How Billing Works
Please note that ICs are not charged directly for ID badges or background investigations, so individual charges will not be shown in the NIH Business System (NBS) for each person sponsored in NED. Instead, funding to cover these costs is collected through an assessment process and constitutes part of the annual operating budget for DPSAC. These costs are allocated among the ICs as follows:
- Costs related to producing and issuing ID badges are allocated among the ICs based on factors such as Census (number of people) and Space (square footage).
- Costs related to background investigation charges from DCSA is based on historical data by IC. DPSAC uses a 3-year average of total DCSA charges per IC to complete the assessment.
These assessment are reviewed annually and updated as appropriate.
FY 2023 and FY 2024 Pricing and Customer Agency Budget Guidance for DCSA Background Investigations
On September 13, 2022, the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) has released the final pricing for product and services for fiscal year (FY) 2023 as well as the updated estimated pricing for FY 2024 per Federal Investigation Notice (FIN) No. 22-02, effective October 1, 2022. As you may see in FIN No. 22-02, DCSA has rescinded FIN No. 22-01 dated June 30, 2022 and decided that the anticipated price reductions for FY 2023 will not be implemented at this time, in order to insulate customers from unanticipated budget changes. The FY 2023 prices originally published in FIN 21-02, dated June 30, 2021, will remain in effect and are attached to FIN No. 22-02.
Additionally, FIN 22-01 enabled DCSA customers to begin budgeting and planning their resource requirements for FY 2024, while also notifying customers that final prices for FY 2024 were planned to be released in December 2022. Please visit this FIN as this announces the final FY 2024 prices.
For more information on this notice, please refer to DCSA's website. Please find the completed FIN 22-02 here. Feel free to also refer to DCSA's Billing Rates webpage.

Please be sure to look in the completed FIN 22-02 to find the "Special Agreement Check (SAC) Billing Rates" under Section 1A and the "Reimbursable Suitability/Security Investigation (RSI) Billing Rates" under Section 1B. The chart below shares the DCSA Billing Rates for Trusted Workforce (TW) Continuous Vetting (CV) Services.