FACT SHEET: Grants Data Standards Under the GREAT Act

On June 17, 2026, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the GREAT Act's designated standard-setting agency, together with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), released Grants Standard Data Elements v3.0. The new version adds standardized data elements and an information-collection specification for the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) stage of the grants lifecycle. The standards are published at grants.gov/data-standards, accompanied by machine-readable JSON schemas, and the agencies are directing questions about the standards to GrantsDataStandards@hhs.gov. 

What Congress required (GREAT Act of 2019, Pub. L. 116-103; 31 U.S.C. §§ 6401–6404)

• Establish governmentwide data standards for information reported by recipients of federal awards, including standard definitions and unique identifiers for awards and recipients.
• Make the standards, to the extent reasonable and practicable, searchable and machine-readable, nonproprietary, built on voluntary consensus standards, consistent with accounting and reporting principles, and aligned with the FFATA/DATA Act standards behind USAspending.gov.
• Consult widely with Treasury, awarding agencies, recipients and the organizations that represent them, privacy experts, auditors, industry, and state and local governments.
• Later, issue guidance directing agencies to apply the standards (including to single-audit information), and have agencies adopt the standards for future information collections, while minimizing disruption and not adding burden.
• Important guardrail: the Act may not be used to require collection of data not otherwise required by law.

What this release delivers against those requirements

• Standard definitions + structured attributes for each element (definition, data type, format, length, domain values, lifecycle stage, and crosswalks).
• Unique identifiers consistent with the USAspending/GSDM lineage.
• Machine-readable, nonproprietary delivery via published JSON schemas.
• Voluntary consensus standards, which include ISO/IEC 11179-5 label structure and NIEM representation terms.
• FFATA/DATA Act continuity through mapping to Treasury's GSDM.
• Burden-conscious design attributes govern what is collected and exchanged, not agency system or screen design.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the GREAT Act? A: The Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency (GREAT) Act of 2019 (Pub. L. 116-103), a bipartisan law enacted unanimously by Congress and signed December 30, 2019. The law directs the federal government to create governmentwide data standards for the information grant recipients report, so that reporting becomes more standardized, machine-readable, and reusable.

Q: What exactly did Congress require? A: The law requires that HHS, as the agency administering the most federal-award programs, work jointly with OMB to establish standardized data definitions and unique identifiers, built to be searchable, machine-readable, nonproprietary, grounded in voluntary consensus standards, and aligned with the existing federal spending-transparency standards. Congress also required broad consultation, later guidance directing agencies to apply the standards, and a clear guardrail that the law cannot be used to require new data collection.

Q: What was released on June 17, 2026? A: Version 3.0 of the grants standard data elements. It adds the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) stage to standards that already covered the initial core data elements (drawn from USAspending.gov and Treasury's GSDM) and the federal Assistance Listings on SAM.gov. Machine-readable JSON schemas were published alongside the documentation.

Q: Who built the standards? A: HHS, as the GREAT Act's designated standard-setting agency, jointly with OMB, consistent with OMB Memorandum M-24-11 (April 2024), which designated the initial core data elements and set out the tranche-by-tranche approach.

Q: How does this relate to the proposed 2 CFR 200 ("Uniform Guidance") rulemaking? A: They are two separate workstreams that touch the same world of federal grants.

• The GREAT Act data standards are a distinct, statutorily mandated effort to standardize the definitions and structure of grant data, developed by HHS and OMB and published at grants.gov/data-standards. That is what was released June 17 and what we are applauding today.
• The proposed revision to 2 CFR Part 200 (published May 29, 2026; docket OMB-2026-0034; public comments due July 13, 2026) is a broader rulemaking that would update the governmentwide rules for administering federal awards, including grant reporting.
• The two actions are related and potentially complementary. Standardized, machine-readable data standards are most powerful when the rules that govern grant reporting point to them. The Data Foundation is reviewing the proposed rule and intends to submit comments encouraging the reporting provisions to align with the GREAT Act standards and machine-readable formats, so the standards and the rules reinforce one another. 

Q: Does this change what grant recipients have to do today? A: Not immediately. The standards are being implemented in stages, and the more visible changes for recipients come as agencies adopt the standards across their information collections in the period ahead. In general, the standards are expected to change how data is reported (toward standardized, machine-readable formats) more than what is reported. Recipients can use this period to inventory the data they submit and modernize processes. (For specifics about your awards, follow guidance from your awarding agency.)

Q: What makes the standards "machine-readable" and "nonproprietary"? A: The standards are published with companion JSON schemas, an open, nonproprietary, machine-readable format, so systems can validate and exchange data automatically rather than relying on documents like PDFs. The accompanying spreadsheet serves as human-readable documentation of the same standards.

Q: What's next? A: Additional tranches and metadata over time, tranche-specific implementation guidance from OMB, and as guidance is issued agency adoption across information collections. We will continue to track releases and help the community apply them.

Q: Where can I learn more? A: The standards and change logs are at grants.gov/data-standards. Questions about the standards can be directed to the agencies at GrantsDataStandards@hhs.gov. For the GREAT Act itself, see Pub. L. 116-103 (31 U.S.C. §§ 6401–6404) and OMB Memorandum M-24-11.