· Sachin Subramanian, CEO

Government Contract Awards: How to Find Recompetes 12 to 18 Months Early (July 2026)

How to search federal contract award records on SAM.gov after the FPDS shutdown, read the fields that matter, and surface recompetes 12 to 18 months before the RFP.

A large share of federal contract value is recompeted every year, and incumbents hold on the large majority of the time. The math gets a lot better when your team finds a recompete 18 months early instead of two weeks before proposals are due. Award records are where that lead time comes from.

TL;DR

  • SAM.gov is now the authoritative home for federal contract award records, after the FPDS public site shut down in February 2026. Searching there requires a free account; USAspending.gov remains open without one.
  • Award records tell you period of performance, incumbent UEI, set-aside type, and number of offers received: the fields that separate a real recompete from a closed fight.
  • A large share of federal contracts are recompeted annually, and incumbents win the majority of them when challengers start late.
  • Spotting a recompete 18 months out, before the draft RFP drops, is where win rates materially improve for challengers.
  • Sweetspot’s Federal Market Intelligence links SAM.gov solicitations to FPDS records and USAspending history automatically, surfacing recompetes 12 to 18 months early against your past performance.

What Government Contract Awards Are (and Why BD Teams Track Them)

A government contract award is the formal, public record of an obligation the federal government makes to a vendor for goods or services. Once a contracting officer signs, the record is permanent: who won, what they deliver, how much, and over what period.

That is distinct from a solicitation. A solicitation is pre-award, the government announcing what it wants to buy via an RFP, RFQ, or RFI. An award is post-award: the competition is closed and money is committed.

For business development, award data is a strategic asset. Every record is a signal: a competitor’s win to study, an agency’s buying pattern, or an incumbent whose contract hits recompete on a clock you can read in advance.

The scale: $681.3 billion in prime contracts in FY2025 across more than 312,000 awards, according to USAspending.gov.

The Government Contract Awards Database Overview

The award data you need lives across a few official sources, each with a different purpose and level of detail.

SAM.gov

SAM.gov is now the primary hub. As of February 24, 2026, the standalone Federal Procurement Data System public site was decommissioned, and all contract award data, subcontracting reports, and procurement records moved permanently to SAM.gov’s contract data pages. If you bookmarked the old FPDS search, it no longer works.

USAspending.gov

USAspending.gov focuses on obligation-level spending summaries: how much money flowed to whom, rolled up by agency, program, and time period. It is built for spending analysis, not raw contract action lookups. It is also the fallback if you do not want a SAM.gov account, since its data stays open to the general public.

Legacy FPDS

FPDS still feeds SAM.gov, but its public-facing search is gone.

SourceWhat it coversBest for
SAM.govContract action records, award details, subcontracting reportsAward-level research and recompete tracking
USAspending.govObligation-level spending summariesSpending trends and agency budget analysis
FPDS (legacy)Underlying award data feedNow accessed through SAM.gov

How to Search Government Contract Awards on SAM.gov

If you know SAM.gov as the place to find open bids, here is the shift: it now holds the full FPDS award history too. Detailed award records sit behind an authenticated login, so the anonymous searching the old FPDS ezSearch allowed is gone. Create a free SAM.gov account first.

Once you are in, go to the Contract Awards domain. It is separate from Contract Opportunities, and mixing them up is the most common early mistake. Then layer filters in the order that pays off for BD research:

  • Keyword for a program name, technology, or incumbent
  • Awarding agency or sub-agency
  • NAICS code for your industry
  • PSC code for the product or service
  • Set-aside type (8(a), WOSB, HUBZone, SDVOSB)
  • Awardee UEI to trace one company’s wins
  • Date range to isolate a fiscal year

For heavier pulls, SAM.gov’s DataBank and ad hoc reporting export award data in bulk for spreadsheet analysis.

Key Data Fields in Every Contract Award Record

Pulling up an award record is easy. Reading it like a capture manager takes knowing which fields carry the signal.

  • Period of performance: the base period plus option years. This tells you when the work ends, which drives every recompete calculation.
  • Total obligated value: what has been committed, not always the full ceiling. On IDIQs, obligated dollars can trail the ceiling widely.
  • NAICS code: confirms how the agency classified the buy and whether it matches your codes.
  • Set-aside type: 8(a), WOSB, HUBZone, SDVOSB, or full and open. It tells you who was allowed to compete.
  • Competition type: full and open versus sole source.
  • Number of offers received: one offer signals a wired incumbent; a dozen signals a crowded fight.
  • Incumbent contractor UEI: the 12-character identifier you use to trace that company’s award history.

Read together, these fields separate a recompete worth chasing from one already decided.

DoD Contract Awards: What Is Different

The Department of Defense buys more than any agency, and its award data carries wrinkles the rest of government does not have.

DoD contract actions come with a 90-day delayed disclosure window. For roughly three months after signing, detailed records stay visible only to credentialed DoD users (see the guide on winning DoD contracts for more context on defense-specific rules), so public FPDS-fed data lags on defense buys. To catch fresh activity, watch the Pentagon’s daily contracts announcements at defense.gov, which post awards the day they are signed.

Defense buys also run under DFARS, the DoD supplement layered on standard FAR, adding cybersecurity, supply-chain, and specialized clauses you will not see on civilian awards.

The structures defense work flows through:

  • OASIS and other IDIQ vehicles: the umbrella contracts most defense professional-services work flows through
  • Task orders: individual awards competed under an IDIQ
  • OTAs: flexible instruments outside the FAR, common for prototyping and R&D
  • BPA calls: orders placed against a Blanket Purchase Agreement

Finding Government Contract Awards for Small Businesses

The federal government carries a statutory goal of awarding 23% of eligible prime contract dollars to small businesses (SBA, per 15 U.S.C. § 644). Award data is how you check which agencies and vehicles actually hit it.

Start in SAM.gov or USAspending and filter by set-aside type to see contracts reserved for a category:

  • 8(a) for socially and economically disadvantaged firms
  • SDVOSB for service-disabled veteran-owned businesses
  • HUBZone for firms in historically underutilized zones
  • WOSB for woman-owned businesses

Then layer a NAICS code. Some vehicles are built exclusively for small business competition, and the historical record shows exactly which ones dominate in each sub-market.

For a forward look, pull each agency’s small business office procurement forecast. It lists buys before they hit SAM.gov as solicitations.

How to Use Award Data to Find Recompetes

Service contracts rarely die. The mission is still there when the period of performance ends, so the agency re-solicits, and a typical contract runs three to five years. The award record tells you exactly when that clock runs out.

The method is straightforward:

  • Filter awards by your target NAICS codes and awarding agencies
  • Sort by period-of-performance end date falling in the next 12 to 24 months
  • Identify the incumbent from the awardee UEI
  • Gauge their vulnerability from the public record: modification history, option-exercise patterns, and whether past recompetes drew real competition

CPARS ratings are not public, but the public record still talks: a contract stacked with corrective modifications or bridge extensions signals an incumbent worth challenging. See how teams put this into practice in the Ops Tech Alliance case study.

Recompetes are a large, recurring share of the federal market, and most BD teams underinvest in tracking them.

Agencies often post Sources Sought notices six to twelve months ahead of the recompete RFP, so early award tracking feeds early pre-solicitation awareness.

The Recompete Math: Why Timing Is Everything

Incumbents win. That is the baseline you are fighting. Across federal recompetes, incumbents hold onto their contracts at a high rate, though the outcome swings with agency, contract type, and performance.

Flip to the challenger side. When capture starts at the draft RFP, challengers rarely unseat an incumbent. Teams that spot a recompete 18 months out convert at materially higher rates, because they have time to shape the work statement before it hardens.

Award data is a pipeline-building input, not a reporting artifact. Pull the record the day the contract is signed and you carry 12 to 18 months of lead. That lead is where the work happens:

  • Building relationships with the program office and contracting shop
  • Refining a technical approach against the incumbent’s known gaps
  • Locking in teaming partners before competitors court them
  • Watching the incumbent’s contract for vulnerability signals worth pressing: corrective modifications, bridge extensions, and re-award patterns

How Sweetspot Connects Award Intelligence to Capture Workflow

Finding an award record is one thing. Getting that intelligence into a pipeline you can act on, without copying fields between SAM.gov, FPDS, and USAspending tabs, is where most teams stall.

Federal Market Intelligence is Sweetspot’s award research layer: 167M+ federal awards from USAspending and FPDS, searchable in plain English. Ask “show me SDVOSB IT contracts over $5M awarded by the VA in the last two years” and Sweetspot AI returns results, charts, and insights in chat, with no boolean filters to learn and export whenever you need it.

Every step of the manual recompete method above has an automated equivalent inside it:

  • Any award record opens into the full transaction history, obligation timeline, period of performance, and sub-awards. Linked solicitations tie awards to live opportunities, so recompetes surface from award histories before they hit SAM.gov.
  • Contractor profiles pull a company’s complete federal footprint by name, UEI, or CAGE code: total obligations, top awarding agencies, competition and set-aside mix, cash flow over time, and corporate hierarchy. That is the incumbent research this article walks through by hand, in one profile view.
  • Agency procurement forecast search connects forecasted work to the incumbents and award history behind it, adding 12 or more months of lead time before a solicitation ever posts.
  • Recompetes surface 12 to 18 months early from contract end dates and award history, matched against your past performance so you know which ones to pursue, defend, or target for displacement.

That integration separates a systematic recompete strategy from a reactive scramble. The award record stops being a lookup you perform and becomes a signal that finds you.

Across 500+ govcon teams, Sweetspot has backed $3B+ in client contract wins, with teams pursuing 6x more RFP value. Book a Sweetspot demo to see award intelligence feed pipeline and proposal work.

Final Thoughts on Building a Government Contract Awards Strategy

Most BD teams treat award data as a lookup tool when it works best as a forward-looking pipeline input. The record that just posted today is your 18-month head start on a recompete your competitors haven’t spotted yet. Start pulling those records early, and the rest of capture gets a lot easier.

If you want to see how Sweetspot’s Federal Market Intelligence surfaces recompetes 12 to 18 months out, matched against your past performance and piped directly into your pipeline, book a demo to walk through it against your actual target agencies and NAICS codes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Create a free SAM.gov account and go to the Contract Awards domain, which is separate from Contract Opportunities. As of February 24, 2026, all FPDS award data moved permanently to SAM.gov's contract data pages, so the old ezSearch no longer returns results. Once logged in, filter by keyword, awarding agency, NAICS code, PSC code, set-aside type, or awardee UEI to pull the records you need.

Filter SAM.gov or USAspending award records by your target NAICS codes and awarding agencies, then sort by period-of-performance end dates falling in the next 12 to 24 months. That lead time is where the real capture work happens: building relationships with the program office, studying the incumbent's modification history, and locking in teaming partners before competitors do. Most BD teams pull this data reactively; pulling it the day a contract is signed flips that entirely.

SAM.gov is the right starting point for recompete tracking because it holds contract action records with period-of-performance dates and incumbent UEIs. USAspending.gov is better for obligation-level spending trends and agency budget analysis, and it remains accessible without an account. For most BD workflows, you need both: SAM.gov to find who won and when their contract ends, USAspending to understand spending patterns at the agency level.

The 90-day delayed disclosure window applies to detailed FPDS records for defense buys, but the Pentagon publishes daily contracts announcements at defense.gov the same day awards are signed. Watching that feed alongside SAM.gov gives you the earliest possible signal on new DoD contract awards, including task orders placed under IDIQs and OTAs used for prototyping and R&D.

Federal Market Intelligence makes 167M+ federal awards from USAspending and FPDS searchable in plain English, and automatically links SAM.gov solicitations to award records and spending history. Any award opens into its transaction history, obligation timeline, period of performance, and sub-awards, with linked solicitations tying it to live opportunities, surfacing who won last time, what they were paid, and how long the contract ran without copying data between tabs. Recompetes appear 12 to 18 months early based on contract end dates and award history, matched against your past performance so your team knows which contracts to pursue, defend, or target for displacement.

FPDS-NG (Federal Procurement Data System, Next Generation) is the underlying data system that has collected and stored federal contract action records since 2003. It was never turned off; the decommissioning in February 2026 applied only to the public-facing search interface at fpds.gov. The underlying FPDS-NG data feed continues to run and now routes entirely through SAM.gov's contract data pages. If you were using the old FPDS ezSearch to pull award records, SAM.gov is the replacement. If you were consuming FPDS data via the ATOM feed, note that GSA has said the feed is retiring later in fiscal year 2026, so check SAM.gov's data access documentation for the new endpoints.

It tells you how competitive the last award was, and how competitive the recompete is likely to be. A single offer means the contracting officer accepted one proposal, which usually signals a wired incumbent, a tightly written requirement, or a set-aside that few firms qualify for. Five or more offers signals a genuinely contested buy. In recompete analysis, a one-offer history is a red flag if you are the incumbent (the agency may be expecting more competition next cycle) and a green flag if you are the challenger (the incumbent has not been tested). Pair it with competition type, sole source versus full and open, to get the full picture.

The Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) is the 12-character alphanumeric code assigned to every registered entity in SAM.gov. To trace a competitor's history, pull any award record where they appear as the awardee and copy their UEI from the record. Then go to the Contract Awards search, filter by awardee UEI, and you get their complete federal award history: every agency, every NAICS code, every period of performance end date. That list tells you which contracts are coming up for recompete, which agencies they have relationships with, and where they are concentrated, useful both for targeting displacement opportunities and for assessing their past performance base before a teaming conversation.

The IDIQ ceiling is the maximum the government can order under the contract, and it is often large and sometimes aspirational. Total obligated value is the amount actually committed to date, meaning money the government has formally allocated to specific task orders or delivery orders. On large GWACs and agency-wide IDIQs, the ceiling can be in the billions while obligated dollars trail far behind because individual task orders drive actual spending. For recompete sizing, use obligated value as your revenue proxy, not ceiling. The ceiling tells you what the vehicle allows; obligated value tells you what the agency is actually spending with that contractor.

Agency small business offices publish annual procurement forecasts, typically released in the fall, that list anticipated buys before they appear as solicitations on SAM.gov. These forecasts include estimated dollar values, set-aside types, and expected solicitation dates. The workflow that pays off: pull award records to identify contracts ending in the next 12 to 24 months, then cross-reference those with the agency forecast to confirm the recompete is planned and to see whether the set-aside type is expected to change. A contract that ran as full-and-open but is forecast as an 8(a) set-aside next cycle is a materially different opportunity than it looks on the award record alone. Forecasts are imperfect, dates slip and scope changes, but they are the earliest signal of intent ahead of a Sources Sought notice.

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