NIH Secures $48.7B in FY2026 Bill, Blocking Proposed 40% Cut
March 1, 2026 · 2 min read
David Almeida
Congressional appropriators locked in $48.7 billion for the National Institutes of Health in the FY2026 Labor-HHS-Education spending package — a $415 million increase over FY2025 and a decisive rejection of the Trump administration's proposed 40% cut that would have slashed nearly $20 billion from biomedical research.
The House passed the bill; Senate action is pending.
Cancer, Alzheimer's, and ARPA-H All Gain
The bill directs $7.4 billion to the National Cancer Institute, including $28 million for the Childhood Cancer STAR Act covering survivorship, treatment, access, and research programs. Alzheimer's and dementia research receives $3.9 billion.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) holds steady at $1.5 billion, preserving the high-risk, high-reward research agency that funds moonshot projects in health — from aging interventions to lymphatic system mapping.
Overhead Rates Protected — For Now
Critically for universities and research institutions, Congress extended statutory language preventing the administration from imposing a 15% cap on facilities and administrative (F&A) cost reimbursement. The proposed cap had threatened to drain billions from research institutions that rely on overhead recovery to maintain labs, equipment, and support staff.
However, the bill allows continuation of a new multiyear grant funding methodology that resulted in several thousand fewer individual awards in 2025. Investigators competing for R01s and other mechanisms should expect continued pressure on success rates even as the overall budget grows.
The Broader Research Picture
The same spending package provides $79 billion for the Department of Education — $12 billion above the administration's request — and $790 million for the Institute of Education Sciences, triple the requested amount. Pell Grant maximums hold at $7,395, and minority-serving institution programs under Title III and Title V received increases.
For the research community, the message is clear: Congress is sustaining federal science funding despite executive branch pressure to cut. But flat-to-modest growth means fiercer competition per dollar.
What Researchers Should Do
PIs planning spring submissions should note that NIH's funding profile has shifted: fewer, larger awards are the trend. Teams should strengthen proposals with preliminary data and multi-PI structures. Grant seekers can track the latest NIH and NSF opportunities on grantedai.com.