Background

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is a key federal agency supporting basic research and education across science and engineering fields. The NSF's current FY 2024 budget is $9.06 billion, and the FY 2025 budget request is $10.183 billion. There have been reports that the Trump admin is considering cutting the budget to as low as $3 billion.

Resolution Criteria

This market will resolve based on the enacted NSF budget for fiscal year 2026. The market will resolve YES if the total enacted NSF budget for FY 2026 is less than $6 billion, and NO if it is equal to or greater than $6 billion. If no budget is passed for FY 2026 and the government operates under a continuing resolution, the market will resolve based on the actual funding level under the continuing resolution.

Note about the resolution date: budgets are usually passed before the end of the preceding fiscal year, so "normally" this should resolve by then. But if a budget is not passed as normal (namely, if a continuing resolution is passed), this will be extended until a finalized budget is passed, the NSF receives more than $6 billion in actual funding, or FY2026 ends. I will not bet on this market.