Office of Budget (OB)

The Office of Budget (OB) advises and supports the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on budget policy issues affecting the NIH, the medical research community and the public. The OB is responsible for:

  • Devising alternative budget policy scenarios for NIH Leadership consideration and developing associated NIH-wide budget projections in response to continuously evolving budget formulation and execution requirements.
  • Validating and consolidating component organizations’ estimates and justification materials comprising annual budget submissions or special funding requests.
  • Maintaining active and efficient communications with key external stakeholders – such as the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) and the Congress.
  • Monitoring and coordinating NIH budget activities of the 27 NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs).

The two branches that comprise the OB organization are:

  • Budget Formulation and Modeling Branch
  • Budget Execution and Reporting Branch

MISSION

To support the NIH mission to uncover new knowledge and transform health care with responsive, accurate, and timely budget and performance management information.

VISION

Be recognized as the most professional Budget Office in the Federal government, leveraging the talents and experience of a vibrant team that delivers responsive, accurate, and timely information to the NIH and its stakeholders.

CORE VALUES

  • Integrity
  • Service
  • Excellence

History

Each February the President submits his Budget to Congress. The most recent request is posted under Budget Request. You may also view requests from the recent past in our Historical Budget Requests section.

NIH expenditures are reported according to the "mechanism" of support. Description of these mechanisms (e.g. grant, R&D contract, intramural, etc.), a brief overview of NIH, and tables detailing expenditures from Fiscal Year 1983 to the present, can be found here: Spending History by Institute/Center, Mechanism, etc. (1983 to present).

NIH received its first appropriation in 1938, for the National Cancer Institute. We now receive 26 separate appropriations for our NIH components. You may view the entire history of NIH appropriations: Appropriations History by Institute/Center (1938 to present).

Budget Request

The NIH Congressional Justification ("CJ") provides the Senate and House Appropriations Committees detailed estimates and justifications for research and research support activities (infrastructure, administrative, etc.) that NIH would anticipate funding at the President's Budget Request level.

The Overview section provides a narrative discussing NIH's past accomplishments in advancing the biomedical research enterprise, as well as current and future research endeavors of great promise. This section also provides NIH budget and employment summary tables (consolidated from those of all NIH's Institutes and Centers) and, justifications and tables for centrally provided services (the NIH Management Fund, and the NIH Service and Supply Fund).

The FY 2027 President’s Budget proposes to consolidate the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) into a new National Institute of Substance Use and Addiction Research (NISUAR), transfer the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and eliminate 3 of the 21 remaining directly appropriated NIH Institutes and Centers. Links to this documentation is provided here: Institutes and Centers Congressional Justifications

What's New

FY 2027 Congressional Justification

As of April 3, 2026, the FY 2027 NIH Congressional Justification (CJ) is available on the Budget Request page. The FY 2027 President’s Budget requests a program level of $41.4 billion for NIH. The Budget proposes to consolidate the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) into a new National Institute of Substance Use and Addiction Research (NISUAR), transfer the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and eliminate 3 of the 21 remaining directly appropriated NIH Institutes and Centers.

 

FY 2024 Historical Spending
Tables showing historical obligations and other data have been updated to include FY 2024 data as of June 5, 2025.

Section 508 Compliance

All electronic content posted is intended to be accessible to person with disabilities. Report problems to the following email addresses: OD508@mail.nih.gov and becky.clawson@nih.gov.

 

Vulnerability Reporting
Please report any perceived vulnerabilities discovered during viewing or use of this website to OD IT Security Team that can be contacted at OD-OIT-Security@mail.nih.gov. If the response problems occur with this contact point, you can notify the site’s content producer, the NIH Office of Budget, directly at becky.clawson@nih.gov or by telephone at 301-496-4477.

Vulnerability Reporting

Disease Funding

National Institutes of Health Funding for Diseases, Conditions, and Research FY 2016 – FY 2024

Important Note:

  • Actual RCDC data for FY 2025 are pending. Estimates for FY 2026 and FY 2027 are not yet available. Estimates for FY 2025 and FY 2026 are not provided by category at this time due to evolving changes in the administration priorities.
  • The table does not reconcile mathematically, i.e., category amounts are not additive. Funding included in one area may also be included in other areas. For example, Clinical Research includes Clinical Trials and Supporting Activities.

General Budget Information

The Federal budget process is comprised of three phases: Formulation, Presentation (to Congress), and Execution. To learn more about each phase, visit: Federal Budget Concepts & Budget Process . (from the Office of Management and Budget website).

From the beginning of the Formulation phase of a budget, to the end the Execution phase, takes almost three years. To see how this process typically unfolds at the National Institutes of Health, take a look at this chart: Budget Process Chart .

It is important to consider the effect of inflation when building budgets. To learn more about the inflationary indexes NIH considers during all phases of the budget process (including the latest updates), go to our Price Indexes page.

Intranet

The Office of Budget intranet site was initially developed and deployed in FY 2009 to streamline and enhance internal workflow between OB, counterpart units within the NIH Office of the Director, and the ICs for budget related topics and activities. The intranet site is accessible only to NIH budget community members and other authorized users. Use the link below to connect to the OB Virtual Library.

Visit the OB Intranet

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Historical budget requests (2003 forward), spending history by NIH Institute and Center (IC) or Budget Mechanism (1983-present), and IC appropriation history (1938-present) can be found at http://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/history.html

The President’s Budget Request and supporting documents are located at http://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/br.html.

The NIH appropriations language and appropriations table by IC are located at http://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/cy.html.

Please call the Office of Budget (OB) central phone line (301)496-4477.

 

Links

Legislative Branch: