Stacking limit

A stacking limit caps the total government assistance a single project may receive, expressed as a share of eligible costs. It counts every level of government together (federal, provincial and municipal in Canada) and it applies to the project, not to the programme.

The point is that programmes do not know about each other. Two agencies can each fund 50% of the same project in good faith, and the stacking provision is what prevents a project from being fully publicly funded through separate applications. The recipient carries the duty to disclose.

Disclosure is continuous, not a one-off declaration at application. New assistance received during the project must be reported, and the practical effect is that a later grant can reduce an earlier one. Organisations that apply broadly and accept everything discover the limit retroactively.

Exceeding it triggers a reduction in the current award or a repayment of what has already been paid. Auditors check for it and the check is easy: other funders' public award records are searchable, and the amounts are on your own books.

It also affects strategy. Where a stacking limit sits at roughly three quarters of eligible costs, there is a fixed amount of public money available to a project no matter how many programmes it wins, so the second application may be better aimed at a different project than at the same one.