Non-renewal of your residency contract: what notice the ACGME actually requires

Residency appointments usually run one academic year at a time, which means a program that wants a resident gone does not always have to dismiss anyone. It can simply decline to offer the next contract. Because non-renewal looks passive on paper, residents sometimes assume they have no rights when it happens. That assumption is wrong on both of the points that matter.

The written notice requirement

Section 4.4.a. of the current ACGME Institutional Requirements states that the sponsoring institution must ensure that each of its programs provides a resident or fellow with a written notice of intent when that resident's or fellow's agreement will not be renewed, when that resident or fellow will not be promoted to the next level of training, or when that resident or fellow will be dismissed.

Note the phrasing. It is a notice of intent, which means the institution is announcing a decision it intends to make, and the announcement is what starts the procedural clock. If you received a verbal message that your contract will not be renewed, ask for the written notice, because your rights run from the written document.

About the four month rule everyone cites

Residents are often told that the ACGME requires four months of notice before the end of the contract year. Be careful with that claim. Earlier versions of the Institutional Requirements contained explicit timing language, and the current 2025 requirements do not state a national minimum notice period for non-renewal. What actually governs your timing today is your own institution's policy, and many institutions carried the old timing forward. Dartmouth Hitchcock, for example, requires written notice of intent to non-renew or non-promote no less than one hundred twenty days before the end of the appointment period, and the University of Nevada Reno ties its notice timing to the ACGME framework in its own written policy.

The practical instruction is the same in every case: pull the policy manual that was in force during your training year and read its notice provision. If your institution promised one hundred twenty days and gave you thirty, that gap is significant, and it is exactly the kind of procedural fact that decides these disputes.

Non-renewal still comes with due process

Section 4.4.b. requires your institution to maintain a policy providing due process for suspension, non-renewal, non-promotion, and dismissal, regardless of when the action is taken during the appointment period. Non-renewal is on the list. If your program treats non-renewal as a decision you cannot contest, the institution's own due process policy is the first document to check against that position.

What to do this week

1. Get the notice in writing, and note the date you received it.
2. Download the institutional due process policy, the grievance policy, and your agreement of appointment before your access changes.
3. Calendar every deadline in the due process policy, starting from the notice date.
4. Ask, in writing, what will be reported in future training verification letters.
5. Before considering resignation as an alternative, understand what each path does to your record, your board eligibility clock, and your disclosure obligations.

If this is happening to you

Non-renewal timelines are short and the deadlines are unforgiving. Send us the notice and your institution's policy, and we will help you map the dates before any of them pass.