If any part of your backlog is federal-aid work, September 30 belongs on your wall. The surface transportation programs authorized under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act expire at the end of this federal fiscal year. That is a funding authorization date, not a stop-work date, and the difference matters a great deal for how you should plan. Work already obligated and under contract keeps going. The exposure sits in what has not been let or awarded yet. Here is the operational read and what to confirm in the next three weeks.
This is a planning post, not a prediction post. The date is a matter of statute and the mechanics are known, so it is worth understanding precisely.
Surface transportation programs authorized under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act expire September 30, 2026 (Source: Congressional Research Service report R47573; National Association of Counties). The law functioned as both an authorization and an appropriations act, providing $476.2 billion in authorized funding along with roughly $156 billion in advance appropriations across federal fiscal years 2022 through 2026. Those advance appropriations do not carry past this fiscal year without further action.
Without a reauthorization or an extension, formula funding for highways, bridges and transit reverts to pre-IIJA authorization levels, and discretionary grant programs stop making new awards.
Surface transportation programs authorized under the IIJA expire September 30, 2026. Without reauthorization or an extension, formula funding reverts to pre-IIJA levels and discretionary programs stop making new awards.
Source: Congressional Research Service report R47573
Three distinctions do most of the work here.
A funding authorization date is not a stop-work order. Federal money already obligated to a project under contract remains obligated. If your job is awarded and running, October 1 does not change it.
The exposure is in the unlet and the unawarded. Projects still sitting at letting, and discretionary grant work that has not been awarded, are where schedules can slip. That is also where material commitments can get stranded.
Short-term extensions are the historically common outcome. Planning for a gap is prudent business. Assuming one is speculation, and we are not going to do that here.
What to do in the next three weeks. Go through your backlog and confirm the funding source on each job. Ask the owner or the agency one direct question: is the funding on this project already obligated. That single answer tells you which jobs are solid and which are exposed.
Then be conservative about locking material and haul commitments on unlet federal-aid work you were counting on for the fourth quarter. If a job you assumed would let in October slides to spring, you do not want to be holding a position on it. When you do price the haul, price it from a source you can actually get in the window you are promising.
The structural background is arithmetic. The federal fuel tax that funds the Highway Trust Fund has been fixed at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993, and it no longer covers current spending levels. The Congressional Research Service projects a gap between revenues and outlays of about $166 billion for a five-year reauthorization beginning in fiscal 2027, and about $199 billion over six years. That arithmetic is why this conversation recurs.
State-funded work is on a separate track from this deadline, which is worth remembering in Texas. The state’s own ten-year program was approved in August and runs on state and federal revenue together. Contractors with a mix of state, municipal and federal-aid work in the backlog are in a better spot this quarter than contractors concentrated in federal-aid lettings.
Ask one question about every job in your backlog: is the funding already obligated.
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