Home / Resources / 2 CFR 200.405 explained
Updated August 2026
Allocable is the test people skip. A cost can be perfectly reasonable and still belong to a different grant than the one you charged it to.
A cost is allocable to an award to the extent that award actually benefited from it. Split shared costs by the benefit each award received. And you may not move a cost to another federal award because the first one ran out of money.
The simple case.
Shared rent, shared staff, shared insurance. The split has to reflect the relative benefit received, and you have to be able to explain the method.
The indirect-cost case, handled through a rate at §200.414 rather than line by line.
Paragraph (c): a cost allocable to one federal award may not be charged to another to cover a shortfall, or to avoid a restriction in the award it belongs to. Moving a cost because the right grant ran out is the exact behaviour the paragraph exists to stop, and it is a finding when it is found.
There is a narrow carve-out: where a cost is genuinely allowable under two awards, shifting can be permissible if federal statute, regulation, or the award terms allow it. That is a real allowance, not a general licence, and it should be documented at the time.
Paragraph (d) is the practical one. Where a cost benefits two or more projects in proportions you can determine, allocate it in those proportions. Where the proportions genuinely cannot be determined because the work is interrelated, the cost may be allocated on any reasonable documented basis.
The operative word is documented. "Any reasonable basis" is generous; "we split it evenly and never wrote down why" is not a basis.
Staff time is the shared cost that matters most for small nonprofits, and it has its own rules at §200.430. A cost allocation method that contradicts your timesheets will not survive.
Paragraph (d) also settles a question people ask constantly: equipment bought under an award remains assignable to that award regardless of what you later use it for. Buying a laptop on Grant A and using it on Grant B next year does not move the cost. Disposal is a separate matter, at §200.313.
Square footage for rent, headcount for insurance, certified time for salaries. A basis chosen at audit time is not a basis.
If a grant runs out, the cost is yours or it is unallowable. It is not the next grant's.
The most common contradiction in a small nonprofit's file is a cost allocation plan that no time record supports.
This is general information, not legal or accounting advice. Federal grant rules change and are applied differently by different agencies and auditors. Check with your auditor, your grant officer, or an attorney before relying on any of it.
The Ember tool for thisEmber Time logs staff time, splits it across grants and programs by actual effort, routes it for supervisor certification, and produces an audit-ready time-and-effort report with unlimited users on every plan.
Under 2 CFR 200.405 a cost is allocable to a federal award if it is assignable to that award in accordance with the relative benefit received. That covers costs incurred specifically for the award, costs that benefit the award and other work and can be split on a reasonable basis, and costs necessary to overall operations that are assignable in part.
No. 2 CFR 200.405 specifically prohibits charging a cost allocable to one federal award to other federal awards to cover a funding shortfall or to avoid a restriction. A narrow exception exists where the cost is allowable under both awards and a federal statute, regulation, or the award terms permit the shift.
Allocate it in the proportions in which each project benefits, where those proportions can be determined. Where the work is so interrelated that proportions cannot be determined, 2 CFR 200.405 allows allocation on any reasonable documented basis. The documentation is the part that matters at audit.
No. Under 2 CFR 200.405 equipment purchased under a federal award remains assignable to that award regardless of later use. Rules on managing and disposing of that equipment sit separately at 2 CFR 200.313.
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Sources: 2 CFR Part 200 (eCFR), read 29 August 2026. Federal grant rules change; check the current text before relying on this.