Facilities & Administrative (F&A) Costs (aka Indirect Costs)

Facilities and Administrative (F&A) Costs (sometimes referred to as Indirect Costs or IDC) are the real costs of university operations that are not readily assignable to a particular project. These costs are determined by federal auditors under the guidelines of OMB Uniform Guidance. Facilities and Administrative Cost rates are negotiated by the FinOpps Cost Reimbursement Office with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) -- the federal cognizant audit agency for the U-M. These rates are applicable to all federally-sponsored projects and, in accordance with university policy, are also extended to include all non-federal sponsored projects. The Resource section of this page contains the PDF files of our signed F&A Rate agreements.

Full recovery of these costs is expected on all grants or contracts. When full recovery is not possible, policies and procedures for waiving full recovery of F&A costs will be enforced at the level of U-M's schools, colleges, institutes, and centers (as well as the Flint and Dearborn campuses). 

Also see: 

• Summary Table of F&A Rates for Federal Sponsored Programs
• ORSP's Sandard Operating Procedure (SOP) on facilities and administrative costs policy