What is FAIN?
The Federal Award Identification Number (FAIN) is an identification code assigned by an agency for tracking purposes to a specific financial assistance award. A FAIN is tied to an award (and all future modifications to that award) throughout the award's life. Within an agency, FAINs are unique; a new award must be issued with a new FAIN. FAINs may consist of both letters and numbers.
To learn more about FAINs, please reference OMB Management Procedures Memorandum No. 2016-03 (page 4).
Why should I generate a FAIN through Grants.gov?
Currently, FAINs are unique within an agency. By generating FAINs through Grants.gov, the codes will be unique across all federal agencies who utilize this feature.
How do I generate FAINs?
To generate a Federal Award Identification Number (FAIN), log in and click the Generate FAIN link in the left navigation menu, or in the Grantor tab drop-down menu. You will be directed to the Generate FAIN page.
Enter the Number of FAIN(s) to generate (MAX 100).
Click the Generate button.
The generated FAIN(s) will be displayed. Once you navigate away from this page, your generated FAIN(s) will no longer be displayed.
Click the Export button to generate a spreadsheet with the list of your FAIN(s).
It is recommended to retain a list of the generated FAIN(s) or save the spreadsheet to your computer for future reference.
Note: To generate another set of FAINs, you will need to refresh the page and repeat the steps above.
Grants.gov-Generated FAINs
Here is a breakdown of the format of a Grants.gov generated FAIN:
General Format:
type check format registry coreId
Where:
type - The type=“A” for awards.
check - The check is a single digit (0-9) used as a check on the format, registry, and coreId. Created using a modified Luhn algorithm.
format - The format is “0”.
registry - The registry is “001”. This registry is owned by Grants.gov and is the only registry available in the initial implementation of the FAIN service.
coreId - The coreId is a sequential number: starting with “100000000” (9-24 digits)
Note: For the Grants.gov generated FAIN, the total length will not exceed 30 characters.