The cognizant agency for negotiating indirect cost rates shall be the federal agency that provides the majority of the federal funding (per OMB guidance).

Interior Business Center's Indirect Cost Services is the federal cognizant agency designated by OMB to negotiate indirect cost rates for:

All Indian tribal governments and their component units (component units are legally separate organizations for which the elected officials of the primary government are financially accountable)

Insular area governments (such as Guam, America Samoa)

Nonprofit, state, and local entities that receive a majority of their federal funding from the Department of the Interior

Indirect Cost Services also negotiates indirect cost rates, under interagency agreements, on behalf of the following federal agencies that provide the majority of the organization's federal funding:

• Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
• Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service
• Department of Agriculture, Rural Housing Service
• Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration
• Department of State
• Department of Treasury, Community Development
• Financial Institution Fund
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Institute of Museum and Library Sciences
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• National Endowment for the Arts
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• National Science Foundation

Indirect Cost Services has created sample proposal formats, checklists, and templates to assist you in completing the ICP proposal.  Please select the appropriate sample proposal for your type of organization (i.e., nonprofit organization). Although it is not required that you follow our ICP format, doing so will expedite the review process because our format will contain the information needed to process the ICP proposal.