You Need Matching Funds

Q: Which agencies actually tell you about matching requirements?

US Department of Agriculture state a cost-sharing position on every grant we hold for them. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Defense Health Agency Contracting Activity - DHACA, Food and Nutrition Service state one on none of theirs. Same field, opposite habits, and the difference is invisible unless you compare across agencies.

Q: How was this measured?

Every grant in the GrantProbe database was classified on one field. A listing is counted as SILENT only when its cost-sharing text is exactly the boilerplate "no cost sharing or matching requirement is indicated for this program". Anything else, including qualified or partial statements, is counted as STATED. The field is free text with 30 distinct wordings, so it cannot be read as a yes/no flag.

Matching funds decide whether an award is worth chasing. A $900,000 grant with a dollar-for-dollar match is a $900,000 fundraising problem bolted to a $900,000 award. We read the cost-sharing field on every grant in our database to see how often you are told.

113 of 459 listings state a cost-sharing position. The other 346 say only that none "is indicated". That phrase records the absence of a statement, not the absence of a requirement, and the two are easy to read as the same thing when you are building a budget.

The habit is not the grant's, it is the agency's: 1 agency states a position on every grant we hold, and 4 state one on none.

75%

of listings do not state a cost-sharing position

of 459 give an actual percentage

1 vs 4

agencies that always state it, against those that never do

10% to 75%

the range when a number is given

Two kinds of "no matching funds required"

Stated

113 listings

Carry a real cost-sharing sentence: 102 describe a requirement, 28 explicitly rule one out. These you can budget against. Median maximum award: $900,000.

Not indicated

346 listings

Carry only the boilerplate. It may mean no match is required. It may mean nobody recorded one. Nothing in the listing distinguishes those. Median maximum award: $750,000.

The two groups are not different kinds of grant. Their median maximum awards are $900,000 and $750,000, close enough that you cannot use award size as a proxy for whether the terms were documented.

The same field, filled in by some agencies and never by others

This is the part that makes silence hard to interpret. Across the 19 agencies with at least six grants in the database, covering 305 of the 459 listings, the disclosure rate runs the full range.

Agency	Grants	Share that state a cost-sharing position
US Department of Agriculture (USDA)	8	100%
Small Business Administration (SBA)	11	82%
Department of Education (ED)	10	50%
Department of Housing and Urban Development	16	44%
Administration for Children and Families - ACYF/CB	7	43%
Administration for Community Living	37	38%
Department of Homeland Security - FEMA	18	33%
Community Oriented Policing Services	8	25%
National Institutes of Health	24	21%
National Institute of Food and Agriculture	15	20%
U.S. National Science Foundation	22	18%
Health Resources and Services Administration	31	16%
Office on Violence Against Women	7	14%
National Park Service	7	14%
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration	44	11%
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health	17	0%
Defense Health Agency Contracting Activity - DHACA	9	0%
Food and Nutrition Service	7	0%
Bureau of International Narcotics-Law Enforcement	7	0%

A red mark on the bar means a true zero, not a small number. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Defense Health Agency Contracting Activity - DHACA, Food and Nutrition Service, Bureau of International Narcotics-Law Enforcement between them account for 40 listings, none of which say anything about cost sharing. Reading "not indicated" as "not required" across those agencies is reading a habit as a fact.

The 13 listings that give you an actual number

Among the 113 that address cost sharing at all, most do it qualitatively: "significant leverage of public and private resources", "in-kind contributions", "applicants must contribute equity". Only 13 state a percentage.

Programme	Match	As stated
USDA Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) US Department of Agriculture (USDA)	75%	applicants fund at least 75% of project costs: under the standing rule (7 CFR 4280.115) REAP grants cover up to 25%. App
EPA Pollution Prevention (P2) Grant Program Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)	50%	50% match required (federal share cannot exceed 50% of total project cost)
ED Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) Department of Education (ED)	50%	1:1 matching required for partnership grants (50% federal, 50% non-federal). State grants require dollar-for-dollar matc
DOL YouthBuild Program Department of Labor (DOL)	25%	25% match required (cash or in-kind)
USDA Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) US Department of Agriculture (USDA)	25%	25% match required (cash or in-kind contributions)
USDA Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP) US Department of Agriculture (USDA)	25%	25% match required (cash or in-kind)
HUD Continuum of Care (CoC) Homeless Assistance Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)	25%	25% match required for new projects (cash or in-kind). Renewal projects may have different requirements
EPA Environmental Education Grants Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)	25%	25% non-federal match required (cash or in-kind contributions)
ARPA-E Energy Innovation Projects Department of Energy (DOE)	20%	Cost-sharing required for large businesses (at least 20% of total project cost). Waived for small businesses, universiti
DOL Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) Department of Labor (DOL)	10%	grantees must provide 10% non-federal share (cash or in-kind)

How to use this before you write anything

Find the cost-sharing line in the notice, not the listing. Any database, ours included, reflects what was captured. The notice of funding opportunity is the document that binds you.
Treat "not indicated" as an open question. On 75% of listings that is all you have. It is a one-line email to the programme officer and it changes your budget by up to 75% of project cost.
Check your agency's habit. If you are applying to an agency in the zero row above, the absence of a statement tells you nothing at all about that specific programme.
Budget in-kind carefully. Several of the requirements here accept in-kind contributions, which is a very different cash position from a dollar-for-dollar match, and the listing rarely separates them.

What this does not show

Silence is not evidence of no requirementThis page measures what the listings SAY. A programme that says nothing may still require a match in its full notice. That gap is the entire point, and it cannot be resolved from the listings alone.

One field, free textThe cost-sharing field carries 30 distinct wordings across 459 grants. It looks like a flag and is prose, so it is classified by exact boilerplate match, not by keyword guessing.

Agency counts are of our corpusThe per-agency rates describe the grants we hold, not every programme that agency runs. Agencies with fewer than six listings are excluded rather than shown on a sample too small to read.

Not legal or financial adviceCost-sharing rules interact with your entity type, your other federal funding, and the specific notice. Confirm with the programme officer before committing budget.

Bottom line

Ask a federal grant database whether you need matching funds and 75% of the time it will tell you nothing, in a sentence that sounds like an answer.

The 113 listings that do answer are worth reading closely, because when a number appears at all it runs as high as 75% of project cost. On the rest, the honest position is that you do not know yet.

Method: every grant in the GrantProbe database, classified on its cost-sharing field, 2026-09-27. A listing counts as silent only when the field is exactly the boilerplate "no cost sharing or matching requirement is indicated for this program". Browse the underlying records at the grant directory.