USAID was dismantled in 2025 and its foreign assistance folded into the State Department. Here's what happened, what survived, and where international-development funding lives now.
If you came here looking for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) grants portal, the short answer is: it isn’t there anymore. USAID, for decades one of the largest funders of global health, humanitarian assistance, education, food security, and democracy work on the planet, has been dismantled.
On July 1, 2025, the State Department announced that USAID would “officially cease to implement foreign assistance,” with its surviving programs merged into the State Department (NPR, July 2025). A year on, the closure is treated as permanent, and organizations that once built their funding around USAID have had to rebuild around a very different landscape.
This guide explains what happened, what funding survived and where it moved, and, most importantly, where international-development funding lives now so your organization isn’t left waiting at a door that no longer opens.
TL;DR: Quick Answers
- Is USAID still awarding grants? No, not as it did. USAID stopped implementing foreign assistance on July 1, 2025. It no longer operates as an independent grantmaking agency.
- Where did the funding go? Surviving foreign-assistance programs were absorbed into the U.S. Department of State (and some into the USDA), often rebranded under an “America First” framework. The overall budget was cut sharply.
- Can my organization still get this money? Some of it, through State Department channels, but far less, and with different rules. The durable move is to diversify beyond any single U.S. government doorway.
What Happened: A Timeline of the Dismantling
- January 2025. On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order placing a 90-day freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid pending review. Payments stopped, and thousands of USAID staff were placed on administrative leave or laid off in the weeks that followed.
- March 2025. The administration announced the cancellation of roughly 83% of USAID programs and moved to terminate nearly all remaining employees. The State Department notified Congress of its intent to dissolve the agency.
- July 1, 2025. USAID officially ceased to implement foreign assistance. Remaining programming was transferred to the State Department, with some functions moving to the USDA.
- 2025–2026. Foreign-assistance spending was cut dramatically, with reporting citing a reduction on the order of $25 billion. Surviving programs were reorganized and, in several cases, rebranded.
USAID is gone. The agency has been shut down, its staff terminated, and its programs either eliminated or handed off to the State Department. For any organization seeking funding, USAID is no longer a doorway that exists (NPR, July 2025).
What Survived and Where It Moved
A meaningfully smaller slice of foreign assistance continues, now administered outside the old USAID structure:
- State Department bureaus now oversee remaining programs. Global health work moved under the Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy; food security and humanitarian programs run through a State Department Office of Global Food Security and regional bureaus.
- USDA absorbed some agricultural and food-assistance functions.
- Rebranding under “America First.” Food for Peace was renamed America First International Food Assistance, and the FY2026 budget introduced an America First Opportunity Fund. Expect naming, priorities, and eligibility to reflect the current administration’s foreign-policy framing.
- Sharply reduced funding. What remains is a fraction of the historical USAID portfolio. Many program lines were eliminated outright rather than moved.
If a program you relied on still exists, assume its name, administering office, priorities, and application process have all changed. Verify everything directly rather than relying on pre-2025 documentation.
Where to Look for What Remains
The U.S. government still posts the foreign-assistance opportunities that survive:
- Grants.gov continues to host assistance award solicitations (grants and cooperative agreements). See using Grants.gov for how to search and register.
- SAM.gov hosts contract solicitations, and you still need an active registration and UEI to apply for any U.S.-funded award.
- ForeignAssistance.gov is the government’s dashboard for foreign-assistance budget and spending data, useful for seeing what is actually being funded now.
- State Department bureau guidance (state.gov). Because administration has shifted to State, bureau-level pages are now the authoritative source for current priorities and points of contact.
Given how much is in flux, confirm current status directly with the administering office before investing time in any opportunity. Guidance written before mid-2025 is unreliable.
What This Means for Your Organization
The dismantling of USAID is a hard lesson in a principle every funding strategy should already reflect: no single funder should be a single point of failure. Organizations that had built 60, 70, or 90% of their budgets on USAID awards were left scrambling. Here’s how to rebuild on firmer ground.
- Chase what genuinely remains, with eyes open. Pursue the surviving State Department opportunities that fit your mission, but budget conservatively and don’t assume multi-year continuity.
- Deepen international foundation relationships. Large global foundations and philanthropies fund much of the same health, education, and development work. See international foundation grants and our broader guide to grants for international development.
- Add multilateral and bilateral funders. UN agencies, the World Bank and regional development banks, the Global Fund, Gavi, and other governments’ aid agencies remain active and are absorbing some of the demand created by U.S. withdrawal.
- Build a corporate and domestic-philanthropy layer. Corporate giving programs and community foundations can diversify and stabilize a portfolio that leaned too heavily on one government.
- Think in a portfolio, not a program. A resilient funding base blends government, foundation, corporate, and earned revenue so that a single policy change can’t hollow out your budget. See where your nonprofit should actually apply and building a 12-month grant strategy.
How Grantboost Helps
The USAID shutdown made diversification a survival skill, and diversifying means writing more proposals, for more kinds of funders, without a bigger team. That’s exactly the problem Grantboost is built for.
Your organizational story, mission, programs, past performance, and evidence base is consistent across proposals, whether you’re applying to a State Department bureau, an international foundation, or a corporate funder. Grantboost helps you draft in your own voice and past wins (see training AI on your past proposals), then reshape that material to each funder’s specific requirements.
Continuous discovery surfaces surviving government opportunities alongside foundation, corporate, and multilateral international-development funding, so your global-development strategy no longer rests on a single funder that a policy change can eliminate overnight.
Try Grantboost free and build a funding base that can survive the next shock.
Read next:
- Grants for International Development: Where Global Funding Actually Comes From
- International Foundation Grants: A Guide to Global Philanthropic Funding
- Federal vs. Foundation vs. State Grants: Where Your Nonprofit Should Actually Apply
Further Reading
- NPR: USAID officially shuts down and merges remaining operations with State Department (July 2025)
- KFF: U.S. Foreign Aid Freeze & Dissolution of USAID — Timeline of Events
- U.S. Department of State
- ForeignAssistance.gov
- Wikipedia: USAID (history and 2025 dissolution)
Disclaimer: Grant programs, eligibility rules, deadlines, and policies vary by region and change frequently, and U.S. foreign-assistance policy is in active transition. The information in this article is for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the current rules in your area. Always consult a local grant writer or qualified expert in your region for advice specific to your organization, project, and jurisdiction.