The last 120 days
What happens when a federal grant ends?
You close it out. Final financial, performance and any other required reports are due no later than 120 calendar days after the period of performance ends, and you must liquidate all financial obligations in the same window (2 CFR 200.344). Costs have to have been incurred during the period of performance, though paying for them can happen during closeout. Unobligated money is returned. The agency then makes any final adjustments, and your three-year record retention clock starts from the date you submit that final financial report rather than from the project end.
Last reviewed August 20, 2026.
What closeout involves, in order
Stop incurring costs at the end date
Costs must be incurred within the period of performance. Closeout is when you pay and account for obligations you already made, not a grace period for spending. This is the distinction that catches people who read 120 days as extra time.
Liquidate obligations within 120 days
Every financial obligation under the award settled no later than 120 calendar days after the period of performance ends (2 CFR 200.344). The window was 90 days until a 2020 change, so older internal procedures may still say 90 and are simply out of date rather than stricter than required.
File the final reports in the same window
Financial, performance and anything else the award specified, all due within the same 120 days. Programmatic and financial reports may go to different people, as they did throughout the award.
Return what you did not spend
Unobligated balances go back. If you drew down more than you spent, that is settled here too, which is a reason to keep drawdowns matched to actual need throughout rather than discovering the gap at the end.
Start the retention clock
Three years from the date you submit the final financial report (2 CFR 200.334), not from the end of the project. Filing late moves the whole retention window later rather than shortening it.
What an unclosed award actually costs
Closeout is the least interesting part of a grant and it is the part with the most direct consequences for the next one. Late or missing final reports sit on your record with that agency, and an agency deciding between two comparable applications has access to how you handled the last award in a way no reviewer of your proposal ever will.
It is also the moment when the administrative time nobody budgeted becomes visible. The work is real, it lands after the program staff have moved on, and it is worth putting in the original budget rather than absorbing it.
The part worth keeping
What you want out of closeout is not just a closed award. It is the record of what you asked for, what you got, what you actually delivered and what it cost, in a form you can put in front of the same funder next time. That record is the strongest evidence you will ever have, and it is easiest to assemble while the numbers are still in front of you.
Quillify keeps the track record across applications, so the next proposal to the same funder starts from what you did rather than from a blank page.
Who asks this most
The answer above is the same whoever you are. What Quillify does about it is not.
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