The direct salary for individuals under NIH grant and cooperative agreement awards cannot exceed “Executive Level II” of the Federal Executive pay scale. Effective January 1, 2024, the salary limitation for Executive Level II is $221,900. The previous cap was $212,100.
The Office of Personnel Management—not NIH—is responsible for setting Executive Pay Scale levels.
Recipients with active NIH grant awards: you may rebudget funds to accommodate the increased Executive Level II salary cap if you have adequate funds available.
A Piece of the Puzzle
To appropriately apply salary caps, applicants must identify an individual’s actual institutional base salary, fringe benefits rate, proposed effort level, and associated facilities and administrative (indirect) costs in their application budgets.
NIH’s January 29, 2024 Guide notice provides examples to show the calculation, including:
Research effort requested in application/proposal: 12 months at 50 percent effort
a. Individual's institutional base salary for a FULL-TIME calendar year appointment $240,000.00 b. Direct Salary with research effort (50%) $120,000.00 a * .50 c. Fringe Benefits requested at 25% of salary $30,000.00 b * .25 d. SUBTOTAL $150,000.00 b + c e. Requested F&A (indirect) costs at 45% of subtotal $67,500.00 d * .45 f. Total amount to be requested $217,500.00 d + e The salary cap for the above individual will be calculated as follows:
g. Salary Cap – FY 2024 $221,900.00 h. Salary Cap with research effort (50%) $110,950.00 g * .50 i. Fringe Benefits calculated at 25% of allowable salary $27,737.50 h * .25 j. SUBTOTAL $138,687.50 h + i k. Associated F&A (indirect) costs at 45% of subtotal $62,409.38 j * .45 l. Total amount to be awarded due to salary limitation $201,096.88 j + k Therefore, the amount of reduction due to the federal salary limitation is:
m. Total adjustment $(16,403.12) l - f
Go to Detailed Budget for further instruction. Find related information on our Salary Cap, Stipends, & Training Funds page, including an answer to the question: May I charge a higher salary to my grant than the cap allows?