AFG Grants 2026: FY2025 Awards, Cost Share and Caps

AFG source review, Grantsights, November 6, 2026: Grantsights checked the FY2025 AFG notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) attached to its Grants.gov listing (opens in a new tab) against FEMA's Assistance to Firefighters Grants page (opens in a new tab), FEMA's September 30, 2026 award release (opens in a new tab), the statute at 15 U.S.C. 2229 on govinfo.gov (opens in a new tab) and the award records. Where official sources stop: FEMA hasn't said when FY2026 will open, how much it will hold, or whether your department's request ranks high enough to reach peer review. The notice's priority tables and your own run data answer the last question; nobody can answer the first two yet.

AFG Grants Status on November 6, 2026

The FY2025 round is finished and the FY2026 round hasn't started. The FY2025 notice listed $291,600,000 for about 1,800 awards, the same total as FY2024. According to FEMA's fire grants overview page (opens in a new tab), the FY2025 AFG, Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) and FP&S application periods are all closed, and the AFG page says FEMA announced the FY2025 awards on September 30, 2026.

So what happened to the FY2025 round? It ran about 18 months after the FY2024 one. The FY2024 notice was posted November 6, 2024, and closed December 20, 2024. The FY2025 notice wasn't posted until May 18, 2026, with FEMA GO opening for applications on May 19. Its appropriation authority is the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025 (Public Law 119-4), the year-long stopgap that funded FY2025. FEMA's award table on its AFG page lists FY2025 awards dated September 25 and 29, 2026.

USASpending.gov (opens in a new tab) showed no FY2025-round AFG awards signed between October 1, 2025 and November 6, 2026. A Grantsights search of Assistance Listing 97.044 for that period returned only 3 small downward adjustments to FY2022-round awards. That's a reporting gap, not a missing round: FEMA's own page and release confirm the awards, and federal award data usually trails signing by weeks. Expect the FY2025 rows, with IDs starting EMW-2025-FG, to appear there later.

For FY2026, Grantsights searched Grants.gov (opens in a new tab) on November 6, 2026 for posted and forecast Department of Homeland Security notices. Only 4 were listed: 3 Flood Mitigation Assistance notices and an FY2027 counter-drone program. Nothing for AFG, SAFER or FP&S. Anyone quoting an FY2026 AFG deadline or amount today is guessing.

How AFG Grants Work: Direct to FEMA, No State Pass-Through

AFG has run since FY2001 under section 33 of the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974, codified at 15 U.S.C. 2229. Congress reauthorized it in Public Law 118-67, signed July 9, 2024, which authorized $750,000,000 a year for fiscal years 2024 through 2028 for this section and moved the program's expiration to September 30, 2030. According to the statute on govinfo.gov (opens in a new tab), the authority to award these grants "shall expire on September 30, 2030." An authorization isn't an appropriation, though. The FY2024 and FY2025 notices each offered $291.6 million, well under the authorized ceiling.

Unlike most FEMA preparedness money, AFG goes straight from FEMA to the department. The FY2025 notice says subapplicants and subawards aren't allowed, so there's no state agency in the middle and no state deadline to beat. Each organization can file up to 3 applications per round: one for Operations and Safety, one for Vehicle Acquisition, and one as host of a Regional project.

The same section of law also funds FP&S, which is why both share Assistance Listing 97.044. The statute reserves at least 10% of the money for FP&S. In the FY2024 round, the AFG awards in the federal award data totaled $291,600,000 and FP&S awards totaled $32,400,000, which is exactly 10% of the combined $324 million.

Who Can Apply for Assistance to Firefighters Grants

The FY2025 notice names 3 eligible applicant types, in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the territories and federally recognized tribes:

1. Fire departments. An agency or organization with a formally recognized arrangement with a state, local, tribal or territorial authority to provide fire suppression to a population in a fixed primary first-due area. A nonprofit volunteer fire company qualifies on the same terms as a city department, as long as that arrangement exists. The definitions in 44 CFR part 152 (opens in a new tab) on eCFR say the same thing and add that departments controlled by a larger department are typically not eligible.
2. Nonaffiliated EMS organizations. A public or private nonprofit EMS agency that provides medical transport, isn't affiliated with a hospital, and doesn't serve an area where a fire department already provides adequate EMS.
3. State Fire Training Academies (SFTAs). Only the single agency designated by law or governor's declaration as the state's fire service training agency.

Airport and port authority fire or EMS units qualify only if they also respond first-due outside the airport or port. The notice lists as ineligible: for-profit departments and EMS services, federal fire departments that protect only federal land, auxiliaries, hospitals, fire service associations and interest organizations, fire-based EMS units applying as nonaffiliated EMS, and dive teams or search and rescue squads that don't transport patients. A city whose fire department is the same legal entity as the city may apply on the department's behalf if the application says so.

How Much: AFG Award Caps, Set-Asides and the Cost Share

Award caps in the FY2025 notice run from $1 million to $2.91 million, set by the population of the jurisdiction served. The statute allows up to $3 million for 500,001 to 1 million people and $6 million or $9 million for the largest jurisdictions, but it also limits any single grant to 1% of the year's available funds unless FEMA finds an extraordinary need. One percent of $291.6 million is $2.916 million, which explains FEMA's $2.91 million figure. Where the notice and the statute differ, the notice governs that round.

FEMA's FY2025 award table shows the cap at work: the City of Philadelphia Fire Department received exactly $2,910,000. The FY2025 notice also sets these splits of the money:

• At least 25% each to career, combination and volunteer departments (75% in all), matching the statute's floors in 15 U.S.C. 2229(h).
• No more than 2% to all nonaffiliated EMS organizations together, and at least 3.5% for EMS provided by fire departments and nonaffiliated EMS.
• No more than 3% to all SFTAs together.
• No more than 25% for vehicles, with FEMA intending 10% of vehicle money for ambulances.
• Micro grants: an optional choice of $75,000 or less in federal funds for High Priority Operations and Safety items, with FEMA aiming to fund at least 25% of each department type's allocation as micro grants.

The cost share is cash only. Per 15 U.S.C. 2229(k)(1) and the FY2025 notice, recipients put up non-federal cash equal to 5% of the federal grant for jurisdictions of 20,000 residents or fewer, 10% for more than 20,000 up to 1 million, and 15% above 1 million. SFTAs use the state's population, and Regional applications use the combined population of the host and partners. In-kind match isn't allowed, though FEMA may accept a trade-in credit on equipment bought with non-federal cash. The statute lets FEMA waive the match for demonstrated economic hardship, but the FY2025 notice didn't describe any hardship waiver.

FEMA's notice computes the federal share by dividing the total project cost by 1.05, 1.10 or 1.15. A $150,000 project at the 5% rate becomes a $142,857 federal award and a $7,143 local share. Many award amounts carry that math. For example, Startex Fire Department in South Carolina received $142,857 in the FY2024 round, and Auxier Volunteer Fire Department in Kentucky received $171,428 in FY2025, which is $180,000 divided by 1.05.

Recipients also agree to keep their own spending on AFG-type activities at no less than 80% of the average of the 2 prior fiscal years, the maintenance of expenditure rule in 15 U.S.C. 2229(k)(3). A department that plans to fund its gear entirely with the grant and cut its own budget line breaks that promise.

How to Apply for AFG Grants: Registration, FEMA GO and Three Application Types

The FY2025 notice lists 7 steps, and the first 5 have nothing to do with the narrative:

1. Get or confirm a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) and the organization's Employer Identification Number (EIN).
2. Create a login.gov (opens in a new tab) account, using the same email as the SAM.gov entity registration (opens in a new tab) so the two link.
3. Register or renew in the System for Award Management and make sure it's active before you submit. Grantsights' SAM.gov registration guide walks through it.
4. Register in FEMA GO, add the organization and assign an Authorized Organization Representative (AOR). FEMA's FEMA GO guides for AFG (opens in a new tab) cover account creation and submission.
5. Pick the application type: Operations and Safety, Vehicle Acquisition, Regional, or a combination up to the limit of 3.
6. Complete and submit the application in FEMA GO by the deadline.
7. Keep the SAM registration active the whole time the application or award is open.

According to FEMA's notice, registration "can take up to four weeks." The AOR must be a current employee, official or leader of the applicant with an email unique to that organization. Consultants and contractors can't be the AOR. A department can hire a grant writer, but the FY2025 notice allowed only $1,500 of federal funds per application for that fee as a pre-award cost, and only with FEMA's written approval requested before awards are announced. If FEMA GO fails on deadline day, applicants have until 3:00 p.m. ET that day to report a system problem.

How FEMA Scores AFG Applications

Two scores of equal weight decide most of the outcome, according to FEMA's FY2025 notice. A computer pre-score, worth 50%, rates the request against the priorities in the notice's Appendix B using the answers in the application's activity questions. Narratives aren't read at this stage. The highest-ranked applications then go to a peer review panel of fire service personnel recommended by national fire organizations, whose score is the other 50%. Applications in the fundable range get a technical review and a FEMA program office review of cost, quantity and eligibility, which can cut an award.

Peer reviewers grade 4 narrative sections, each worth 25% of the panel score and each limited to 4,000 characters including spaces:

Priority levels drive the pre-score. For Operations and Safety equipment, the notice says only High priority items will be considered. Vehicle priorities depend on the community: a tanker or tender is High priority for a rural department but Low priority for an urban one, while pumpers are High priority in all 3 community types. FEMA also screens narratives for copying, and the notice says substantial copying or inaccurate data can disqualify an application.

Grantsights' view: the pre-score is where most departments lose, and it's decided by the request, not the writing. Avoid Medium priority items unless nothing High priority fits your need. A department that asks for Medium priority items or mixes misaligned items under Additional Funding has spent its effort before a reviewer ever reads the story.

What AFG Pays For and What It Won't

The FY2025 notice splits Operations and Safety into 5 activities and treats vehicles as a separate activity. Its period of performance is 24 months.

AFG won't pay for hiring, salaries or benefits; that's what SAFER is for. Indirect costs aren't allowed, though documented management and administration costs are. Training props are capped at $100,000 in an Operations and Safety request. Each vehicle needs its own line, narrative, and the age and VIN of the vehicle it replaces.

What FEMA's AFG Pages Don't Tell You

FEMA's 2 AFG web pages and the 70-plus page notice leave 6 practical gaps.

1. The calendar moves a lot. The last 4 notices opened in January 2023, January 2024, November 2024 and May 2026. A department can't plan around a fixed season.
2. Award timing slipped too. The FY2024 notice expected selections by April 30, 2025, but the federal award records show the FY2024 awards signed September 21 to 26, 2025, about 9 months after the December 20, 2024 deadline. FY2025 moved faster: about 100 days from deadline to announcement.
3. The 5% isn't 5% of the project. It's 5% of the federal award, so a small department pays about 4.76% of the total. The cash still has to exist before the purchase.
4. Repeat winners are common, so newcomers face history. Grantsights analysis of the award records found 407 of the 1,678 FY2024-round recipients had an FY2023-round award under the identical name and state, a lower bound since spellings vary.
5. Regional applications carry everyone's cap. If a host and partners serving 100,000 people or fewer win $1 million together, the host has used its cap for the year.
6. USASpending lags FEMA. FEMA posted FY2025 awards dated September 2026, and as of November 6, 2026 none appeared in the federal award data. Use FEMA's award table on the AFG page for recent rounds.

Grantsights pulled each row from that notice's federal listing on November 6, 2026. FEMA GO usually opens a few days after posting: November 12 for FY2024 and May 19 for FY2025. Grantsights' view: assume a 5-week window, and treat the 4-week registration warning as the real deadline.

AFG Grants Awards: What the FY2024 Round Looked Like

Grantsights analysis of federal award records for the FY2024 round (award IDs EMW-2024-FG, signed September 21 to 26, 2025) found 1,678 awards totaling $291,600,000. The median award was $95,400, and the middle half ran from $52,507 to $199,850. Recipients sat in 53 states and territories. According to USASpending.gov award data (opens in a new tab), 712 of the 1,678 awards (42%) were $75,000 or less, the micro grant ceiling, though the data doesn't show which applicants chose the micro grant option.

Pennsylvania led by count with 188 awards worth $26,482,375, followed by New York (136, $17,951,298), Ohio (125, $19,372,466), Alabama (115, $14,206,902) and Illinois (70, $11,842,235). California had fewer awards (54) but $18,566,678, so its typical award was much larger. The FY2023 round, for comparison, had 1,639 awards totaling $323,825,128 with a median of $103,439.

Volunteer companies do well here. Using a name rule (recipient names containing volunteer, fire company, Inc, incorporated, association, rescue squad, hose company or relief), Grantsights counted 488 FY2024-round awards worth $67,189,534 with a median of $86,488. Pennsylvania had 114 of them, New York 63, Alabama 58 and West Virginia 36. That's a name heuristic, not a legal status check, so treat it as a rough floor.

According to FEMA's FY2025 award table, checked November 6, 2026, the newest round has the same spread: Baltimore City Fire Department at $2,791,938, Bethany Beach Volunteer Fire Company in Delaware at $310,049, and Jerome Township Fire Department in Michigan at $28,856. FEMA's release says FY2025 AFG money reached more than 1,400 fire departments and EMS agencies.

FP&S in the FY2024 round made 62 awards worth $32,400,000, median $230,149, to universities, national fire organizations and departments. One agency in West Virginia, Kenova Volunteer Fire Department, received $171,486 from FP&S, so a small volunteer company can win prevention money too.

Non-Federal Money for Fire Departments and EMS

About 488 of the FY2024 AFG awards went to recipients that look like nonprofit companies, and those are the AFG applicants best placed to win foundation grants too, since private foundations mostly give to charities rather than to city departments. Private and community foundations often pay for what AFG won't: the cash match, a gear purchase in a year with no notice, a station repair, or items FEMA ranks Medium priority. A volunteer fire company organized as a nonprofit often gets this kind of money. A city fire department rarely does, though a fire department's own foundation or auxiliary can.

Grantsights' community funder list lists private foundations that reported grants to community and civic causes on their 990-PF filings, organized by state, so a fire company can see who already gives near it. Your state's preview is free, and a refund is available within 30 days if it doesn't fit. It's foundation money, not federal grants, and the gifts are smaller than AFG awards. Use how to read a 990-PF to check a funder's past grants before you ask.

These are statewide counts of all community-cause giving in Grantsights analysis of 990-PF filings pulled October 29, 2026, not fire-only gifts. The states are the 4 with the most volunteer-style AFG awards plus Ohio. For a federal option beyond FEMA, rural departments can compare the USDA Community Facilities grants guide for stations and trucks, and the Grantsights grant search tracks open federal and state notices, so an FY2026 AFG notice will show up there once FEMA posts it.

Common Mistakes in AFG Applications

These 7 mistakes come straight from the FY2025 notice's rules.

• Registering after the notice. SAM and FEMA GO registration can take 4 weeks, and the last window was 35 days. Departments underestimate this every round.
• Making the grant writer the AOR. Consultants can't be the AOR, and the notice says an application may be ruled ineligible if the submitter isn't the organization's own authorized person.
• Requesting Medium priority equipment. Only High priority Operations and Safety equipment gets considered. That's a red flag in the pre-score.
• Copying a neighbor's narrative. FEMA checks for duplication, and substantial copying can disqualify the application.
• Counting in-kind as match. The match is cash. Volunteer labor and donated equipment don't count.
• Duplicate requests. Asking for the same SCBA under both Regional and Operations and Safety, or the same truck twice, can disqualify both applications.
• Buying early. Apart from the approved grant writer fee, pre-award purchases aren't covered, and a vehicle bought on a lease or installment plan won't be reimbursed.

Related Guides for Fire and EMS Funding

These 6 guides cover what this one doesn't. For the full picture of volunteer company money (state forestry grants, USDA, foundations), read grants for volunteer fire departments. For EMS-only squads and the 2% cap, see grants for EMS and ambulance services. Wildfire groups should look at grants for fire safe councils. Towns and counties weighing AFG against other federal money can use federal grants for local governments, and the cost sharing and matching guide explains how federal match rules work in general. If you're hiring outside help for the narrative, how to hire a grant writer covers contracts and fees, which matters given AFG's $1,500 limit on federal payment for that work.

FAQ: Common Questions

Are AFG grants open right now? No. FY2025 closed June 22, 2026, awards came out September 30, 2026, and no FY2026 notice is posted as of November 6, 2026.

When is the next AFG deadline? Not announced. Recent windows ran 32 to 44 days, so register and draft before a notice appears.

How much can a fire department get from AFG? Up to $1 million for 100,000 people or fewer, $2 million up to 500,000, and $2.91 million above that, with waivers to $6 million or $9 million for the largest. The FY2024-round median was $95,400.

What is the AFG cost share? Cash at 5%, 10% or 15% of the federal award by population; in-kind isn't allowed.

Who is eligible for AFG grants, and can a nonprofit apply? Fire departments, nonaffiliated EMS and state academies. A nonprofit fire company with a formal first-due agreement can apply directly.

How do you apply for an AFG grant? A UEI, an active SAM registration, a login account, FEMA GO registration with an in-house AOR, then submit in FEMA GO.

Sources

These 14 sources were checked November 6, 2026.

• FEMA: Assistance to Firefighters Grants (program page and FY2025 award table) (opens in a new tab)
• FEMA: Assistance to Firefighters Grants Program overview (FY2025 application periods closed) (opens in a new tab)
• FEMA: September 30, 2026 release on FY2025 AFG, SAFER and FP&S awards (opens in a new tab)
• Grants.gov: FY2025 AFG (DHS-25-GPD-044-00-98), with the FY2025 NOFO attached (opens in a new tab)
• Grants.gov: FY2024 AFG (DHS-24-GPD-044-00-98), with the FY2024 NOFO attached (opens in a new tab)
• Grants.gov: FY2023 AFG (DHS-23-GPD-044-00-98) (opens in a new tab)
• Grants.gov: FY2022 AFG (DHS-22-GPD-044-00-98) (opens in a new tab)
• govinfo.gov: 15 U.S.C. 2229, firefighter assistance (opens in a new tab)
• eCFR: 44 CFR part 152, Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (opens in a new tab)
• FEMA: FEMA GO guides for Assistance to Firefighters Grants (opens in a new tab)
• SAM.gov: Entity registration (opens in a new tab)
• Login.gov: How to create an account (opens in a new tab)
• Grants.gov: grant search, used for the posted and forecast DHS check (opens in a new tab)
• Grantsights pull of federal prime awards for Assistance Listing 97.044 through the public award search API (USASpending.gov award search (opens in a new tab)), November 6, 2026, and statewide community 990-PF pull, October 29, 2026