Federal Grants
SF-424 Instructions: Filling Out Every Field
Daniel Rourke, MPA
August 13, 2026 · 5 min read
Table of contents
Key takeaways
- Work top to bottom, but verify SAM.gov first; four fields must match your registration character for character.
- Fields 11 and 12 come straight from the funding notice, never from memory or a previous application.
- The funding figures in field 18 must equal the SF-424A totals exactly.
- Most Grants.gov validation errors trace to three fields: UEI, applicant legal name, and assistance listing number.
These SF-424 instructions walk the form field by field. The SF-424 overview explains what the form is and why it exists; this page is the one to keep open while you actually complete it.
One rule governs everything below: verify SAM.gov before you type anything. Four fields must match your registration exactly, and discovering a mismatch after you have completed the package is how deadlines get missed.
Before you open the form
Have these four things confirmed and in front of you:
- An active SAM.gov registration that will not expire during the period of performance.
- Your Unique Entity Identifier, copied from SAM.gov rather than from a previous application.
- Your organization's legal name and address exactly as they appear in SAM.gov, including punctuation and abbreviations.
- The Notice of Funding Opportunity, open, for the opportunity number and assistance listing number.
If your registration is pending or expiring, stop and deal with that first. Renewal can take weeks and no amount of care on the form compensates for a lapsed registration. Our guide to Grants.gov registration and the SAM UEI covers the timeline.
Fields 1 through 7: submission basics
1. Type of Submission. Preapplication, Application, or Changed/Corrected Application. Choose Changed/Corrected only when replacing a package you have already submitted.
2. Type of Application. New, Continuation, or Revision. If Revision, select the reason code the instructions list. Continuations and revisions require field 4.
3. Date Received. Leave blank. Grants.gov stamps it.
4. Applicant Identifier. Your own internal tracking number if you use one. Optional.
5a. Federal Entity Identifier / 5b. Federal Award Identifier. 5b carries the existing award number on a continuation or revision. Blank for a new application.
6. Date Received by State / 7. State Application Identifier. Only for programs covered by Executive Order 12372 state review. The funding notice will say.
Fields 8a to 8f: applicant information
This block is where packages fail validation. Every entry must match SAM.gov.
8a. Legal Name. Character for character as registered. Not your trading name, not the version on your letterhead.
8b. Employer/Taxpayer Identification Number. Your EIN.
8c. UEI. Your Unique Entity Identifier. Copy it from SAM.gov directly.
8d. Address. As registered, including the ZIP+4.
8e. Organizational Unit. Department and division. Optional but useful on large institutions.
8f. Person to be Contacted on Matters Involving This Application. The working contact, typically the project director or grants manager. This does not have to be the authorized representative in field 21, and usually should not be.
Fields 9 and 10: who you are and who you are asking
9. Type of Applicant. Select from the code list: state government, county, city, nonprofit with 501(c)(3) status, institution of higher education, small business, and so on. Where the form offers up to three selections, use them if more than one genuinely applies.
10. Name of Federal Agency. The awarding agency, from the funding notice.
Fields 11 and 12: taken from the notice, never from memory
11. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number and Title. Now formally the Assistance Listing Number. This is the program identifier and it must come from the Notice of Funding Opportunity for this competition. Reusing the number from last year's application is a common and costly error, because listings are renumbered and retired.
12. Funding Opportunity Number and Title. Likewise straight from the notice.
Both fields are usually prefilled when you download the package from Grants.gov. If you are working from a form obtained any other way, treat them as suspect and verify against the notice.
Fields 13 through 17: the project
13. Competition Identification Number. Only where the program runs sub-competitions.
14. Areas Affected by Project. Cities, counties, states, or a national scope, depending on the program's instructions.
15. Descriptive Title of Applicant's Project. Short, specific, and identical to the title used across the rest of the package. Reviewers see this before they see anything else.
16. Congressional Districts. 16a for the applicant, 16b for the project. Use the two-character state abbreviation plus the three-digit district number, for example CA-012. Where a project spans many districts, attach the list as the instructions direct.
17. Proposed Project Start and End Dates. Match the period of performance in your budget and narrative. A start date that has already passed by the review period looks careless.
Field 18: the funding block that must tie out
Field 18 breaks your request into Federal, Applicant, State, Local, Other, Program Income, and Total.
These figures must equal your SF-424A totals exactly. The two forms are completed at different moments by different people, and they drift. Reconcile them as the last step before submission, every time. If your program requires match, the non-federal lines here must also agree with Section C of the SF-424A and with what you claim in your matching funds documentation.
Fields 19 through 21: review, certification, signature
19. Is Application Subject to Review by State Under Executive Order 12372? Three options: the program is covered and the application was made available to the state on a given date; the program is covered but the state has not selected it for review; or the program is not covered. The funding notice tells you which applies.
20. Is the Applicant Delinquent on Any Federal Debt? If yes, attach an explanation. Answering no when a delinquency exists is a false certification.
21. Authorized Representative. Name, title, phone, email, and signature. Only the Authorized Organization Representative may sign, and the signature certifies the statements in the form and in the SF-424B assurances are true. Grants.gov applies the signature electronically when the AOR submits, so the person listed here must be the person who clicks submit.
The three errors behind most rejections
When a Grants.gov submission fails validation, it is nearly always one of these:
- UEI does not match an active SAM.gov registration. Either the number is wrong or the registration has lapsed.
- Applicant legal name differs from SAM.gov. An abbreviation, a missing comma, an "Inc." that is on one record and not the other.
- Assistance listing number does not match the opportunity. Usually copied from a prior year.
All three are verifiable in ten minutes, days before the deadline. None are fixable in the last hour. That asymmetry is the whole argument for treating the SF-424 as a task for week one rather than deadline day, a point developed further in the SF-424 overview.
If you want to practise the sequence before doing it for real, our walkthrough of the fillable SF-424 covers where to get the correct form and how to work it inside the Grants.gov package.
