How to Complete Form RD 400-1 (Now Replaced by Form RD 400-4)

If you are looking for instructions on how to complete Form RD 400-1, the short answer is that you no longer file it. The USDA Rural Development Civil Rights Office retired the RD 400-1 Equal Opportunity Agreement in June 2025 and replaced it with a revised Form RD 400-4, Assurance Agreement. Every applicant and recipient of Rural Development financial assistance now signs the RD 400-4 instead. If an older application packet, checklist, or loan file still lists RD 400-1, set it aside and use the current form.

Why the Old Form Was Retired

RD 400-1 was built around Executive Order 11246, the 1965 directive that placed equal employment opportunity obligations on recipients of federal financial assistance and federally assisted construction contracts. That executive order was revoked on January 20, 2025.¹ Without that legal foundation, the form had nothing left to enforce, and USDA formally declared it obsolete and directed applicants to the revised RD 400-4.²

The RD 400-1 PDF still appears on the USDA eForms site and on Grants.gov, which is a common source of confusion. It should not be submitted.³

What Form RD 400-4 Covers

The RD 400-4 is now the standard civil rights agreement that every recipient and sub-recipient of Rural Development funding must sign as a condition of assistance. Where the old RD 400-1 dealt narrowly with employment-related equal opportunity, the RD 400-4 pulls in a broader set of federal anti-discrimination laws:⁴

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, or national origin.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, prohibiting discrimination based on disability.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, prohibiting sex discrimination in education programs.
The Age Discrimination Act of 1975.
Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act.
Titles II and III of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The requirement runs across every Rural Development program area, including multifamily housing loans, rural business grants, community facility projects, utility infrastructure, and single-family housing programs.⁵ Any entity, public or private, that accepts Rural Development money signs the RD 400-4 before funds are disbursed.

How to Complete Form RD 400-4

The form is short, but every field must be accurate. You provide:⁴

The exact legal name of your organization as it appears in your articles of incorporation, partnership agreement, or other governing documents. The name should match your registration in the System for Award Management (SAM.gov), where you were assigned a Unique Entity Identifier as part of applying for federal assistance.⁶
Your full physical address, including street, city, state, ZIP code, county or parish, and country.
The signature, title, and date of a duly authorized officer. For a corporation, this is typically the president or someone the board has formally authorized to bind the organization to federal contracts. An unauthorized signature can result in the agreement being rejected and your funding stalled.

If your organization has been the subject of a discrimination proceeding on any basis covered by the agreement within the past three years, the form requires you to disclose those proceedings, whether pending or completed, along with the outcomes and copies of any settlement agreements. If a court or agency later makes a finding of discrimination against you, or you settle such a case, you must forward the complaint and findings to USDA Rural Development.⁴

Where to Submit the Agreement

Deliver the completed RD 400-4 to your assigned USDA Rural Development servicing office. If you do not know which office covers your area, USDA runs a state-by-state locator at rd.usda.gov where you select your state and find the nearest service center.⁷ For Rural Utilities Services programs, the RDApply online portal lets you upload the form with the rest of your application package.⁸ For other program areas, confirm with your assigned specialist whether to submit electronically or by mail; methods vary by region and program.

The agreement must be signed and submitted before USDA finalizes your funding. Nothing moves forward without it.

What Signing Commits You To

Signing RD 400-4 is not a one-time administrative step. The commitments last for as long as the funded property continues to be used for the same or a similar purpose, or for as long as you own it, whichever is longer.⁹

Poster and Nondiscrimination Statement

You must prominently display the “And Justice for All” poster (version AD-475-A for federally assisted programs) in any facility financed by a Rural Development loan or grant, where program participants and customers can easily see it.¹⁰ The poster must be printed at 11 inches wide by 17 inches tall. Smaller versions do not satisfy the requirement. Updated posters were released alongside the form revisions in June 2025.²

Printed materials, brochures, and websites tied to your funded program must carry the USDA nondiscrimination statement in the exact format USDA prescribes, or in an approved shortened version for materials with limited space. You do not paraphrase it.

Records and Access

Under the RD 400-4, you agree to keep records, submit timely compliance reports as directed, and give USDA Rural Development access to your books, records, accounts, facilities, and personnel during compliance investigations.⁴ The regulation also requires recipients to maintain racial and ethnic data identifying program beneficiaries.⁹

Language Access and Disability Accommodations

Title VI compliance means more than avoiding intentional discrimination. Recipients must take reasonable steps to ensure meaningful access for people with limited English proficiency, which can mean free interpretation or translated materials depending on the population you serve. Failure to do so can be treated as national-origin discrimination.¹¹ Section 504 and the ADA similarly require both physical accessibility of your facilities and program accessibility for people with disabilities.¹²

Fair Housing Marketing

Recipients in Rural Development housing programs carry an additional layer of obligation. If you are developing a subdivision with five or more sites, a multifamily project with five or more units, or requesting conditional commitments for five or more units in a 12-month period, you must submit an affirmative fair housing marketing plan. The plan has to show that your marketing and tenant selection actively reach people across racial and ethnic lines, not just avoid overt discrimination.⁹

1
The White House. Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity
2
United States Department of Agriculture. Announcement of Revisions to RD Civil Rights Forms and Posters
3
United States Department of Agriculture. Form RD 400-1 – Equal Opportunity Agreement
4
United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development. USDA Form RD 400-4 – Assurance Agreement
5
USDA Rural Development. Programs and Services
6
SAM.gov. Entity Registration
7
USDA Rural Development. Find Your Local Service Center
8
USDA Rural Development. RD Apply
9
USDA Rural Development. RD Instruction 1901-E – Civil Rights Compliance Requirements
10
National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights Resources
11
Food and Nutrition Service. Limited English Proficiency (LEP)
12
Food and Nutrition Service. Disability Compliance