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When does a federal award recipient need a single audit?

Source last checked: 1 September 2026 · Federal Register checked for a final rule on 6 October 2026

Who must have a single audit, and from what amount?

A non-Federal entity must have a single audit or a program-specific audit for any fiscal year in which it expends 1,000,000 USD or more in federal awards. The test runs on the entity’s own fiscal year, not on the award period, and it is measured on money expended during that year rather than money awarded, obligated or received (200.501(a), page 103).

(a) Audit required. A non-Federal entity that expends $1,000,000 or more during the non-Federal entity’s fiscal year in Federal awards must have a single or program-specific audit conducted for that year in accordance with the provisions of this part.

2 CFR 200.501(a), page 103

Two things follow from that sentence, and both are easy to miss. The obligation attaches to the entity, not to the award: several small awards that together cross the line trigger the same audit as one large award would. And the figure is a floor rather than a sliding scale, so an organisation just over the line and one many times above it are under the same requirement to have the audit done.

What counts toward the 1,000,000 USD, and what does not?

Whether an award is “expended” is decided by when the activity that triggers compliance happens, not by when cash moves. Section 200.502 lists the activity that counts, then excludes several kinds of receipt by name. The exclusions are the half that catches people out, because three of them are ordinary revenue for the organisations most likely to be near the line.

One line in 200.501 settles a question that the two tables raise on their own: the same organisation can wear more than one hat at once. An auditee may simultaneously be a recipient, a subrecipient and a contractor, and what it expends as recipient or subrecipient is subject to audit while what it is paid as a contractor is not (page 104).

A worked example: two subawards, a loan, and patient care

The figures below are illustrative, not measured data. They are here because the threshold is arithmetic, and the arithmetic is where the exclusions earn their keep. Take a nonprofit with a fiscal year running 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, and five streams of money in that year:

• 410,000 USD expended on a direct federal grant — counts, under 200.502(a)(1).
• 250,000 USD expended under a subaward passed through a State agency — counts, because what is expended as a subrecipient is subject to audit under 200.501(g).
• 500,000 USD drawn on a new federal loan that carries continuing compliance requirements — counts at the value of new loans made or received in the audit period, under 200.502(b)(1).
• 180,000 USD received for services it provided as a contractor under another organisation’s federal award — does not count, under 200.501(g).
• 300,000 USD in Medicare payments for patient care — does not count, under 200.502(h).

The entity received 1,640,000 USD of federally connected money and expended 1,160,000 USD of federal awards as the regulation counts them. It is over the line, and needs a single audit for the year ending 30 June 2027. Remove only the loan and the count falls to 660,000 USD, which puts the same organisation, with the same five funders, below the line and exempt for that year. That is why the loan paragraphs are worth reading before anyone concludes they are under the threshold: a loan balance that imposes no requirement beyond repayment is excluded, while a new draw that carries compliance requirements is counted in full, not at its outstanding balance.

Single audit, or program-specific audit?

A single audit is the default, and a program-specific audit is available only by election, in two narrowly drawn cases. An entity over the threshold must have a single audit conducted in accordance with 200.514 unless it elects a program-specific audit under one of the two paragraphs below (page 104).

• In general. The entity expends federal awards under only one federal program, excluding research and development, and the program’s statutes or regulations, or the terms and conditions of the award, do not require a financial statement audit of the entity. Both conditions must hold (200.501(c), page 104).
• For research and development. The entity expends federal awards only from the same federal agency, or the same federal agency and the same pass-through entity, and that agency or pass-through entity approves the program-specific audit in advance (200.501(d), page 104).

Electing a program-specific audit narrows the scope but does not take the entity out of Subpart F. Where a current program-specific audit guide exists, the auditor must follow Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards and that guide (page 107), and the part lists the other sections that continue to apply to a program-specific audit, from the purpose section through management decision (page 108). The submission deadline is the same shape as for a single audit: unless the program-specific audit guide specifies a different period, within 30 calendar days of receiving the auditor’s report or nine months after the end of the audit period, whichever is earlier (page 108).

Who is outside Subpart F altogether?

Not every organisation that touches federal money is inside it, and the distinction matters because a page about the threshold will otherwise be read as applying to all of them. Subpart F reaches only non-Federal entities as one statute defines them, and it says so in the applicability section rather than in Subpart F itself (200.101, page 18).

Subpart F only applies to non-Federal entities as defined in the Single Audit Act Amendments of 1996 (31 U.S.C. 7501–7507).

2 CFR 200.101, page 18

For-profit organisations are excluded by name, and the exclusion is a transfer of responsibility rather than an exemption from oversight.

This subpart does not apply to for-profit organizations. As necessary, the pass-through entity is responsible for establishing requirements to ensure compliance by for-profit subrecipients.

2 CFR 200.501(i), page 104

The subaward with a for-profit subrecipient has to describe the applicable compliance requirements and that subrecipient’s responsibility, and the methods named for assuring compliance are pre-award audits, monitoring during performance and post-award audits (page 104). A for-profit subrecipient therefore has no single audit to point to, and tends to be monitored more directly instead.

Third, the subpart does not follow a fixed-price contract. Where a non-Federal entity is awarded a fixed-price contract or subcontract under the FAR, 200.101 names the subparts that apply to that contract, and Subpart F is not among them (page 19).

What an entity below the line still owes

Being under 1,000,000 USD ends the audit requirement for that year but not the obligation to be auditable. The exemption is written with its own condition attached.

(e) Exemption when Federal awards expended are less than $1,000,000. A non-Federal entity that expends less than $1,000,000 in Federal awards during its fiscal year is exempt from Federal audit requirements for that year, except as noted in § 200.503. However, in all instances, the records of the non-Federal entity must be available for review or audit by appropriate officials of the Federal agency, pass-through entity, and the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

2 CFR 200.501(e), page 104

The cross-reference carries weight. A federal agency, an Inspector General or GAO may conduct or arrange additional audits to carry out responsibilities under federal statute or regulation, and the part does not authorise a non-Federal entity to constrain that (page 106). A federal agency that arranges additional audits must arrange funding for their full cost (page 106), which is the practical reason additional audits are not routine.

There is a second-order effect for subrecipients under the line. A pass-through entity assessing subrecipient risk has to consider whether the subrecipient receives a Single Audit and how far similar subawards have been audited as a major program (page 57). Where a Single Audit report exists and the subrecipient has not been debarred or suspended, the pass-through entity may rely on the cognizant agency for audit to perform audit follow-up (page 57). A subrecipient below the threshold has nothing to hand over, so the monitoring that would have leaned on the audit report lands on it directly instead.

How often, and by when?

Annually, with two historical exceptions, and the report is due at 30 days or nine months, whichever comes first. Audits required by the part must be performed annually unless biennial audits are permitted, and biennial audits must cover both fiscal years in the period. Only two cases qualify: a State, local government or Indian Tribe required by a constitution or statute in effect on 1 January 1987 to be audited less often than annually, and a nonprofit that had biennial audits for all biennial periods ending between 1 July 1992 and 1 January 1995 (page 106). Both are closed classes; neither is an option an entity can take up now.

The audit, the data collection form, and the reporting package must be submitted within 30 calendar days after the auditee receives the auditor’s report(s) or nine months after the end of the audit period (whichever is earlier).

2 CFR 200.512(a)(1), page 110

The cognizant agency for audit, or the oversight agency for audit where there is no cognizant agency, may authorise an extension when the nine-month timeframe would place an undue burden on the auditee, and a due date falling on a Saturday, Sunday or federal holiday moves to the next business day (page 110). The Federal Audit Clearinghouse is the repository of record for Subpart F reporting packages and the data collection form (page 110), and the auditee must make copies available for public inspection unless federal statute or regulation restricts it (page 110).

Submitting on time is not only a deadline: it is one of the conditions for reduced audit coverage later. To qualify as a low-risk auditee an entity must meet every condition in 200.520 for each of the two preceding audit periods, starting with single audits performed annually and submitted to the Clearinghouse within the 200.512 timeframe. An entity on biennial audits does not qualify at all, and known or likely questioned costs above five percent of total federal awards expended for a Type A program in either of those periods also disqualify it (page 121).

Where this guide stops, and which one picks up

This page covers Subpart F from 200.501 onward: who needs an audit, what counts toward the threshold and when the report is due. The boundary with our other pages on the same part is the section of the regulation, not the topic.

• 2 CFR Part 200: what it covers and who it binds — the part as a whole, its subparts and the applicability rules in 200.101. Start there if the question is whether Part 200 applies at all, rather than whether an audit is due.
• Appendix II contract clauses — the text of the clauses that have to appear in contracts under a federal award. That page carries the clause wording; this one carries no procurement requirements.
• Modified total direct costs under 2 CFR 200 — the 200.1 definition and the indirect cost base in 200.414(f). MTDC decides what an indirect rate is applied to; the single audit threshold is a separate count of what was expended, and the two figures are not interchangeable.

What this guide does not cover

Stating the gaps is part of the method, because a page that reads as complete when it is not is worse than a short one.

• The threshold that applied before the 2024 revision. Our corpus holds the regulation text in force, which states 1,000,000 USD. The earlier figure is not in that corpus, so this page does not state it. If you are auditing a fiscal year that began before the revision took effect, read the edition of the rule that governed that year.
• How major programs are determined. The Type A and Type B distinction, the risk-based approach in 200.518 and 200.519, and the coverage percentages are the next question after “is an audit due” and are not answered here.
• The Compliance Supplement and the program-specific audit guides for individual programs, which sit outside the part.
• The content of the proposed 2026 rewrite. This page states its status only. What it would change is not described here, because a proposal has no legal effect until it is finalised.
• The remainder of the fixed-price contract paragraph. Our excerpt of that sentence in 200.101 breaks off mid-clause, at a qualification that begins “except that subpart E is no…”. The page therefore does not reproduce that list, and states only that Subpart F is not in it.

Source: 2 CFR Part 200, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards, 2025 CFR edition, Title 2, Volume 1, as published by the U.S. Government Publishing Office. Every claim above is cited to the page of that PDF and each page reference links to it. Source last checked: 1 September 2026. This guide describes 2 CFR Part 200 as revised in 2024 (89 FR 30046, effective 1 October 2024), which is the text in force today. OMB published a proposed rewrite on 29 May 2026 (91 FR 32198, docket OMB-2026-0034); the comment period closed on 13 July 2026. OMB signalled a target effective date of 1 October 2026, but as of 28 September 2026 no final rule had been published in the Federal Register, and the proposal has no legal effect until it is finalised. Checked against the source on 28 September 2026. We checked the Federal Register again on 6 October 2026 and found no final rule: the most recent document on that docket was still the proposed rule of 29 May 2026 (91 FR 32198).

Written by Robert Grabarević, founder of Scalebiz. He built the radar as a tool for himself, so that he would not have to re-read the same funding rules for every application. Every guide on this site cites the regulation by section or page, so each claim can be checked against the source. About Scalebiz.