Federal agency
National Science Foundation
Competitive research grants to universities across every field of science outside medicine. A very small agency that funds a large share of the country’s basic research.
Source data last read . OMB publishes the historical tables once a year; USAspending updates within the fiscal year.
Outlays, FY 2025
$10.0 billion
Money actually paid out
Share of federal spending
0.1%
Of $7.01 trillion total
Rank by spending
23 of 26
Among agencies with a page here
Staff
Not reported
No OMB staffing column
OMB names only eight departments in its staffing table; the rest fall into a residual that cannot be split.
Spending history
National Science Foundation paid out $183 million in FY 1962 and $10.0 billion in FY 2025 — a 54.4-fold increase in nominal terms. These are current dollars, not adjusted for inflation, so across 63 years the nominal change substantially overstates the real one. The share-of-budget figure below is the inflation-neutral way to read the same series.
Hover or focus the chart and use the arrow keys to read any year.
Read as a share of the federal budget, the same series says something the nominal one cannot. A share is immune to inflation and to the growth of the budget itself, so it answers the question people usually mean when they ask whether an agency has grown: did it take a larger or smaller slice than it used to?
Hover or focus the chart and use the arrow keys to read any year.
This fiscal year, so far
National Science Foundation reports its budgetary resources, obligations and outlays to USAspending.gov continuously. These figures are for FY 2026 and are partial — a fiscal year in progress cannot have a final number.
| Measure | FY 2026 |
|---|---|
| Budgetary resources | $10.2 billion |
| Obligated | $4.7 billion |
| Outlayed | $7.1 billion |
| Share of government-wide resources | 0.1% |
Check these figures on USAspendingCongressional budget justification
The years that moved the line
A sixty-year spending chart is mostly gradual with a few sharp steps, and the steps are the interesting part. These are the largest single-year changes in National Science Foundation’s outlays, ranked by size in dollars rather than by percentage: the early years involve small enough numbers that a percentage ranking would surface nothing but the 1960s.
| Fiscal year | From | To | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $8.1 billion | $8.9 billion | +$817 million (+10.0%) |
| 2010 | $6.0 billion | $6.7 billion | +$761 million (+12.8%) |
| 2022 | $7.4 billion | $8.1 billion | +$756 million (+10.2%) |
Decade by decade
Averaging each decade smooths out the single-year spikes and shows the level the agency actually settled at. Decades with fewer than five years of data are left out rather than averaged, because a three-year average sitting beside a ten-year one looks like the same statistic and is not.
| Decade | Average annual outlays | Years averaged |
|---|---|---|
| 1960s | $341 million | 8 |
| 1970s | $661 million | 10 |
| 1980s | $1.3 billion | 10 |
| 1990s | $2.6 billion | 10 |
| 2000s | $4.9 billion | 10 |
| 2010s | $7.1 billion | 10 |
| 2020s | $8.5 billion | 6 |
Year by year
| Fiscal year | Outlays | Share of federal spending |
|---|---|---|
| 2031 (est.) | $4.5 billion | 0.0% |
| 2030 (est.) | $4.7 billion | 0.1% |
| 2029 (est.) | $5.6 billion | 0.1% |
| 2028 (est.) | $7.0 billion | 0.1% |
| 2027 (est.) | $8.9 billion | 0.1% |
| 2026 (est.) | $10.5 billion | 0.1% |
| 2025 | $10.0 billion | 0.1% |
| 2024 | $9.4 billion | 0.1% |
| 2023 | $8.9 billion | 0.1% |
| 2022 | $8.1 billion | 0.1% |
| 2021 | $7.4 billion | 0.1% |
| 2020 | $7.3 billion | 0.1% |
| 2019 | $7.3 billion | 0.2% |
| 2018 | $7.2 billion | 0.2% |
| 2017 | $7.2 billion | 0.2% |
| 2016 | $6.9 billion | 0.2% |
| 2015 | $6.8 billion | 0.2% |
| 2014 | $7.1 billion | 0.2% |
| 2013 | $7.4 billion | 0.2% |
| 2012 | $7.3 billion | 0.2% |
| 2011 | $7.1 billion | 0.2% |
| 2010 | $6.7 billion | 0.2% |
| 2009 | $6.0 billion | 0.2% |
| 2008 | $5.8 billion | 0.2% |
| 2007 | $5.5 billion | 0.2% |
Common questions
What is the National Science Foundation's budget?
National Science Foundation paid out $10.0 billion in FY 2025, which was 0.1% of all federal spending that year. That is outlays — money actually paid out — rather than an appropriation, and it is in current dollars, not adjusted for inflation.
How many people work at the National Science Foundation?
This page cannot say, and will not guess. OMB's staffing table names only eight departments individually and folds everything else into a residual column that cannot be broken apart, so the source behind this page carries no figure for this agency. Substituting one from elsewhere would mean presenting a number on a different basis as if it were on this one.
When did National Science Foundation spending change the most?
Its largest single-year move was FY 2023, when outlays went from $8.1 billion to $8.9 billion — a change of $817 million (+10.0%).
Where does this data come from?
The spending series is OMB Historical Table 4.1, published annually with the President's Budget, and the current-year figures are the agency’s own reports to USAspending.gov. Every figure is checked against the source table's own internal totals before it is published here; nothing is estimated or interpolated.
Sources and methods
Every figure on this page comes from one of the datasets below and nowhere else. Nothing is estimated, interpolated or carried over from a previous edition. Where two sources measure something similar, they are reported separately rather than combined, because they are not measuring the same thing.
Historical Table 4.1 — Outlays by Agency
Office of Management and Budget
- Covers
- FY 1962–2031
- Last read
- September 6, 2026
Outlays are money actually paid out in a fiscal year, in millions of current (nominal) dollars — not appropriations, and not adjusted for inflation. Some rows are net of offsetting receipts and can be negative.
Agency budgetary resources, obligations and outlays
USAspending.gov (Department of the Treasury)
- Covers
- FY 2026, reported to date
- Last read
- September 6, 2026
Reported by agencies under the DATA Act and updated within the fiscal year, so a current-year figure is partial by definition. Budgetary resources include unobligated balances carried in from prior years, which is why they exceed the year’s appropriation.
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