What are National Institutes of Health (NIH) salary caps?
Annual NIH appropriation bills have included a cap, or ceiling, on the annual salary rate at which NIH will compensate employees funded on NIH grants. Because this cap is set annually in the NIH appropriation bill and, typically, is tied to compensation levels for certain classes of federal employees, it can change as often as two times in a given year. When submitting salary information to NIH as part of a budget request, actual salary estimates should be used, even if they are in excess of the caps. NIH will reduce the amount awarded, if necessary, to the cap in effect when the award is activated. When estimating budgets for a modular grant application, the best estimate of the NIH cap that will be in effect when the grant is awarded should be used.
