SF-424 (Application for Federal Assistance)

The SF-424, "Application for Federal Assistance," is the standard cover-sheet form used to open nearly every application for federal grant or cooperative-agreement funding submitted through Grants.gov. A submission qualifies as using "the SF-424" when it supplies the form's core identifying and administrative data — applicant legal name and Unique Entity Identifier (UEI), type of applicant, funding opportunity number, congressional districts, project title, proposed period of performance, requested federal and non-federal funding amounts, and the Authorized Organization Representative's certification — as the umbrella cover page bundled with program-specific forms in a single Grants.gov Workspace submission package. The base SF-424 (OMB Number 4040-0004) is one member of a wider "SF-424 family": SF-424A (Budget Information for Non-Construction Programs, OMB 4040-0006) and SF-424B (Assurances for Non-Construction Programs) are commonly paired with it, SF-424C/D cover construction programs, and a distinct variant, SF-424 R&R ("Research and Related"), is used by NIH, NSF, and other research-funding agencies in place of the base non-research SF-424. A document is NOT "the SF-424" merely because it is a federal grant application — the term refers specifically to this standardized cover form, not to the full application package, the budget narrative, or agency-specific supplemental forms bundled alongside it.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 18 Jul 2026

Worked examples

Is an instance

A university department completes an SF-424 as the cover form for an NSF proposal submitted through Grants.gov Workspace, using the SF-424 R&R version (not the base SF-424) because NSF requires the Research and Related form set; the form captures the UEI, project title, requested budget period, and the Authorized Organization Representative's certification, while the actual budget detail is supplied in a separate R&R Budget form.

Is an instance

A small nonprofit applying for a non-research HHS discretionary grant completes the base SF-424 plus SF-424A (budget) and SF-424B (assurances) as three linked forms inside one Grants.gov Workspace, since HHS's non-research programs use the base SF-424 family rather than the R&R set.

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance

A PDF labeled "SF424_4_0-V4.0.pdf" downloaded directly from a public forms-repository page is a sample/preview copy only — Grants.gov explicitly states these standalone PDFs cannot be submitted as an application; the actual submission has to be completed and transmitted inside a Grants.gov Workspace, which auto-populates the SF-424 fields into the live application package.

Not an instance

A completed NIH biosketch, budget justification, or project narrative is not itself part of the SF-424 — those are separate component forms attached to the SF-424 R&R cover form within the same application package, not the cover form itself.

The SF-424, formally titled “Application for Federal Assistance,” is the OMB-approved cover form used to open the great majority of applications for federal grants and cooperative agreements submitted through Grants.gov. It functions as the standardized front page of a federal application package: it captures who is applying, what is being requested, and under what funding opportunity, while the substantive project content (budget detail, narrative, biosketches, and other program-specific attachments) is supplied through separate forms bundled alongside it in the same submission.

What the form captures

The SF-424 collects a fixed set of administrative and identifying data fields, including:

Applicant legal name, address, and Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) — the identifier assigned through SAM.gov registration
Type of applicant (e.g., institution of higher education, nonprofit, state government) and type of application (new, continuation, revision)
The specific Funding Opportunity Number and CFDA/Assistance Listing number the application responds to
Project title, proposed period of performance, and congressional district(s) affected
Estimated federal and non-federal funding amounts
Certification by the applicant organization’s Authorized Organization Representative (AOR)

Because these fields are largely the same across federal agencies, the SF-424 lets Grants.gov use one common cover form rather than requiring every agency to design its own from scratch.

The SF-424 family

“SF-424” is often used loosely to refer to an entire family of related forms, though only the base form carries the SF-424 name itself:

SF-424 (base form, OMB Number 4040-0004) — the general-purpose cover form used by most non-research federal assistance programs.
SF-424A — Budget Information for Non-Construction Programs (OMB Number 4040-0006), an itemized object-class budget commonly paired with the base SF-424.
SF-424B — Assurances for Non-Construction Programs, a standard set of applicant certifications (e.g., compliance with civil rights and environmental statutes) still required by a number of agency programs, though some agencies have moved equivalent certifications into agency-specific forms.
SF-424C / SF-424D — the budget and assurances counterparts used for construction-program applications.
SF-424 R&R (“Research and Related”) — a distinct version of the cover form built for research funding agencies. NIH, NSF, and other research funders use the R&R form set instead of the base SF-424 family; it links to companion R&R forms such as the R&R Budget, R&R Senior/Key Person Profile, and R&R Other Project Information, which together replace the SF-424A/B structure for research applications.

Which version an applicant sees is determined by the funding opportunity itself, not by applicant choice — each opportunity on Grants.gov is packaged with a specific, fixed set of forms.

Fillable PDF versus Workspace submission

Grants.gov publishes sample, fillable PDF copies of SF-424 forms (organized by version number, e.g. V4.0, V2.1) in its public forms repository, and these are what most searches for a “fillable SF-424” are looking for. It is important to understand what these PDFs are and are not: Grants.gov states explicitly that the standalone PDFs in its forms repository are for sample/preview purposes only and cannot themselves be submitted as an application. An actual application has to be completed and transmitted through Grants.gov Workspace, the online, multi-user environment where an applicant team fills out the live SF-424 (or SF-424 R&R) and its companion forms together, validates them against the funding opportunity’s requirements, and submits the completed package as a set. A locally filled-out standalone PDF is a useful way to draft or preview answers offline, but it does not substitute for completing the equivalent fields inside a Workspace.

Prerequisites before completing the form

Before an organization can complete and submit an SF-424 through Grants.gov, it needs an active Grants.gov registration, which in turn depends on active SAM.gov entity registration and a valid Unique Entity Identifier. These are entity-level prerequisites, not something completed at the point of filling out a single SF-424 — an organization typically registers once and then reuses that registration across many subsequent applications.

Related terms

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

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Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

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