Current and Historical Facilities and Administrative (F&A) Rates

The MIT fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30. Click on the fiscal year for the applicable rate agreement.

Click here for Applicability of Rate Agreements chart

(1) F&A rates are applied to a modified total direct costs (MTDC) base.

(2) F&A rates are applied to all Salaries & Wages and associated Employee Benefits, excluding all faculty and students, plus 10% on a non-personnel fund-fee base.

Overview of the F&A Rate Process

• Allowable indirect costs are assigned to one of the Facilities and Administrative (F&A) cost pools
• Each F&A pool is allocated across three Direct Cost Objectives (functions):
  • Instruction and Departmental Research
  • Organized Research
  • Other Institutional Activities
• The F&A rate is equal to the total F&A costs allocated to research divided by the modified total direct costs (MTDC) of research
• The F&A cost charged to a project is equal to the F&A rate times the MTDC of the sponsored research project
• See a more detailed description of the F&A rate process.

Use of de minimis F&A rate

At this time, MIT does not have a federally negotiated F&A rate for activities that are not classified as organized research, such as Instruction and Other Sponsored Activity. See Classification of Sponsored Projects for more details. Since MIT has never had such a rate, OMB’s Uniform Guidance (UG) allows us to charge a de minimis F&A rate of 10% MTDC on other sponsored activity funded by Federal awards. UG also specifies that the rate must be used consistently for all Federal awards until such time as a federal rate for such activity is negotiated.

For other sponsor activity funded by Federal sponsors, MIT will propose and charge the de minimis 10% MTDC rate, unless a different amount is allowed under Federal terms (e.g. NIH Training Grants). DLCs are not required to fund underrecoveries of fund overhead associated with awards that receive the de minimis rate. Include the below letter with your proposal in lieu of the rate agreement.

Election of the de minimis rate [PDF]

For non-research activity funded by non-federal sponsors, MIT will propose and charge Fund Account Overhead Rates.