Small Business R&D Funding Extended to 2030, Opening Up 'Fast Track' Awards to All Federal Agencies

If you are a small business owner—especially in tech, science, or R&D—this bill is essentially a five-year extension on your federal funding opportunities. The SBIR/STTR Pilot Extension Act pushes back the deadlines for several key federal programs that help small businesses research new ideas and turn them into commercial products. Most notably, the authority for agencies to use the "direct to Phase II" award process is extended from the end of 2025 to the end of 2030 (SEC. 2).

The 'Fast Track' Funding Gets a Wider Lane

The biggest shift here is how federal agencies can use the "direct to Phase II" authority. Think of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program as having two main stages: Phase I is for proving an idea works, and Phase II is for developing the prototype. The "direct to Phase II" authority lets a business skip Phase I if their idea is already mature enough, getting them faster access to larger development funds. Previously, only the NIH, Department of Defense (DoD), and Department of Education could use this fast track method.

Under this new Act, every federal agency that runs an SBIR program can now use the "direct to Phase II" authority (SEC. 2). This means more agencies—and potentially more small businesses—can bypass the initial paperwork and get straight to development. However, there are guardrails: most agencies are capped at using this authority for no more than 10 percent of their total SBIR funds each year. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funds a massive amount of biotech and health research, gets a slightly higher cap at 15 percent.

Long-Term Certainty for Innovation

For small business owners and entrepreneurs, this bill offers something critical: stability. If you’re trying to secure venture capital or plan your next five years of R&D, knowing that the federal programs you rely on aren't going to disappear next year is huge. The bill extends several other commercialization tools until September 30, 2030 (SEC. 4). This includes the Phase 0 Proof of Concept Program, which helps businesses get their ideas off the ground, and various Commercialization Assistance Pilots that help bridge the gap between a successful prototype and a marketable product.

Essentially, the government is signaling that it is committed to these programs for the long haul, which is good news for the small firms that employ scientists, engineers, and technicians across the country. By renaming and extending the Commercialization Readiness Program for civilian agencies through fiscal year 2030 (SEC. 3), the bill ensures that the support structure for turning federally funded research into real-world products—like new medical devices or software—remains in place. The only real administrative change is that every agency using the expanded Phase II authority must now report on the number and dollar amount of those awards, which adds a bit of necessary paperwork for the agencies but provides transparency on how these fast-track funds are being used (SEC. 2).