Bridge Investment Program: Eligibility, Match, and Deadlines

The Bridge Investment Program is a federal competitive grant program run by the Federal Highway Administration that pays for replacing, rehabilitating, and preserving public bridges. It was created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, codified at 23 U.S.C. § 124, and authorized at $12.5 billion in Highway Trust Fund money for fiscal years 2022 through 2026, with additional appropriations bringing the total closer to $15.8 billion.¹² Grants are awarded on merit to states, local governments, tribes, and other public entities that apply through Grants.gov.

What the Program Funds

BIP splits its money into three project categories, each with its own award floor and federal cost share.

Large Bridge Projects have total eligible costs above $100 million. The minimum grant is $50 million, and the federal share is capped at 50 percent. At least half of BIP’s Highway Trust Fund money must go to this category.³
Bridge Projects have total eligible costs of $100 million or less. The minimum grant is $2.5 million, and the federal share can reach 80 percent.
Planning Projects cover early activities like feasibility studies and revenue forecasting. The federal share can reach 80 percent, with no set minimum award.⁴

Each category runs under its own Notice of Funding Opportunity and requires its own application. Large Bridge Project awards above $100 million can be structured as multiyear grant agreements that stretch payouts across up to four fiscal years beyond the award year.⁵

Up to five percent of annual BIP funding may go to culvert replacement or rehabilitation, and $20 million per year is set aside for planning grants. An average of $40 million per fiscal year is reserved for tribal transportation facility bridges through the Tribal Transportation Program.²

Who Can Apply

The eligibility list is broad and, importantly, allows applicants to go directly to FHWA without routing through a state DOT.⁶ Eligible applicants include:

States or groups of states
Metropolitan planning organizations serving urbanized areas with populations over 200,000
Units of local government, individually or in groups
Political subdivisions of state or local governments
Special purpose districts or public authorities with a transportation function
Federal land management agencies
Tribal governments or consortia of tribal governments
Multistate or multijurisdictional groups combining any of the above

Cost-Share and Match Rules

Every BIP grant requires a non-federal match, but several exceptions soften that requirement. Standard Bridge Projects require at least 20 percent from non-federal sources. Large Bridge Projects require at least 50 percent. For off-system bridges, total federal assistance from BIP and other federal sources can reach 90 percent of project costs.⁷

Federal land management agencies and tribal governments have the most flexibility: they may use funds from other federal programs to cover the entire non-federal share, which allows a project to be fully federally funded.⁵ Other applicants can also apply non-BIP federal money to their match as long as the combined federal share stays under the statutory cap.

How to Apply and How FHWA Scores Applications

All applications go through Grants.gov using FHWA’s Excel-based templates for each project category. A benefit-cost analysis is required for both Large Bridge Project and Bridge Project applications, and FHWA provides a dedicated BCA Tool that pulls data from the National Bridge Inventory to support the required analysis.⁴

FHWA rates each application from “Low” to “High” across three dimensions:

Merit criteria, covering state of good repair, safety and mobility, economic competitiveness, resilience, quality of life, and innovation
Economic analysis, meaning whether projected benefits justify the costs
Project readiness, including the status of environmental review, engineering, and design, and whether construction can begin within roughly 18 months of an award

Large Bridge Projects need at least a “Medium” rating in all three dimensions to be eligible for an award. A senior review team and the Secretary of Transportation make the final selections, weighing additional statutory factors such as geographic diversity, average daily traffic, and whether the applicant’s state has already received BIP awards.⁸ The statute also guarantees that between fiscal years 2022 and 2026, every state that submits a justified project will receive at least one Large Bridge Project award or two Bridge Project awards.

If your application falls below the award threshold, you can request a debrief within 14 days and submit one amended application addressing the identified problems.⁷

Current Funding Round and Deadlines

On May 14, 2026, Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced $3 billion in new BIP funding. Planning grant applications are due June 15, 2026, and bridge project grant applications are due June 29, 2026.⁹ The announcement accompanied Amendment No. 2 to the December 2023 NOFO.¹⁰

The amendment changed how projects are scored. Secretary Duffy removed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion criteria and climate change criteria from BIP and other discretionary grant NOFOs. A January 2025 secretarial memo revoked prior DOT orders on the Equity Council and environmental justice, including elements of the Justice40 initiative that had directed 40 percent of certain program benefits to disadvantaged communities. Revised merit criteria now prioritize projects in local economic opportunity zones and drop the social cost of carbon from cost-benefit analysis.¹¹

Awards Made So Far

Through fiscal year 2024, BIP awarded $930 million in Bridge Project grants to 31 projects across 24 states, plus billions more in Large Bridge Project grants.¹² The biggest Large Bridge Project awards give a sense of the program’s ceiling:

Interstate Bridge Replacement over the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington, $1.499 billion, part of a core project set estimated at $7.65 billion¹³
Brent Spence Bridge Corridor between Kentucky and Ohio, $1.385 billion, part of a $3.6 billion investment¹⁴
Sagamore Bridge Replacement in Massachusetts, $993 million¹⁵
I-10 Mobile River Bridge and Bayway in Alabama, $550 million, covering 19 bridges
Golden Gate Bridge Seismic Retrofit in California, $400 million⁸

Bridge Project awards look very different. Recent examples include $67.5 million for a 13-bridge bundle in Mississippi, $69.7 million for I-95 accessibility work across six bridges in Maine, and $47 million for a bridge over Amtrak tracks in Mercer County, New Jersey.¹² FHWA encourages bridge bundling, grouping multiple structures into one application, both to meet minimum grant thresholds and to gain cost efficiencies.

How BIP Differs From the Bridge Formula Program

The IIJA created two separate bridge programs, and they are easy to confuse. The Bridge Formula Program distributes $5.5 billion per year to every state by formula: 75 percent based on the cost of replacing poor-condition bridges and 25 percent based on rehabilitating fair-condition bridges. Every state gets at least $45 million annually, and at least 15 percent of each state’s share must go to off-system bridges, with a 100 percent federal cost share on those local and tribal off-system projects.¹⁶ You do not apply for Bridge Formula money the way you apply for BIP. If your project fits a formula-funded state pipeline, that is a different track.

What Happens After Fiscal Year 2026

The IIJA’s five-year authorization ends in fiscal year 2026. Whether BIP continues, and in what form, depends on the next surface transportation reauthorization. A Congressional Research Service analysis flagged open questions about whether the competitive grant model discourages state and local investment and whether the off-system set-aside strikes the right balance against needs on heavily traveled major roads.¹ If you are planning a project on a multiyear timeline, treat funding availability after fiscal year 2026 as unsettled.

1
Congressional Research Service. Federal Bridge Policy and the IIJA
2
FHWA. Bridge Investment Program Fact Sheet
3
GovInfo. 23 U.S.C. § 124 — Bridge Investment Program
4
FHWA. Bridge Investment Program
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 23 U.S.C. § 124
6
U.S. Department of Transportation. Bridge Investment Program — Rural Grant Toolkit
7
FHWA. Bridge Investment Program Questions and Answers
8
FHWA. FY 2024 Annual Report — Large Bridge Projects
9
U.S. Department of Transportation. Secretary Duffy to Invest $3 Billion in Rebuilding America’s Bridges
10
Grants.gov. Bridge Investment Program Planning and Bridge Project Grants
11
Eno Center for Transportation. How States and Cities Are Adapting to Changing Trump Administration Grant Rules
12
FHWA. Bridge Investment Program Grant Awards 2024
13
Office of Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez. Announcement of $1.499 Billion Award for I-5 Bridge Replacement
14
Kokosing Construction. Brent Spence Bridge Corridor
15
Cape Cod Commission. Federal Grant Secured for Sagamore Bridge Replacement
16
FHWA. Bridge Formula Program Fact Sheet