Civilian Agency Cybersecurity Budgets are a Mixed Bag for FY 2026

Bolstering the cybersecurity of federal agencies remains a sustained theme across multiple administrations, and we are beginning to get a glimpse into the second Trump Administration’s initial spending levels for agency cybersecurity budgets for fiscal year (FY) 2026, which begins on October 1, 2025.

Civilian Top-Line Cybersecurity Budget

The latest cybersecurity budget request data was released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) late last week as part of a Technical Supplement to the 2026 Budget. This itself is a bit of an anomaly, since government-wide cyber and information technology budget information is traditionally released along with OMB’s government-wide priorities and initiatives in these areas, vs. the stand-alone spending table in this supplement. As such, the FY 2026 budget release continues to unfold in piecemeal fashion.

OMB’s FY 2026 budget includes $11.7B for Civilian agency cybersecurity-related activities. This proposed amount would be a decrease of roughly $852M from the FY 2025 estimated level of $12.6B and would represent a 7% decline from the current fiscal year.

Changes in Civilian Cyber Budgets – Some Perspective

While this proposed FY 2026 top-line level is a reduction that bucks the historical trend of yearly increases in cybersecurity spending government-wide, some perspective may be beneficial.

In the previous FY 2025 cyber budget request released in March 2024, the Biden Administration requested $13.0B for FY 2025 and estimated total spending of $11.3B and $11.8B for FY 2023 and FY 2024 respectively. (See chart below.) The Trump Administration’s FY 2026 budget numbers shown above update those FY 2024 and FY 2025 levels to $13.0B and $12.6B, respectively. So, the Biden Administration spent nearly $1.2B (+10%) more in FY 2024 than they originally estimated, putting the actual FY 2024 top-line amount effectively equal to the $13.0B they requested in their final FY 2025 budget submission.

The bottom line is, the Trump Administration’s FY 2026 $11.7B request puts Civilian cybersecurity spending $400M above FY 2023 and on-par with the original FY 2024 estimate, even as it trims FY 2026 cyber budgets by $900M from the estimated FY 2025 level.

Top Ten Civilian Department Cybersecurity Budgets for FY 2026

The ten Civilian departments with the largest cybersecurity budgets for FY 2026 represent more than $9.6B in funding and account for 82% of the total Civilian cyber budget. Further, these top ten departments account for $627M of the $852M in total reductions from FY 2025 to FY 2026.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with its enterprise cybersecurity mission, retains a budget of more than $3.1B and easily exceeds the combined cyber budgets of the next two largest departments, Energy and Justice at roughly $1.2B and $1.1B, respectively.

Seven of these top ten departments are slated for cyber budget reductions in FY 2026, compared to FY 2025. However, more than half of these ten departments had their estimated FY 2025 cyber budgets revised upward in the latest budget, compared to last year’s FY 2025 request, meaning that any percentage reductions in FY 2026 are moderated by those increases. Agencies having FY 2025 budget estimates revised lower than originally requested are HHS, Treasury, Commerce and SSA. Of these agencies, only SSA sees a cyber budget increase slated for FY 2026.

Other observations include:

• Energy, Transportation the Social Security Administration are the only agencies among the top ten seeing budget gains from FY 2025 to FY 2026, at 10%, 11%, and 17%, respectively.
• Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services and Treasury see double-digit decreases from FY 2025 of 12%, 12% and 40%, respectively.
• Homeland Security, Justice, State and Commerce are slated for more modest cyber budget declines for FY 2026 of 5%, 4%, 1% and 4%, respectively.

Waiting for More Detail on Cybersecurity Priorities and Budgets

To date, OMB has not released any other qualitative or quantitative information about the Trump Administration’s cybersecurity priorities for the upcoming fiscal year. Further, we are still awaiting detailed budget information from the Department of Defense (DoD).

Time will tell whether the Trump Administration’s cyber budget priorities reinforce, refine or revamp the cybersecurity budget priorities set out in the final Biden Administration FY 2026 cyber budget priorities guidance, which would have influenced agency initial budget preparations months before the start of the new Trump Administration. Drawing broad conclusions about any year-to-year reductions or increases in top-line Civilian cyber budgets is premature at this point, given that agency budget details and priorities continue to be revised and slowly trickle out. Hopefully, more clarity will emerge in the coming weeks and months that will enable a better sense of where this market segment is headed in the near-to-medium term.

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For more analysis on the FY 2026 Federal Budget check out the FY 2026 President’s Budget Request – GovWin FMA’s First Take.