Federal fiscal year 2027 begins October 1, 2026, and agencies will most likely start it under a continuing resolution rather than full-year appropriations. For A/E firms, the practical meaning is narrow and specific: the work available in October is work you were already positioned for. August and September are when the positioning changes.
This is a federal piece. If your practice is state, municipal, or private, most of what follows does not apply to you, and the last section says what does.
Where FY2027 Funding Actually Stands
The House passed a continuing resolution, H.R. 9770, on July 21, 2026 by a vote of 220-205, funding agencies at FY2026 levels through December 4, 2026. Early on August 8 the Senate passed its own package 90-6, running through December 11 and carrying a separate extension of surface transportation authorities through that same date. The House still has to take up the Senate version, and it does not return from recess until August 31, so nothing is enacted and nothing can be until September.
Behind that, the underlying appropriations work is nowhere near finished: as of late July, three of the twelve FY2027 bills had passed the House and the Senate had passed none.
So October is predictable in shape if not in detail. Both chambers have now voted for a CR at roughly FY2026 levels. Which version prevails changes the date on the calendar, not the operating condition.
One caveat: the extension continues program authority, but the IIJA advance appropriations funding transit and passenger rail expire September 30 regardless. We covered what that split does to a transit or rail pipeline separately.
What a Continuing Resolution Does to A/E Work
A CR is not a shutdown. Agencies stay open and money keeps moving. What changes is what agencies are permitted to start.
Interim CRs generally prohibit agencies from beginning any program, project, or activity not funded in the prior year. That is the "new starts" prohibition. They also limit agencies to taking, in the Congressional Research Service's summary of the standard language, "only the most limited funding action" necessary to continue existing work. GAO case studies in the same report document the effect: delayed contract awards for non-recurring projects, and agencies splitting one annual action into several short ones.
That produces a clear split in your federal pipeline.
| Where the work comes from | What a CR does to it | What that means for October |
|---|---|---|
| Task orders off vehicles you already hold | Least affected. Continues under existing contract authority | Your most reliable October work |
| Recompetes of continuing contracts | Generally proceed, but awards slip | Be ready early and assume the date moves |
| New solicitations for continuing programs | Proceed slowly under "most limited funding action" | Expect thinner posting volume in October-November |
| Anything that is a genuine new start | Prohibited for the duration of the CR | Not available until full-year bills pass |
Under a CR, the difference between a firm with work in October and a firm waiting for postings is mostly whether it already holds a seat on a vehicle.
The Year-End Surge Is Mostly Not Your Surge
Federal obligations rush at the end of the fiscal year. Liebman and Mahoney, analyzing federal procurement data, found that spending in the last week of the fiscal year runs 4.9 times the rest-of-year weekly average, and that information technology projects bought in that window carried substantially lower quality ratings.
The surge is largely expiring funds obligated against arrangements that already exist, such as task orders, modifications, and options, because that is the only action an agency can finish in a few weeks. A qualifications-based selection does not fit: announcement, submission, evaluation board review, shortlisting, interviews, and negotiation take months.
The year-end surge is not a selling season. It is a settlement of decisions already made, and August and September are for becoming one of the arrangements that exists.
What to Do in August and September
- Update your SF330 Part II in every agency file you are in. Under FAR 36.603, agencies maintain A/E qualifications data files and review each one at least once a year. A file carrying your 2024 staff list and project mix is representing you right now to people you will never meet.
- Pursue seats, not October awards. On-call, IDIQ, and MATOC vehicles are the channel a CR leaves intact. A seat you hold in September is worth more than a solicitation you are watching for in October.
- Get recompete packages done before you think you need them. Awards slip under a CR, but solicitation deadlines usually do not move with them. The asymmetry punishes teams that pace to the original date.
- Ask your contracting officers what is queued. Which pending actions are new starts, and which continue prior-year work. That question separates the pursuits worth reserving capacity for from the ones that cannot legally proceed.
- Do not build the FY2027 revenue plan on a December number. Full-year appropriations may land then, or the CR may be extended again. Plan the first quarter as flat and treat anything better as upside.
The constraint that makes step one hard is not knowing that it matters. It is that a firm in eight or ten agency files is maintaining eight or ten documents, each with its own last-updated date, each drifting further from who currently works there. Firms that keep staff and project records in reusable shape treat that as an afternoon. Rebuilding each one from the last submitted PDF turns annual housekeeping into a project, and projects get scheduled rather than done.
If Your Work Is Not Federal
Federal work is a minority of the market for most civil and multidiscipline firms. Two things set the calendar for the rest:
- State DOT prequalification runs on each agency's own cycle, unrelated to the federal fiscal year, and it is the gate on far more A/E revenue than federal selections are.
- The IIJA's September 30 expiration is the deadline that actually reaches state and local pipelines. Our look at what an extension does to 2027 planning covers it, and the water funding picture carries the same date.
The federal calendar is loud, and it is easy to let its deadlines set the tone of a planning conversation that should be about clients who do not share them.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does federal fiscal year 2027 start?
Federal fiscal year 2027 begins October 1, 2026 and ends September 30, 2027. It is unrelated to state and local fiscal years, most of which begin July 1, and to the calendar-year budgets most private clients run on. A firm working across all three is tracking three separate procurement calendars.
Will the government shut down on October 1, 2026?
A shutdown happens only if no appropriations measure is enacted. The House passed a continuing resolution through December 4 on July 21, and the Senate passed its own version through December 11 by a vote of 90-6 on August 8. Nothing was enacted as of mid-August 2026, but both chambers have now voted to keep agencies funded.
What does a continuing resolution mean for A/E contracts?
Agencies keep operating at prior-year funding levels but generally cannot start new programs, projects, or activities under the "new starts" prohibition. Existing contracts and task orders continue normally, while new awards for non-recurring work tend to slip. Your contracting officer can tell you whether a specific pending action counts as a new start.
Should A/E firms chase the federal year-end spending surge?
Not as a source of new selections. The September surge is concentrated in obligations against existing contracts and vehicles, because qualifications-based A/E selection takes months to run and does not fit in the closing weeks of a fiscal year. The useful work in August and September is positioning for the year that starts in October.