FEMA Reopened Flood Mitigation Assistance With $400M and a February 26 Deadline. It Is the Last Year of IIJA Money, and FEMA Has a Backlog Problem

On October 22, 2026, FEMA published the Fiscal Year 2026 Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) notice of funding opportunity. It makes up to $400 million available for projects that reduce or eliminate repeated flood damage to buildings insured by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

The application window runs until 3 p.m. Eastern on Friday, February 26, 2027. Applications go through FEMA GO, and FEMA says late submissions "will not be considered."

That is about four months. It sounds like plenty of time, but most of it is not available to local governments. Cities, counties and special districts do not apply to FEMA directly. They submit subapplications to their state, which sets its own earlier internal deadline and then bundles everything into one application to FEMA. In many states, the practical deadline for a local subapplication will fall in December or January.

There are two other reasons this round matters. FY 2026 is the final year of the $3.5 billion the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) added to FMA. And a DHS Inspector General report issued four weeks before the NOFO shows that FEMA's ability to turn selections into signed awards has been the program's weakest point.

The $400 million, by bucket

FEMA divides the money into three separate pools:

The split shows FEMA's priorities. Nearly two-thirds of the money goes to community-scale drainage projects, not individual houses. The per-property programs that defined FMA for most of its history, buying out and elevating flood-prone homes, now make up less than a third of the pool.

Localized flood risk reduction ($260M)

FEMA defines these as projects that reduce flooding "within a confined drainage or catchment area that is not hydraulically connected to a larger, regional basin." Eligible examples include:

• Flood diversion and storage
• Stormwater management, including culvert upsizing and modification
• Restoration of floodplains, wetlands, marshes, riverine and coastal areas
• Flood protection for sewer and utility systems
• Vegetation management for shoreline stabilization

The definition rules out a lot. Non-localized projects, including dikes, levees, floodwalls, seawalls, jetties, dams and large-scale channelization, are not eligible unless the FEMA Administrator specifically determines they are the most cost-effective option when approving a mitigation plan. FEMA's own fact sheet tells applicants seeking regional flood control to "consider applying to other FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance grants."

Every localized subapplication must include a map and geospatial files showing the project footprint, the area that benefits from reduced risk and, if available, the active NFIP policies inside it. FEMA scores these projects on NFIP benefit, so the benefiting-area map carries much of the case. A culvert upgrade that protects 40 insured homes with a history of claims will rank well. An equally useful project in a neighborhood with few flood policies will not.

The federal cost share for localized projects is up to 75 percent, so a 25 percent local match is required.

Individual flood mitigation ($120M)

This pool funds work on specific NFIP-insured buildings: elevation above Base Flood Elevation, voluntary acquisition and conversion to open space, relocation, demolition and reconstruction to flood-resilient standards, raising mechanical systems, flood vents, and dry floodproofing (historic and commercial structures only).

The prioritization rules are strict:

• Top priority goes to subapplications in which at least 75 percent of the structures meet the FMA or NFIP definitions of severe repetitive loss (SRL) or repetitive loss (RL). SRL properties receive the highest priority.
• If demand exceeds funding, FEMA ranks subapplications by the number of SRL and RL properties and then by total NFIP claims across the properties.
• FEMA may rank a subapplication lower if the average federal share exceeds $250,000 per single-family home for elevation or $750,000 per single-family home for acquisition.

The cost share structure strongly favors the worst properties:

For a community with a cluster of severe repetitive loss homes, an all-SRL acquisition package costs the local budget nothing in match. That is one of the best deals in federal mitigation funding, and the 75 percent threshold is how FEMA directs money toward it.

Every structure must have an NFIP policy in effect on the application start date and keep it through project completion and for the life of the structure. Confirm coverage property by property before you include a home in a subapplication. A single lapsed policy can make a structure ineligible.

Capability and capacity building ($20M)

The smallest pool funds the work that produces future projects: mitigation planning, state technical assistance to communities and project scoping. Subapplicants applying for planning money are exempt from the hazard mitigation plan requirement, which makes this the entry point for communities whose local plan has lapsed.

Who can apply, and the gatekeeping rules

Applicants are states, federally recognized Tribal Nations, territories and the District of Columbia. Each must designate one agency, usually the state emergency management office or the State Hazard Mitigation Officer, and each applicant may submit only one FMA application, which can contain an unlimited number of subapplications.

Subapplicants include local governments, cities, townships, counties, special districts, state agencies and federally recognized Tribal Nations that choose to apply through a state. Regional flood control districts and counties can qualify if they belong to an NFIP-participating community and provide zoning, code enforcement or planning services for it. Non-federally recognized Tribal Nations can apply as subapplicants through a state.

Homeowners, businesses and nonprofits cannot apply. They can be included in a local government's subapplication. A homeowner who wants a buyout or elevation should start with the city or county floodplain manager.

The two requirements that disqualify the most subapplications:

1. An approved hazard mitigation plan at both the application deadline and the time of obligation. This applies to the state or tribal applicant and to each local subapplicant, except those seeking planning funds. Check your plan's expiration date now. Many local plans run on a five-year cycle, and one that expires between submission and award can sink a selected project.
2. NFIP participation in good standing. Any community that is withdrawn, on probation or suspended is ineligible. FEMA directs applicants to the NFIP Community Status Book to verify.

The 2025 Hazard Mitigation Assistance Program and Policy Guide, Version 2.1, governs awards from this NOFO. Cost-effectiveness review and environmental and historic preservation review both apply.

Context: IIJA ends, and the award pipeline is backed up

This is the last IIJA tranche

The IIJA added $3.5 billion to FMA for fiscal years 2022 through 2026, at $700 million per year. The increase was large. According to the DHS Office of Inspector General, available FMA funding went from $160 million in FY 2020 and FY 2021 to $800 million in FY 2022, more than five times the earlier level. FEMA's fact sheet confirms that FY 2026 funding comes from the National Flood Insurance Fund plus the IIJA appropriation for FY 2022–2026.

FY 2026 is the last year in that range. Unless Congress acts, future FMA rounds will rely mainly on the National Flood Insurance Fund. That base supported awards in the low hundreds of millions per year before the IIJA. Communities that have been putting off a drainage project until the next round should assume the next round will be significantly smaller.

FY 2026 FMA money is also arriving through a second channel. FMA Swift Current, the post-disaster version of the program, published its FY 2026 NOFO on July 14, 2026 with $600 million for NFIP-insured repetitive loss, severe repetitive loss and substantially damaged properties. Swift Current is not a national competition. It activates for a state after a flood-related major disaster declaration between June 1, 2025 and May 31, 2027, and FEMA distributes funding on a rolling basis until the money runs out. Communities in a state that receives a qualifying declaration should treat Swift Current and the annual FMA competition as separate options and route individual-property projects to whichever moves faster.

The Inspector General's findings

On September 28, 2026, the DHS OIG released OIG-26-34, FEMA Flood Mitigation Assistance Grants Face Delays and Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities. Its findings are directly relevant to anyone preparing an FY 2026 subapplication:

• FY 2022 worked. FEMA received 270 applications requesting $980 million in federal share and awarded $711 million for 230 applications. The OIG found that solicitation, evaluation and selection followed the rules.
• FY 2023 stalled. FEMA selected 197 applications representing nearly $715 million in federal share. As of August 2025, it had awarded only four grants, totaling about $2.5 million, less than 1 percent of available IIJA funds.
• FY 2024 was withdrawn. FEMA issued the FY 2024 FMA NOFO on January 6, 2025 and rescinded it in February 2025, citing alignment with Executive Order 14154, which paused disbursement of IIJA funds. As of July 2025 there had been "no activity related to FY 2024 FMA grants."
• FEMA attributed the delays to hurricane deployments and the IIJA pause. The OIG noted that under 44 C.F.R. § 77.4(c), an FMA application not awarded within five years of submission is considered denied, and the funds return to the program.

The report also found cybersecurity problems in FEMA GO, the system every FY 2026 applicant must use. FEMA had implemented 3,488 of 4,163 required security settings, an 84 percent compliance score. The OIG also found unpatched vulnerabilities and penetration-test findings related to exposure of personally identifiable information and usernames. FEMA did not concur with any of the three recommendations, arguing that the testing was done in a non-production sandbox that "no longer exists." The OIG also noted that its own work had been delayed by three government shutdowns that covered 56 percent of FY 2026 through May 1.

Two practical conclusions follow. First, a selection is not money in the bank. The FY 2023 cohort spent more than a year and a half selected but largely unfunded. Build your project timeline, procurement plan and local match budget on the assumption that obligation could take a year or more after selection. The program has shown signs of recovery: FEMA announced more than $250 million in FMA awards, including Swift Current, on April 22, 2026. Still, the record argues against committing local construction dollars on the strength of a selection letter.

Second, keep property-owner data out of FEMA GO uploads unless it is required. Individual-mitigation subapplications usually carry homeowner names, addresses and claims histories. Upload only what the NOFO requires, and keep the full records in your own systems.

How this round compares to BRIC

FEMA's other large pre-disaster program, Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC), reopened on March 25, 2026 with $1 billion and a July 23 deadline after a year-long pause. It prioritized construction-ready infrastructure with a $20 million per-project cap. We covered that round in our BRIC analysis. We also showed how small the forward-looking mitigation share was in FEMA's July resilience package in our breakdown of the $584 million July 8 announcement.

The two programs differ in ways that matter:

• BRIC is all-hazard; FMA is flood-only and tied to NFIP. Benefits must accrue to NFIP-insured structures.
• BRIC funds regional infrastructure; FMA's localized pool explicitly excludes it. Levees, floodwalls and seawalls belong in BRIC or the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, not FMA.
• FMA offers up to 100 percent federal share for severe repetitive loss properties. BRIC's standard share is 75 percent, with higher shares for economically disadvantaged rural communities.

A city with both a regional levee problem and a neighborhood drainage problem should split the work. Send the levee to BRIC or HMGP and the culverts and storage to FMA's localized pool, so each project scores under the criteria written for it.

Strategy: building a competitive FMA subapplication

1. Get your state's internal deadline today

Call your State Hazard Mitigation Officer this week. Ask for the state's internal FMA deadline, the format it wants, and whether it plans to prioritize localized, individual or capacity-building subapplications. States can "establish their own priorities, requirements and internal deadlines." Missing the state's date is the most common way a local project fails, and it happens before FEMA ever sees it.

2. Pull your NFIP claims data

Request repetitive loss and severe repetitive loss lists for your jurisdiction from your state NFIP coordinator or FEMA regional office. These lists determine whether an individual-property package can reach the 75 percent SRL/RL threshold for top priority, and whether you qualify for the 90 or 100 percent federal share. Scoring depends directly on the claims history.

3. Shape packages around the thresholds

If you have 12 candidate homes and 8 are SRL or RL, that is 67 percent, below the top-priority line. Removing two non-RL homes brings the package to 80 percent and moves it into the top tier. Put the remaining homes in a separate subapplication or route them to Swift Current. Keep average federal cost below $250,000 per elevation and $750,000 per acquisition, or expect a lower ranking.

4. Model the NFIP benefit for localized projects

The benefiting-area map and geospatial files are the core of a localized subapplication. Overlay the project's hydraulic benefit area on the active NFIP policy layer and the claims history. If the benefit area contains few insured structures, the project will struggle in this competition even if it is sound engineering. It may fit BRIC better.

5. Use the $20M capacity pool if you are not ready

A community with a strong drainage concept but no benefit-cost analysis, design or approved plan update is unlikely to win construction money in four months. Project scoping under capability and capacity building is the realistic request. It also positions you for whatever FMA looks like after IIJA.

6. Check your hazard mitigation plan's expiration

Confirm that your local plan is FEMA-approved now and will remain approved through the likely obligation date. Given the FY 2023 delays, that date could be well into 2028. If the plan expires in 2027, start the update now.

7. Budget the match, and the wait

For standard and localized projects, the 25 percent non-federal share has to be identified. State revolving funds, state resilience programs and local stormwater utility fees are common sources. New York's water grants, which we covered in our analysis of the October 20 WIIA and IMG round, are an example of a state program that can sometimes help with stormwater-related match. Then plan for a gap between selection and obligation that may be longer than your council expects.

Timeline

Bottom line

The FY 2026 FMA round is the last full year of IIJA-scale flood mitigation funding. It favors two kinds of project: neighborhood-scale drainage that protects many insured homes, and buyout or elevation packages concentrated on severe repetitive loss properties, where the federal government can pay the entire cost. Communities that have their claims data, an approved plan and a clear benefiting-area map should apply. Communities that are not ready should use the $20 million capacity pool to get ready, because later rounds are likely to be smaller.

Granted can help local governments and state mitigation offices draft FMA subapplication narratives, organize the SRL and RL documentation, and check each package against the NOFO's prioritization rules before your state's internal deadline.