Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
Reporting on Apportionments
Updated August 21, 2025
Congress enacts annual appropriations and other budgetary legislation to provide agencies with budget
authority, which allows them to spend federal dollars. To prevent agencies from prematurely exhausting
their appropriated funds, the Antideficiency Act generally requires that appropriated funds be apportioned
(i.e., subdivided)—by time period, function, program, or some combination thereof. The President is
statutorily responsible for apportioning funds for executive branch agencies, but this responsibility has
been historically delegated to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) by executive order. In
FY2022, Congress directed OMB to make its apportionment documents available on a publicly accessible
website. Congress subsequently made this reporting requirement permanent. On March 24, 2025, OMB
took down the website. In response to a court order, OMB began making apportionments publicly
available again on August 15, 2025.
OMB Role in Executive Branch Apportionment
Appropriations must be apportioned by (1) 20 days prior to the start of the fiscal year for which the
appropriations were provided or (2) 30 days after the date of enactment of the appropriations act,
whichever comes later. OMB directs agencies to submit apportionment requests by August 21 or “within
10 calendar days after the approval of the appropriation or substantive acts providing new budget
authority, whichever is later.” OMB may also apportion multiyear and no-year funds for a future fiscal
year, but apportionments may not last longer than one fiscal year. These funds must be apportioned, again,
at the beginning of each fiscal year.
At the beginning of a fiscal year, prior to OMB approval of an agency’s first full-year enacted
apportionment request, OMB generally provides initial “automatic apportionments” that make budget
authority available to agencies. The OMB director approves these automatic apportionments in a bulletin,
which contains a formula that agencies use to calculate apportioned amounts. OMB officials then work to
approve apportionments for each appropriations account.
OMB generally apportions budget authority in one of four ways:
1. By time period (what OMB refers to as a “category A” apportionment—e.g., by fiscal
year quarter)
