Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

25. Small Business Administration · Minor

Continue the SBIR and STTR programs

Done

755 25. Small Business Administration

“Continue the SBIR and SBTT programs as they successfully fund the next wave of technological innovation to compete with Big Tech.”

What has happened

  1. Done

    Public Law 119-83, the Small Business Innovation and Economic Security Act, reauthorizes both programs through September 30, 2031. Section 9 strikes "September 30, 2025" from 15 U.S.C. 638(m) and inserts "September 30, 2031", and section 10 does the same for eleven subsidiary authorities — phase flexibility, the civilian commercialization readiness program, accelerated awards, the Phase 0 pilot, administrative assistance, performance standards, the commercialization assistance pilots, the due diligence program, the STTR military-institution pilot, the budget calculation pilot and the SOCOM pilot. The authorization had lapsed on 2025-09-30 and was not extended by the November 2025 continuing resolution (P.L. 119-37), so the programs ran unauthorized for six and a half months before the reauthorization; §9(b) lets agencies carry unspent FY2026 set-aside funds into FY2027. The SBA welcomed the law the day it was signed.

  2. Attempted

    The House passed H.R. 5100, a clean extension of the SBIR and STTR programs, by voice vote under suspension of the rules, thirteen working days before the programs' authorization was due to lapse. The Senate received it on 2025-09-16 and referred it to the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, where it stayed.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • A “continue” ask, so §3b’s preserve/continue rule governs: done while the thing continues. The six-and-a-half-month lapse of authorization (2025-09-30 to 2026-04-13) is recorded in the note rather than as a reversed event, because no allowlisted source shows awards actually stopping — only that the statutory authority had expired.
  • Negative search on the lapse: P.L. 119-37 (Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026, 2025-11-12) was read in full and contains no occurrence of “SBIR”, “Small Business Innovation Research” or “Small Business Technology Transfer”.
  • Eleven SBIR/STTR bills were introduced in the 119th Congress; the enacted vehicle is S. 3971, carried in the House by the Small Business Committee chairman.
  • Scan triage 2026-09-06: SBA’s notice of 2026-09-02, Updated Minimum Performance Standards for Commercialization for SBIR/STTR firms (effective 2026-11-15, issued under section 9 of the Small Business Act), is the program running under its reauthorized authority — a done still holding, not a reversal.
Action
other
Object
Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs
ID
2056