How Fiscal Year Differs from Calendar Year in USDA Data
July 15, 2026
One of the most important things to understand about USDA financial assistance data — and therefore SubsidyLookup — is that it's organized by federal fiscal year, not calendar year. This distinction matters a lot when trying to understand when payments were made and what market conditions they reflect.
Federal fiscal year basics
The US federal government's fiscal year runs from October 1 through September 30. Fiscal year 2023 (FY2023) runs from October 1, 2022 through September 30, 2023. When a USDA payment record shows fiscal year 2023, the actual transaction could have occurred any time between October 2022 and September 2023.
Why USDA uses fiscal years for farm payments
Farm program payments are authorized and appropriated on a fiscal year basis. ARC and PLC payments for a crop year are typically issued several months after harvest — meaning a 2022 crop year payment might not hit until early-to-mid calendar year 2023, placing it in FY2023. CRP annual rental payments are often issued in October, placing them at the start of the federal fiscal year.
Crop year vs. fiscal year
The crop year (also called the marketing year) is different from both the calendar year and the fiscal year. For corn and soybeans, the marketing year begins September 1 and ends August 31. For winter wheat, it begins June 1. ARC and PLC payments are based on marketing year prices, but the actual payments often arrive in a different fiscal year — which is why comparing program payment data to commodity prices requires careful attention to timing.
Using year filters in SubsidyLookup
All payments in SubsidyLookup are organized by the federal fiscal year recorded in USASpending. Use the year index to browse totals by fiscal year, and keep in mind that a high-payment fiscal year may reflect marketing conditions from the prior crop year.