FIELDS closes August 17. REDLG runs quarterly through June 2027. B&I and Community Facilities never close — and that is exactly why sponsors file them late. A working calendar of USDA business-program windows, with the feasibility study requirement for each.
Send the program, the project location and the approximate total project cost. You get back a written scope, a delivery date and a fixed fee — by email, normally within one business day, with no call required. If the deadline is too close for a defensible study, we will tell you that instead of taking the engagement.
USDA Rural Development does not run one funding calendar — it runs three different kinds. A few flagship grant programs open once a year through a Notice of Funding Opportunity with a single hard deadline. A second group runs quarterly competitions against state-office cut-offs. A third group — the guaranteed loan programs and Community Facilities — is continuous, accepting applications every business day of the fiscal year.
Most missed applications are not missed because the applicant did not know the program existed. They are missed because the third-party documents — the feasibility study first among them — were commissioned after the notice published rather than before. This page sets out what is open as of August 12, 2026, what closed during fiscal 2026 and when comparable windows have historically returned, and which programs expect an independent feasibility study in the file.
| Program | Status | Window | Feasibility study |
|---|---|---|---|
| FIELDS (Fertilizer Investment & Expansion for Long-term Domestic Supply) | Open | Published July 1, 2026 · applications due August 17, 2026, 11:59 p.m. ET via Grants.gov (RD-RBS-26-01-FIELDS) | Required — project-specific, independent, signed, dated within three years |
| Business & Industry (B&I) Loan Guarantees | Open | Continuous — lenders submit October 1 through September 30, no competitive deadline | Expected on most new-venture and construction files under the 7 CFR Part 5001 five-factor framework |
| Community Facilities Direct Loan & Grant | Open | Continuous — applications accepted October 1 through September 30 | Commonly required for new or expanded essential-community facilities |
| Rural Economic Development Loan & Grant (REDLG) | Open | Quarterly competitions — complete applications must reach the RD State Office by 4:30 p.m. local time on September 30, 2026; December 31, 2026; March 31, 2027; and June 30, 2027 | Project-dependent; demand and repayment evidence expected for the ultimate recipient |
| Rural Business Development Grant (RBDG) | Closed | FY 2026 closed — June 15, 2026 for Strategic Economic and Community Development (SECD) applications, June 30, 2026 for all other applicants | Frequently funded by the grant itself as an eligible planning activity |
| Value-Added Producer Grant (VAPG) | Closed | FY 2026 closed — applications were accepted February 17, 2026 through 1:00 p.m. ET on April 22, 2026 | Required for most working-capital requests, and an eligible use of planning-grant funds |
| Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program (MPPEP) — Phase 4 | Closed | Closed August 7, 2026, 11:59 p.m. ET — the FY 2026 NOFO (RD-RBS-26-04-MPPEP) opened May 7, 2026 | Required — independent feasibility analysis supporting throughput, offtake and repayment |
Program windows above were read from the USDA Rural Development program pages on August 12, 2026. USDA can amend a notice at any time; confirm the posting on rd.usda.gov or Grants.gov before you file.
The only competitive USDA business-program window still open as this page publishes is FIELDS. The FY 2026 notice makes at least $500 million available in roughly ten awards of $15 million to $150 million, with a 50 percent match requirement, and applications close August 17, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. USDA requires a project-specific feasibility study, prepared and signed by a qualified independent consultant and dated within three years of submission. A study commissioned today cannot be delivered to a normal standard before that deadline; if you are filing, the study either exists already or the application is for the next cycle. Our FIELDS feasibility study guide sets out what USDA reviewers look for section by section.
REDLG is the clearest example of a program whose deadline structure rewards preparation. Complete applications must be received in the Rural Development State Office by 4:30 p.m. local time on the quarter date — not postmarked, not started. The next four cut-offs are September 30, 2026, December 31, 2026, March 31, 2027 and June 30, 2027.
B&I and Community Facilities accept applications every day of the fiscal year, which tempts sponsors into treating them as untimed. They are not. Both run against an annual appropriation that is committed as files are approved, and both sit behind a lender or state-office queue that lengthens as the fiscal year advances. Under the OneRD Guarantee framework at 7 CFR Part 5001, the lender — not USDA — performs the underwriting, and the agency reviews the lender's file. Evidence gaps therefore surface as lender conditions, not agency comments, and they surface late. Our B&I feasibility study guide and Community Facilities guide cover what each file needs.
Three competitive programs ran and closed during fiscal 2026: RBDG (June 15 for SECD applications, June 30 for everyone else), VAPG (February 17 through April 22), and MPPEP Phase 4 (May 7 through August 7). USDA does not guarantee that a program returns on the same calendar, and no one should file a plan that assumes it will. What the fiscal 2026 pattern does establish is the shape of the year: producer-facing grant notices tend to publish in late winter, business and processing notices in late spring, and everything competitive lands before the September 30 close of the federal fiscal year.
The practical conclusion for a fiscal 2027 applicant is unglamorous. If you intend to apply to a program that closed this year, your feasibility study and project file should be complete before the notice publishes — because the window between publication and deadline has run six to eleven weeks across these three programs, and a defensible independent study plus internal review does not reliably fit inside it alongside everything else an application requires.
“Required” is program-specific, and the language matters:
Our note on when a feasibility study is required covers the general rule across SBA, USDA and conventional financing, and 7 CFR Part 5001 compliance covers the OneRD standard in detail.
We quote a fixed fee before any work begins, and the fee is never contingent on the finding — a study that concludes a project is not feasible costs exactly what a favorable one does. Standard delivery is 10–15 business days from a complete project file; RUSH delivery is accepted case by case for an additional fixed fee, quoted up front. Where a deadline is genuinely too close, we say so rather than accept the engagement, because a rushed study that a reviewer discounts is worse for the applicant than no study at all.
Independent feasibility studies since 1998 — 4,000+ engagements, $40.2 billion in evaluated project value. Standard delivery 10–15 business days; RUSH delivery available at additional cost. Fixed fee, quoted before any work begins, never contingent on the finding.