Section 117 Foreign Gift and Contract Reporting

Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (codified at 20 U.S.C. § 1011f) requires certain U.S. colleges and universities to publicly disclose gifts from, and contracts with, foreign sources once the value from a single source crosses $250,000 in a calendar year — whether that value comes from one gift, one contract, or several combined. It has been law since 1986, but for most of its history was loosely enforced; that changed with a wave of U.S. Department of Education (ED) investigations beginning in 2019 and has stayed a live compliance area since, most recently with a new federal reporting portal that went live in January 2026.

Who is a covered institution

Section 117 applies to a domestic institution that: offers a bachelor’s degree or higher, or an acceptable transfer program of at least two years toward one; is accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency; and receives federal financial assistance. Institutions that are themselves owned or controlled by a foreign source are separately required to disclose that ownership or control relationship, with no dollar threshold at all — the disclosure obligation exists regardless of value.

The $250,000 threshold and how aggregation works

The threshold is not simply “is any one gift over $250,000.” It is triggered when a covered institution receives a gift from, or enters a contract with, a single foreign source that is valued at $250,000 or more either alone or in combination with all other gifts and contracts from that same foreign source within the same calendar year. In practice this means an institution’s foreign-gift log has to track cumulative value per source, not just per transaction — several smaller gifts or contracts from the same foreign university, foreign government, foreign company, or other foreign source can add up to a reportable amount even though no single item crosses the line on its own. A “foreign source” under the statute includes foreign governments, foreign legal entities (including foreign corporations, foreign partnerships, and foreign nonprofits), foreign individuals who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents, and any agent acting on behalf of any of these.

What must be reported

For each reportable foreign source, the institution discloses the foreign source’s identity, the aggregate dollar value received or contracted for in the reporting period, and, depending on the nature of the item, whether it was a gift or a contract. Ownership-or-control disclosures separately identify the foreign source and describe the nature of the ownership or control relationship. This is a public-disclosure regime, not a licensing or approval process — ED does not pre-approve or deny foreign gifts under Section 117; it collects and publishes what institutions report.

When and how to file

Reporting is semiannual: institutions have historically filed by January 31 (covering the preceding July–December period) and July 31 (covering the preceding January–June period). As of January 2026, ED implemented a dedicated reporting portal (foreignfundinghighered.gov) for institutions to submit Section 117 data and for the public to access the resulting disclosure data, replacing the older ad hoc submission process. ED’s Office of General Counsel is the office responsible for administering Section 117 compliance, including collecting, reviewing, and publishing the reported data.

Enforcement history and why this stays a compliance priority

Section 117 sat on the books for over three decades with minimal enforcement before ED opened a series of compliance reviews starting in 2019, ultimately covering more than a dozen institutions, including Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, Cornell, Stanford, MIT, and others. The Yale review became one of the most visible: ED’s inquiry alleged the university had not filed any Section 117 reports between 2014 and 2017 despite substantial foreign funding. ED reported that its renewed enforcement push surfaced billions of dollars in previously undisclosed foreign funding that institutions subsequently reported after being contacted. That enforcement history is directly relevant to why the requirement gets sustained institutional attention today: it demonstrated that ED will treat historical non-filing as a compliance failure subject to public findings and records requests, not merely a paperwork gap to correct going forward. Section 117 disclosure has also become part of the broader federal research security and foreign-influence oversight landscape — institutions increasingly manage it alongside, though as a legally distinct obligation from, funder-specific disclosures such as foreign component disclosure on federal grant applications and broader institutional monitoring for undue foreign influence.

How Section 117 relates to other foreign-source obligations

Section 117 is a standalone Higher Education Act reporting duty owed to the Department of Education — it is separate from, and does not substitute for, other disclosure regimes an institution or its researchers may also owe. It is distinct from a funding agency’s own foreign-support disclosure requirements on a specific grant application, from an institution’s conflict-of-commitment policy governing individual researchers’ outside foreign appointments, from national-security screening regimes like CFIUS review of foreign investment transactions, and from restricted-party or export-control screening obligations such as checking counterparties against the Consolidated Screening List. An institution can be fully compliant with one of these and still be out of compliance with Section 117, because each regime asks a different question of a different obligated party.

Worked examples

• A university receives a single $300,000 gift from a foreign university partner to endow a visiting-scholar program in one calendar year. Because the gift alone exceeds $250,000 from that one foreign source, it is reportable under Section 117.
• A university receives three separate research-support contracts of $100,000 each from the same foreign government’s science ministry across one calendar year, totaling $300,000 cumulative. No single contract crosses $250,000, but because Section 117 aggregates all gifts and contracts from the same foreign source within the calendar year, the cumulative total is reportable.

Counter-example

A university receives one $200,000 gift from a foreign source in a calendar year and has no other gifts or contracts from that same source that year. Because the gift is below $250,000 and there is nothing else from that source to aggregate against it, it does not trigger Section 117 reporting for that source in that year — though most institutions still log it internally, since an additional gift from the same source later in the year could push the cumulative total over the threshold.

Frequently asked questions

Does Section 117 apply to private, non-federally-funded institutions?

No. Coverage depends on the institution receiving federal financial assistance (which includes participation in federal student aid programs), in addition to meeting the degree-level and accreditation criteria — an institution that receives no federal financial assistance at all falls outside Section 117’s scope.

Does the $250,000 threshold reset each calendar year?

Yes. Aggregation is calculated per foreign source, per calendar year. A source whose cumulative gifts and contracts crossed the threshold in one calendar year starts a new aggregation count at zero the following calendar year.

Is a Section 117 report the same as a grant-application foreign-component disclosure?

No. Section 117 is an institution-level public disclosure owed to the Department of Education under the Higher Education Act. A foreign-component or other-support disclosure is owed to a specific funding agency as part of a grant application or award, governed by that agency’s own policy. An institution manages both, but they are legally separate obligations with separate thresholds, forms, and recipients.

References

• 20 U.S.C. § 1011f (Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965), as amended
• U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid Partners Knowledge Center, “Section 117 Foreign Gift and Contract Reporting” (fsapartners.ed.gov)
• U.S. Department of Education, “New Reporting Portal for Reporting of Foreign Gifts and Contracts under Section 117” electronic announcement, December 2025 (fsapartners.ed.gov)
• Congressional Research Service, “Section 117 of the Higher Education Act: Reporting of Foreign Gifts and Contracts” (congress.gov/crs-product/IF12927)
• U.S. Department of Education press releases on Section 117 compliance reviews, 2019–2020 (ed.gov)