NRSA Stipend Levels

NRSA stipend levels are the standardized annual stipend amounts NIH sets, once a year via a Notice in the NIH Guide, for individuals supported on a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) — whether that support comes through an individual fellowship (F31, F30, F32) or an institutional training grant (T32, T90, TL1). What makes a figure an “NRSA stipend level” rather than an ordinary salary line is that it is a fixed, NIH-mandated floor: the institution cannot pay a Kirschstein-NRSA trainee or fellow less than the applicable level, and any supplementation above it is governed by NIH’s own rules on outside income and effort, not left to institutional discretion the way a staff salary would be.

What the stipend is — and isn’t

The stipend is one line inside a larger NRSA budget, not the whole award. A Kirschstein-NRSA budget is typically built from three separate components:

• Stipend — the trainee’s or fellow’s living-cost allowance, set at the fixed level described below. It is explicitly not a salary or wage paid for services rendered; NIH treats it as a subsistence allowance to enable the individual to undertake full-time research training.
• Tuition and fees — for predoctoral trainees/fellows, and for postdoctoral trainees/fellows who are pursuing additional coursework, subject to its own NIH-set cap.
• Institutional allowance (fellowships) or trainee-related expenses (institutional training grants) — a fixed per-person amount covering health insurance, research supplies, travel to scientific meetings, and similar training-related costs.

Only the stipend component follows the tiered/flat structure described in this entry. Tuition/fee caps and the institutional allowance are set independently and, per NIH’s FY2026 notice, were held unchanged from the prior fiscal year even as stipend levels moved — the two schedules don’t necessarily change together.

Predoctoral stipends: a single flat rate

Predoctoral Kirschstein-NRSA trainees and fellows (institutional T32/T90/TL1 trainees and individual F30/F31 fellows alike) receive a single flat stipend rate, regardless of how many years of graduate study they have already completed. For FY2026 (effective for awards issued on or after October 1, 2025, per NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-26-044), that rate is $29,364/year ($2,447/month). There is no step-up by year at the predoctoral level — the tiered structure described next applies only to postdoctoral stipends.

Postdoctoral stipends: an eight-level, experience-tiered schedule

Postdoctoral stipends work differently. NIH publishes eight stipend levels (Level 0 through Level 7+), and the level a given postdoctoral trainee or fellow is placed on for the entire first year of an award period is determined by their full years of relevant postdoctoral experience at the time the award is issued — not by the funding mechanism (F32 individual fellowship vs. T32/T90/TL1 institutional training grant use the identical schedule). “Relevant experience” counts postdoctoral research experience broadly, including relevant time spent in other research positions before the Kirschstein-NRSA award begins, not narrowly just prior Kirschstein-NRSA-funded time — institutions and sponsors should confirm the specific counting rules in the current Guide Notice and their awarding institute’s guidance when a candidate’s research history is not a clean, continuous postdoctoral track.

The FY2026 postdoctoral levels, per NOT-OD-26-044 (effective for awards issued on or after October 1, 2025):

Years of relevant postdoctoral experience	Annual stipend	Monthly stipend
0	$63,480	$5,290
1	$63,900	$5,325
2	$64,380	$5,365
3	$66,948	$5,579
4	$69,180	$5,765
5	$71,748	$5,979
6	$74,424	$6,202
7 or more	$77,076	$6,423

These figures are dated to FY2026 and will not stay current indefinitely — NIH reissues the NRSA stipend Notice roughly annually (recent examples run on a March-ish release, effective the preceding October 1 for that fiscal year). Before citing a specific dollar amount in a budget, application, or offer letter, confirm the currently effective Notice number and figures directly at grants.nih.gov’s NRSA stipends-summary page or the live NOT-OD Notice itself, rather than treating this table as permanently current.

Why a postdoctoral fellow doesn’t move up the table mid-year

The level assigned at the start of an award period generally holds for that entire budget/project period, even though the postdoctoral fellow accrues another year of experience during it — the schedule advances the fellow to the next level at each new competitive segment or renewal, not automatically at each birthday-equivalent milestone of the experience clock. Sponsored-programs offices renewing a multi-year F32 or T32 postdoctoral slot should re-check the applicable level (using the then-current year’s Notice, since both the dollar amounts and the fellow’s experience-year count can change at renewal) rather than assuming the initial-year figure simply repeats.

Predoctoral vs. postdoctoral: why the structures differ

The flat predoctoral rate and the tiered postdoctoral schedule reflect a real difference in who NIH is trying to support at each stage. Predoctoral NRSA support assumes a relatively uniform population — doctoral students at varying points in a single degree program, none of whom yet hold the terminal research degree — so one flat rate applies regardless of year in the program. Postdoctoral NRSA support, by contrast, is explicitly designed to accommodate researchers who arrive at the postdoctoral stage with very different amounts of prior relevant research experience: someone moving directly from a PhD into a first postdoctoral position looks different, cost-of-living-wise, from someone who spent several years in another research role (a foreign postdoctoral appointment, an industry research position, or a prior individual fellowship) before starting Kirschstein-NRSA-supported postdoctoral training. The eight-level schedule exists specifically to let the stipend track that variation instead of forcing every incoming postdoctoral fellow onto the same starting figure.

How this connects to F31, F32, and institutional training grants

NRSA stipend levels are not specific to any one funding mechanism — the same schedule underlies the budget for every Kirschstein-NRSA award, individual or institutional:

• The F31 (NIH Predoctoral Individual NRSA Fellowship) and F30 use the flat predoctoral rate described above.
• The F32 (NIH Postdoctoral Individual NRSA Fellowship) uses the eight-level postdoctoral schedule, with the fellow’s level fixed by their years of relevant postdoctoral experience at the time the award is issued.
• Institutional T32, T90, and TL1 training grants use the identical predoctoral and postdoctoral schedules for the trainees they support — the department administering the grant, not an individual applicant, tracks which level applies to each slot.
• The broader postdoctoral fellowship category includes non-NIH, non-NRSA mechanisms (NSF’s directorate-specific postdoctoral fellowships, foundation and society fellowships) that set their own independent stipend amounts and are not tied to the NRSA schedule at all — a helpful distinction when comparing offers, since a non-NRSA postdoctoral stipend can be higher or lower than the NRSA level without either being “wrong.”

Stipend levels stop applying once a researcher transitions off Kirschstein-NRSA support entirely — for example, onto the K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, which pays an institutional-base salary consistent with the individual’s regular compensation (subject to the NIH salary cap) rather than a fixed NRSA stipend.

Worked examples

• A postdoctoral researcher who completed their PhD and moved directly into an F32-funded position, with no prior postdoctoral research experience, is placed on postdoctoral Level 0 for FY2026 ($63,480/year) at the start of the award.
• A predoctoral student in their fourth year of a T32-supported training slot receives the same $29,364/year predoctoral stipend as a first-year T32 trainee at the same institution — year in the doctoral program does not change the predoctoral rate.

Counter-example

A postdoctoral researcher paid as staff on a mentor’s R01 grant, rather than being individually funded by an F32 or occupying an institutional T32 slot, is not subject to NRSA stipend levels at all — their compensation is an ordinary salary set by the institution’s own postdoc pay scale, not a Kirschstein-NRSA stipend, even if the two figures happen to be similar in dollar terms.

Frequently asked questions

Do NRSA stipend levels apply to non-NIH agencies?

Other Public Health Service agencies that fund Kirschstein-NRSA-authorized training — including AHRQ and HRSA — adopt the same NIH-published stipend schedule for their own NRSA awards; the Guide Notice covering a given fiscal year’s levels is typically issued jointly or cross-referenced across these agencies.

Can an institution pay more than the published stipend level?

Institutions may supplement a Kirschstein-NRSA stipend from non-federal funds under conditions set out in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, but the published level is the floor the federal award itself must provide — sponsored-programs offices should consult the current NIH Grants Policy Statement and their awarding institute before structuring any supplementation, since the rules distinguish permissible supplementation from compensation that would require the individual to perform additional service obligations.

Where is the authoritative source for the current figures?

The current fiscal year’s stipend levels are published as a Notice in the NIH Guide (searchable at grants.nih.gov) and summarized on NIH’s own NRSA stipends-summary page — always confirm against that live source rather than a cached table, since the levels are reissued on a roughly annual cycle tied to the federal fiscal year.