The USDA Rural Development Deadline Calendar: What Is Open, What Is Frozen, and What Now Requires a Feasibility Study

USDA Rural Development is not a single program with a single deadline. It is a portfolio of roughly a dozen programs, each carrying its own statutory authority, its own match requirement, and its own application rhythm. The most common error a rural borrower or sponsor makes is to treat the whole portfolio as one calendar of dates. It is not one calendar. It is three, layered on top of one another, and reading them correctly is the difference between filing on time and missing a window that will not reopen for a year.

This note sets out the FY2026 and FY2027 calendar the way a lender or an equity sponsor needs to see it: organized first by how each program accepts applications, then by the specific deadline and match, and, most consequentially for anyone underwriting a rural project, by the point at which an independent feasibility study becomes a condition of eligibility. Every date is flagged as confirmed against a published notice or projected from the historical notice-of-funding rhythm. One live window overrides everything else in urgency: the new FIELDS fertilizer program closes August 17, 2026, and it requires a feasibility study from every applicant, with no threshold and no carve-out.

Three deadline architectures, not one date

A calendar that lists only dates will mislead the people who rely on it, because the controlling fact about any USDA Rural Development program is not when it closes but how it accepts applications. There are three architectures, and every program sits in exactly one of them.

The first is the fixed annual competition. These programs publish a notice of funding opportunity once per fiscal year and set a hard national or state deadline; miss it and the next chance is a year away. Value-Added Producer Grants (VAPG), Rural Business Development Grants (RBDG), Rural Cooperative Development Grants (RCDG), Rural Innovation Stronger Economy (RISE) grants, the Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program (MPPEP), and the new FIELDS fertilizer program all run this way.

The second is the quarterly cycle. These programs accept applications continuously but score them in fixed batches, conventionally at the close of each quarter on September 30, December 31, March 31, and June 30. The Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program (RMAP) and the Rural Economic Development Loan and Grant (REDLG) run on this cadence, as did the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) before its FY2026 pause.

The third is rolling, continuous acceptance. These programs take applications year-round with no competition deadline, funding to the extent allocations remain. Business and Industry (B&I) guaranteed loans, the Community Facilities program covering direct loans, guarantees, and grants, and Water and Waste Disposal (WWD) loans and grants all sit here.

Three principles govern how each program is presented below. First, every deadline is paired with its exact match requirement, its feasibility-study trigger, and its controlling CFR citation, because a date without those three facts is not actionable. Second, every entry is marked confirmed or projected, so a reader can tell a published deadline from an educated forecast. Third, the calendar surfaces the structural disruptions that static lists miss: the REAP grant pause, the proposed termination of RBDG, the revocation of several OneRD lenders, and the discrepancies between the FIELDS notice of funding and the press coverage of it. Those disruptions, more than the routine dates, are what change an underwriting decision.

FIELDS: the flagship window, and the errors already in the public record

The Fertilizer Investment and Expansion for Long-term Domestic Supply program, FIELDS, is the anchor of the near-term calendar and the most valuable single opportunity on it. Secretary Brooke L. Rollins announced the program on July 1, 2026. It is funded through the Commodity Credit Corporation under section 5(b) of the CCC Charter Act (15 U.S.C. 714c(b)) and administered by the Rural Business-Cooperative Service under funding opportunity number RD-RBS-26-01-FIELDS (Assistance Listing 10.383). Total funding is $500 million, which the agency may increase at its discretion from any available source. Individual awards run from a $15 million minimum to a $100 million maximum, with roughly ten awards anticipated. The application window opened July 1, 2026 and closes August 17, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. ET; late or incomplete applications will not be accepted.

Before a single dollar figure is quoted to a client, the public record on FIELDS has to be corrected, because it contains errors that will mislead anyone relying on the announcement rather than the binding notice. USDA's own July 1 press release stated that awards would range from $15 million to $150 million; the NOFO caps them at $100 million, and Hoosier Ag Today's report of the notice terms confirms the $15 million to $100 million range. The July 1 release and several outlets, including Reuters, DRGNews, and Brownfield, reported an August 15 deadline and a 45-day window; the authoritative closing date in the NOFO and on the program page is August 17, 2026. And Brownfield characterized the cost-share as a 50 percent private match; the notice language is 50 percent non-Federal, a materially broader category. On every one of these points, the notice of funding governs, not the press release.

The match is 50 percent of total eligible project costs in non-Federal funds. The notice illustrates it plainly: for a project with $50 million in total eligible costs, an applicant may request up to $25 million and must provide at least $25 million in matching funds. Reduced-match flexibility exists for Tribes, Tribal entities owned by Tribes, and Alaska Native Corporations, at a percentage the notice does not specify, and the match must be secured and certified before the Financial Award Agreement is executed.

What FIELDS asks every applicant to prove

Section 4.2(e) of the notice is explicit: applicants must provide a recently completed feasibility study, prepared for the project and dated no more than three years before submission, signed by a qualified consultant, and the study must demonstrate that the proposed project or operation is practical and viable and assess its likelihood of success. The agency must concur that the study is acceptable and adequate. The consultant must be an independent third-party person under the qualified-consultant definition in Section 1.4, and the study must cover seven prescribed elements: an executive summary; economic, market, technical, financial, and management feasibility; a recommendation; and the author's qualifications. A business plan is separately required under Section 4.2(a), together with three years of historical financial statements, current statements dated within 90 days, and two years of pro forma projections. For a feasibility practice, this is the defining feature of the program: the study is not a supporting document that strengthens an application, it is a gate every applicant must clear. USDA has published a dedicated FIELDS Feasibility Study Guide alongside the notice to standardize what that gate requires.

Eligibility is broad on structure but narrow on substance. Any legal structure may apply, from Tribes and Alaska Native Corporations to for-profits, corporations, nonprofits, producer cooperatives, benefit corporations, and state or local governments, provided private entities are independently and domestically owned. Two substantive bars matter. An anti-concentration rule disqualifies applicants and affiliates holding market share at or above the fourth-largest domestic producer of nitrogen, sulfur, phosphate, or potash. And the project must involve process manufacturing; blending or bagging alone does not qualify.

Applications are scored on a 100-point base plus up to roughly 30 bonus points, and awards are anticipated in December 2026 or January 2027, with a period of performance of up to 60 months and the possibility of up to 24 additional months of no-cost extension on a case-by-case basis.

Why FIELDS is narrower than the program it replaces

FIELDS is the current administration's replacement for the Biden-era Fertilizer Production Expansion Program, FPEP, and the differences explain the tighter eligibility. Per Ag Bull Trading's July 1, 2026 account, FPEP launched in September 2022, was later expanded to as much as $900 million, and by late 2024 had funded roughly $517 million across 76 projects. FPEP used a tiered match: grant requests of $5 million or more required a 75 percent match, while the minimum $1 million grant required a $666,667 match on a total eligible project cost of $1.67 million; awards ranged from $1 million to $100 million. At the July 1 press conference, as reported by Agri-Pulse, Secretary Rollins said that of 121 projects the previous administration had targeted for funding, only eight were moved to completion, seven were marked unsatisfactory, and in most instances there was zero contact information reported for the awardees. FIELDS narrows the aperture deliberately toward shovel-ready, financially viable, process-manufacturing projects, which is precisely why it front-loads the feasibility study and the business plan.

Two disruptions that break most published calendars

Two structural changes reshape the FY2026 and FY2027 landscape, and both are routinely missed by calendars that carry prior-year deadlines forward.

The first is that REAP grants are frozen. The multi-year REAP notice published October 16, 2024, which covered FY2025 through FY2027, was rescinded on April 15, 2026 (91 FR 20090). A REAP frequently-asked-questions document dated March 31, 2026 confirmed that no new grant awards will be made, even on applications already queued, until 7 CFR 4280 Subpart B is rewritten to comply with Executive Order 14315, "Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign Controlled Energy Sources." REAP guaranteed loans continue under 7 CFR 5001, but the grant program should be treated as paused. The historical quarterly windows, September 30, December 31, and March 31, are useful only as a guide to the rhythm a replacement notice may adopt; the prudent course is to keep SAM registration, environmental documentation, and technical reports ready to refile within days of a new notice. Before the pause, Farm Bill funds historically covered up to 25 percent of eligible costs and Inflation Reduction Act funds up to 50 percent, with renewable-energy-system grants capped at $1 million and energy-efficiency grants at $500,000; the multi-year value was expected to approach $600 million. Policy had also shifted to disincentivize ground-mounted solar on productive farmland through prioritization points.

The second is that RBDG faces proposed termination. The President's FY2027 congressional justification proposes to end Rural Business Development Grants as duplicative of, and overlapping with, similar business-development programs operated by other Federal agencies. A budget proposal is not enacted law, and RBDG ran a normal FY2026 cycle, but any FY2027 planning that assumes RBDG as a guaranteed resource is taking on risk. A procedural change compounds the point: FY2026 was the last year RBDG will be published in the Federal Register, and future notices will appear only on the agency website and Grants.gov, where they are easier to miss.

The programs that never close

Three programs never close, and for a feasibility practice they are the steadiest source of demand because their triggers turn on the nature of the borrower rather than on a calendar date.

Business and Industry guaranteed loans are originated continuously; a lender submits Form RD 5001-1 and there is no competition deadline. B&I now sits inside 7 CFR Part 5001, the OneRD Guarantee framework that consolidated B&I, REAP guaranteed loans, Community Facilities guaranteed loans, and Water and Waste Disposal guaranteed loans; legacy 7 CFR 4279 Subpart B survives only for legacy origination. The maximum loan is $25 million. For FY2026, effective October 1, 2025, the guarantee is 85 percent on loans under $5 million (up from 80 percent) and 80 percent at $5 million or more, with a 3.0 percent initial guarantee fee, a reduced 1 percent path for qualifying projects, and a 0.55 percent annual retention fee. Minimum tangible balance-sheet equity is 10 percent for existing businesses and 20 percent for new businesses and startups at closing. The feasibility trigger is specific: under 7 CFR 5001, a feasibility study by an independent qualified consultant is required for any guaranteed loan greater than $1,000,000 to a new business, evaluating economic, market, technical, financial, and management feasibility, with the agency setting the scope. That trigger has grown teeth: B&I approval rates fell to 53 percent in FY2023 from 89 percent in FY2021, a tightening that raises the stakes on every study. One routing note matters for lenders: in May 2026 USDA revoked the approved status of several major OneRD lenders, reported to include North Avenue Capital, Celtic Bank, Byline Bank, and ReadyCap Commercial, concentrating origination among the remaining approved lenders.

The Community Facilities program is likewise rolling, across direct loans (7 CFR 1942 Subpart A), grants (7 CFR 3570 Subpart B), and guarantees (7 CFR 5001), with fire and rescue loans under 7 CFR 1942 Subpart C. Grants are awarded on a graduated scale, up to 75 percent of project cost for the smallest communities with the lowest median household income, where the eligible service area's income is at or below the higher of the poverty line or 60, 70, 80, or 90 percent of the state nonmetropolitan median; loan terms run up to 40 years. Feasibility studies are required for startup and new enterprises and above certain viability thresholds tied to a state's allocation, for example where grant assistance would exceed 50 percent of a state's annual allocation and the approval official may re-rank; Community Facilities guaranteed loans carry the same feasibility logic as B&I.

Water and Waste Disposal loans and grants are accepted year-round through state RD offices, with direct loans under 7 CFR 1780. The core technical deliverable here is not a business feasibility study but a Preliminary Engineering Report, submitted with an Environmental Report and reviewed by the State Engineer, a distinction worth drawing clearly for clients who assume every USDA program calls for the same study. Several sub-programs carry their own windows: Predevelopment Planning Grants, a maximum of $60,000 or 75 percent of predevelopment costs, year-round; the SEARCH-type Revolving Fund Program, which runs a competitive window, for example June 1 to July 3, 2026, with a maximum $200,000 loan per borrower; and Water and Waste Technical Assistance and Emergency Community Water Assistance.

The annual competitions

Five programs run as fixed annual competitions, and four of the five FY2026 windows have already closed, which makes the projected FY2027 windows the planning-relevant dates.

Value-Added Producer Grants ran their FY2026 national competition from February 17 to April 22, 2026 (1:00 p.m. ET), under 7 CFR 4284 Subpart J, modernized by final rule 89 FR 75762 effective November 15, 2024 and authorized at 7 U.S.C. 1627c. Funding was about $25 million, down from $30 million in FY2025. Planning grants run up to $50,000 and working-capital grants up to $200,000, on a 1:1 match in cash or eligible in-kind contributions. The feasibility trigger is central to the program: working-capital requests of $50,000 or more must be supported by an independent feasibility study and a business plan, though for the market expansion of a value-added product already marketed for at least two years a business or marketing plan may substitute; requests under $50,000 use a simplified application, and planning grants themselves fund feasibility studies. A FY2027 window is projected for roughly February to April 2027.

Rural Business Development Grants ran FY2026 as a state-administered competition, with the notice published May 13 to 15, 2026 (91 FR 27909; funding opportunity RDBCP-RBDG-2026) under 7 CFR 4280 Subpart E, and two closing dates: June 15, 2026 for SECD applications only and June 30, 2026 for all others. Funding was about $27.7 million, down from roughly $30.5 million in FY2025 and $37.2 million in FY2024. There is no statutory minimum or maximum award, smaller requests are prioritized, and the historical average is around $100,000; there is no cost-share requirement, though leveraging earns scoring points. Business opportunity grants can fund feasibility studies, business plans, and long-term strategic planning for eligible entities such as public bodies, nonprofits, and Tribes, though not individual businesses. As noted above, FY2027 RBDG is flagged at risk of termination.

Three more annual programs round out the group. Rural Cooperative Development Grants are administered through NIFA under 7 CFR 4284 Subpart F, with eligibility at 7 CFR 4284.520(a) limited to nonprofit institutions and institutions of higher education; awards run up to $200,000 per Center on a historical 25 percent match (5 percent for entities operated by 1994 Institutions or higher education under specific provisions), and business plans, not feasibility studies, are the operative deliverable. Rural Innovation Stronger Economy grants, under 7 CFR 4284 Subpart L, support rural jobs-accelerator partnerships in low-income rural areas, historically at $500,000 to $2,000,000, with a $10 million cycle previously announced, on a 20 percent non-Federal match. Both RCDG and RISE should be treated as projected until their next notices post, with RCDG expected in spring or summer 2027.

The Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program, Phase 4, is the one annual competition still open as this note is written, though not for long: funding opportunity RD-RBS-26-04-MPPEP runs from May 7 to August 7, 2026 (11:59 p.m. ET), authorized under section 1001(b)(4) of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The $60 million is split equally between two competitions, one for Very Small and Small Processors and one for Intermediate Processors of up to 3,000 employees. Processing Expansion Projects run $50,000 to $2 million on a 50 percent match; Simplified Equipment-Only Projects run $10,000 to $250,000 on a 25 percent match, with match documented as verified non-USDA funds. One eligibility twist catches applicants off guard: despite the program name, the applicant's facility must primarily process cattle to qualify, after which funds may be spent on meat and poultry work, and the facility must operate under FSIS, CIS, or an equal-to-Federal state inspection. Awards are anticipated October 22, 2026.

The quarterly cycles

Two programs score on a quarterly cycle, accepting applications continuously and batching them at the close of each quarter.

The Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program (funding opportunity RD-RBCS-26-RMAP; Assistance Listing 10.870) sets FY2026 quarterly deadlines of September 30, 2025, December 31, 2025, March 31, 2026, and June 30, 2026 (11:59 p.m. ET), with annual technical-assistance grants due August 1, 2026 (some sources cite 4:30 p.m. ET), under 7 CFR 4280 Subpart D and 7 U.S.C. 2008s. Funding is about $21 million in loans and grants: technical-assistance grants up to $100,000 a year, loans of $50,000 to $500,000 to establish revolving funds with aggregate debt capped at $2.5 million, and microloans to ultimate recipients up to $50,000, on a 15 percent cost share.

The Rural Economic Development Loan and Grant program (funding opportunity RD-RBCS-26-REDLG; Assistance Listing 10.854; notice published September 15, 2025, Federal Register 2025-17770) sets the same quarterly deadlines, September 30, December 31, March 31, and June 30, 2026 (4:30 p.m. local time). FY2026 funding is roughly $50 million for loans and $10 million for grants, with grant awards up to $300,000. For a feasibility practice the relevance is indirect but real: eligible uses explicitly include technical-assistance feasibility studies commissioned by RUS electric and telecom borrowers acting as intermediaries, which pass through to rural businesses. The next quarterly batch to plan around is September 30, 2026.

The appropriations backdrop

None of these programs operates in a vacuum, and the FY2026 appropriations outcome explains both the funding levels above and the timing disruptions. Congress enacted a full-year Agriculture Appropriations Act on November 12, 2025, as Division B of a three-bill minibus (P.L. 119-37), following a 43-day government shutdown. Per CRS Report R48564, the enacted full-year FY2026 appropriation provides $26.6 billion in discretionary appropriations, and the Senate Appropriations Committee summary specifies $3.7 billion to support rural development programs across the country, including $1.7 billion for affordable-housing rental assistance.

That outcome rejected most of the administration's proposed cuts. The same CRS report records that the administration's FY2026 request was $20.6 billion on a comparable basis without CFTC, a decrease of nearly $5.7 billion, or 21.5 percent. The request had zeroed out community-facilities grants and rural-business grants, on the argument that direct loans could replace grants, and proposed cutting RD staffing by 1,503 full-time equivalents, about 32 percent. The shutdown and the staffing reductions fed directly into the REAP backlog and the late RBDG notice, and the same downward budget pressure persists into FY2027, where RBDG now carries an explicit termination proposal even though enacted appropriations have so far preserved funding.

The master deadline calendar

The table below consolidates the calendar. Status is marked C for a confirmed, published deadline and P for a deadline projected from the historical notice rhythm. Award ranges use en dashes, and the projected FY2027 windows will shift with appropriations timing and any further shutdown or staffing disruption.

Where the feasibility demand concentrates

For a lender or a sponsor, the practical question underneath this calendar is simple: which of these programs will actually require an independent feasibility study, and when. The answer concentrates in a handful of places, and it drives a clear sequence of priorities.

The immediate priority, through August 2026, is FIELDS. It is the rare competition where a feasibility study is mandatory for every applicant, the seven prescribed elements and the three-year currency requirement are specific, and the agency-concurrence standard is high; with roughly ten awards of $15 million or more and a 50 percent non-Federal match, it is a high-value, low-volume field in which the quality of the study is decisive rather than incidental. The August 17, 2026 deadline is a hard cutoff, and the corrected terms, a $100 million maximum, an August 17 date, and a non-Federal rather than private match, should anchor any client conversation, because the public record still carries the errors.

The near-term priority, from August through December 2026, is the always-open pipeline. B&I loans above $1 million to a new business, Community Facilities startup and new enterprises, and the startup thresholds inside the OneRD framework generate feasibility demand continuously, and they do not wait on a competition date. REAP paperwork should be queued now so a client can refile within days of a replacement notice, and the September 30, 2026 RMAP and REDLG quarterly batch is the next scheduled cycle to plan around.

The FY2027 planning priority is to build the projected windows now, clearly labeled as projections: VAPG around February to April 2027, RBDG in spring 2027 with its termination flag attached, RCDG in spring or summer 2027, and RISE unposted. Several developments would change this ordering. Republication of the REAP grant notice, or finalization of the 7 CFR 4280 Subpart B rewrite, would reactivate a major quarterly feasibility pipeline. An FY2027 appropriation that funds or defunds RBDG would resolve the termination risk. A FIELDS second round or an FPEP-style reopening, neither currently announced, would reopen the largest single feasibility opportunity. And any further OneRD lender approvals or revocations would shift where B&I packages should be routed. Until then, the calendar above is the working map, the same one that anchors our USDA Rural Development practice, and the feasibility study is the common thread running through its most valuable entries.