Forest Service Landscape Scale Restoration Is Back After a Skipped Year: $12.6M, One National NOFO, a $100K Floor, and a December 17 State Forester Gate

For years, the USDA Forest Service's Landscape Scale Restoration (LSR) program ran on a set calendar. Three regional notices (Southern/IITF, Western, Northeast-Midwest) plus a Tribal notice opened each August and closed between mid-November and mid-December. That held for the FY2023, FY2024, and FY2025 cycles. There was no August 2025 posting.

On October 28, 2026, more than two years after the last notice, the Forest Service reopened the program in a new form. USDA-FS-2026-LSR is a single national notice for non-federal lands that replaces the three regional ones, alongside USDA-FS-2026-LSR-TRIBAL. The new notices also raise the minimum award, add timber-output metrics, and frame the program around the administration's timber and wildfire executive orders.

Two deadlines apply. Most applicants must send a draft narrative and budget to the relevant State Forester by Thursday, December 17, 2026 for sponsorship. Final applications are due in Grants.gov by 11:59 p.m. ET on Tuesday, January 26, 2027.

The opportunity in one table

Total appropriated funding is up to $12.6 million, split about 90/10 between the two notices.

What changed from FY2025

Reading the FY2026 notices against the archived FY2025 regional ones shows four significant changes.

1. One national notice, still reviewed regionally. Applicants now use one document and one Grants.gov listing instead of three regional notices with different deadlines. Scoring is still done by "regional review teams comprised of State and Forest Service staff," and regional contacts remain (Northeast-Midwest, South/IITF, and five Western sub-region contacts). A project is still competing mainly against others in its region. A new cap reinforces this: no single State or Tribe may receive more than 15% of the funding available for its regional set of projects.

2. The minimum award quadrupled. FY2025 regional floors were $25,000 to $50,000. The FY2026 floor is $100,000 ($50,000 only for insular areas and the Freely Associated States). Combined with the 1:1 match, the smallest possible project is now $200,000 in total value. That rules out many small county or conservation district projects that LSR used to fund, unless they join a larger collaborative.

3. Timber is now an explicit priority. The notice says LSR "supports priorities including protecting communities and natural resources from wildfire, increasing timber production, and expanding rural economies," citing Executive Orders 14223, 14225, and 14308, two Secretarial Memoranda, and the Forest Service Active Forest Management Strategy. The first two accepted outcome measures are new economic ones: board feet of sawlogs and tons of pulpwood or biomass "that contribute to the forest products industry." The first project type listed under eligible examples is "harvesting and processing of timber and timber products generated by forest restoration activities." Projects that produce merchantable material are now in a better position than they were.

4. The calendar moved. Under the old schedule, notices opened in August and closed in November or December. This cycle opens in late October, closes in late January, and targets spring 2027 awards, with notification two to four months after the January 26 deadline.

Who can apply

Eligible applicants (non-federal NOFO): state forestry agencies, units of local government, Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations, Native Hawaiian Organizations, nonprofits (501(c)(3) and others), and institutions of higher education. For-profit entities are ineligible, though they can be paid contractors on a project.

Eligible land is where most applications are disqualified. On-the-ground work must take place on:

• Rural non-industrial private forest land, meaning land with tree cover or suitable for trees, owned by an individual, group, association, corporation, Tribe, or other private entity, or
• Rural state or local government forest land.

"Rural" means outside any Census place of more than 50,000 people. Use the Forest Service's LSR Project Planning Tool to check the project footprint. Any on-the-ground activity on urban land or federal land disqualifies the application. If your restoration area borders a National Forest, keep federal-side work out of LSR (pair it with a Good Neighbor or Stewardship Agreement) and present the adjacency as cross-boundary collaboration, which is scored.

Tribes have two routes. They may submit up to two applications to the non-federal NOFO without State Forester sponsorship and without counting toward a state's cap, and may also apply to the Tribal NOFO. They cannot receive two awards for the same scope of work. Tribal trust land, whether held by Tribes or by individuals, counts as non-industrial private forest land, and so does Indian forest land held in fee.

The State Forester gate

For every applicant except federally recognized Tribes, a State Forester sponsorship letter (or email) is a required part of the application. Each State Forester may sponsor up to 10 applications: five single-state and five multistate. For multistate projects, every project that benefits a state counts against that state's five multistate slots.

Because of this limit, the State Forester is effectively the first reviewer. In a state with an active forestry community, more than five organizations may want single-state sponsorship. The notice says States "may include a priority ranking" that review panels will "consider" but not score. In practice, a State Forester's top-ranked project has an advantage.

Strategy: December 17 is the latest date to send your draft, not the target. Contact your state forestry agency's LSR coordinator in early November, before the five slots are informally committed, and present the project in the terms of your State Forest Action Plan. Contact information is on the National Association of State Foresters site.

How applications are scored

Applications are scored out of 100 points:

Deliverables and Outcomes (25) carries the most weight. Every project must commit to at least one national quantitative measure: board feet, tons of biomass, acres of hazardous fuels treated, acres of invasive plants treated, acres treated for insects and disease, landowners assisted (with more than one interaction), acres under a new management plan, acres or trees planted for water quality, miles of riparian forest treated, or acres or miles of wildlife habitat improved. Awardees report against these in the LaSR system. Choose measures you can count precisely and set targets you can meet within three years.

Activities and Budget (20) states that "projects that leverage match and non-match funding from multiple entities will be given priority." The notice separates match, the required 1:1 that must meet federal cost rules, from non-match leverage, which can include contributions LSR itself can't fund, such as culvert work or easements. Listing substantial non-match leverage from several partners is a straightforward way to earn these points.

The narrative is short. It is limited to five pages, with character caps on each section: 1,000 for the overview, 5,500 for the description, 2,000 for Forest Action Plan integration, 3,000 for outcomes, 2,000 for collaboration, and 2,000 for sustainability. Applicants used to longer federal narratives should draft to the character counts from the beginning.

Costs LSR won't cover

These items cannot be paid with LSR funds or the 1:1 match:

• Construction, buildings, roads, culverts, dams, ponds, and major earthwork
• Land acquisition, including conservation easements
• Payments directly to private landowners (the grantee can pay contractors to do work on private land with landowner permission)
• Basic research
• Agricultural fencing (silvicultural fencing to protect seedlings from browsing is allowed)
• Small business start-up funding

Equipment over $10,000 requires prior Forest Service approval and form FS-1500-34, and is approved only for new restoration work, not to replace aging equipment. Any drone purchase must address the UAS security requirements in OMB Memo M-26-02 (Appendix B of the NOFO). Indirect costs may use a NICRA or the 15% de minimis rate, and only applicants with a NICRA may count waived indirect costs as match.

Who is best positioned

• Collaboratives with an existing Forest Action Plan priority landscape, especially those adjacent to Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program areas, Good Neighbor Agreements, or designated insect-and-disease treatment areas. The notice names all three as priorities.
• Fuels-reduction projects that produce merchantable material. A thinning project that reports both acres treated and board feet delivered to a local mill addresses the wildfire and timber priorities together.
• Multistate watershed projects. The $600,000 ceiling for multistate work is double the single-state cap. A two-state riparian or fuels project with sponsorship from both State Foresters can draw on more funds.
• Post-disaster reforestation following wildfire or hurricane damage, which is listed as an eligible example.

For organizations also working on land conservation, LSR complements the Forest Service's Community Forest Program. CFP pays for acquisition, which LSR can't, and LSR pays for the restoration that follows.

Calendar to January 26

• Early November: Check land eligibility with the Planning Tool. Contact your State Forester's LSR lead and regional Forest Service contact. Confirm SAM.gov and Grants.gov registrations.
• By December 1: Get 1:1 match commitments and non-match leverage letters. Draft the narrative to the character limits.
• By December 11: Tribal NOFO applicants, submit for optional Forest Service pre-review.
• By December 17 (required): Send the draft narrative and budget to every State Forester whose state benefits.
• Early January: Revise based on State Forester feedback. Get the sponsorship letter and complete the SF-424, SF-424A, and detailed budget so its totals match the SF-424A exactly.
• By January 22: Submit, ahead of the 11:59 p.m. ET January 26 deadline.

The bottom line

LSR's return is welcome after a skipped year, but the FY2026 version favors larger, collaborative projects that report output. A $100,000 floor, a 1:1 match, a limit of five single-state sponsorships per state, and outcome measures led by board feet all point toward well-organized landscape partnerships. Small single-county projects are less likely to succeed unless they join one. The first step is the State Forester, and that conversation should happen in November.

If you need help fitting a restoration project into LSR's five-page, character-limited narrative before December 17, Granted can help you draft it.