How to Find Federal Contracts for Your Small Business — No Experience Required

The federal government awards over $163 billion in contracts to small businesses every year — more than in any previous year on record, according to the SBA’s FY2023 procurement scorecard. That money goes to landscaping companies, IT consultants, construction firms, training providers, healthcare businesses, and thousands of other industries. The federal government buys almost everything.

Most small business owners have no idea how to access any of it. This guide explains the basics — no experience required.

Step 1: Understand what SAM.gov is

SAM.gov — the System for Award Management — is the official U.S. government database for federal contract opportunities. By law, federal agencies must post solicitations there when a contract exceeds certain dollar thresholds. If a federal agency is buying something, you’ll find it on SAM.gov.

SAM.gov is free to use and open to everyone. You can search for opportunities by keyword, agency, location, contract type, and set-aside status without creating an account. The challenge isn’t access — it’s volume. Thousands of new contract opportunities are posted every week across hundreds of agencies. Keeping up with all of them manually, while also running a business, is not realistic.

Step 2: Know your NAICS codes

NAICS codes — North American Industry Classification System codes — are five- or six-digit numbers that describe what a business does. Every federal contract solicitation is tagged with one or more NAICS codes indicating what kind of business should submit a proposal.

Your NAICS codes are how the government determines what you can bid on. They also determine whether you qualify as a “small business” under SBA size standards — each code has its own revenue or employee threshold. Before you start looking for contracts, look up the NAICS codes that apply to your business. You may have more than one.

A free NAICS code lookup tool is available at the U.S. Census Bureau website. You can search by keyword — “landscaping,” “IT consulting,” “construction” — and find the codes that match what your business actually does.

Step 3: Understand set-aside contracts

Here’s the part most small business owners don’t know about: many federal contracts are restricted — or “set aside” — to specific types of businesses. Instead of competing against every company in the country, you only compete against other businesses in the same category.

Federal law requires agencies to meet minimum goals for each set-aside type. These aren’t suggestions — agencies are evaluated on whether they hit them. The major set-aside categories for small businesses are:

• Small Business (general) — any business that meets the SBA size standard for its NAICS code. The government-wide goal is 23% of all prime contracting dollars.
• 8(a) Business Development — a nine-year SBA program for businesses owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals. Includes sole-source awards. Goal: 5% of prime contracts.
• HUBZone — businesses with their principal office in a Historically Underutilized Business Zone and 35% of employees living in one. Goal: 3%.
• Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB / EDWOSB) — at least 51% owned and controlled by women who are U.S. citizens. Goal: 5%.
• Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) — at least 51% owned by veterans with a service-connected disability. Goal: 3%.

If your business holds one of these certifications, set-aside contracts are your strongest opportunity. The field is much smaller than a full and open competition.

Not sure if you qualify for a certification? The SBA’s certification portal (certify.sba.gov) is where you apply. Certification is free. The process takes weeks to months depending on which program you’re applying for.

Step 4: Register in SAM.gov when you’re ready to bid

You don’t need a SAM.gov registration to browse opportunities or receive contract alerts. But when you’re ready to submit a proposal on a contract, you’ll need to be registered. Registration is free and requires:

• A Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) — assigned during the SAM.gov registration process
• Basic business information: legal name, address, NAICS codes, banking details for electronic payment
• An active registration, renewed annually

SAM.gov registration can take up to two weeks to process. Start early if you have a specific contract in mind.

Step 5: Monitor SAM.gov consistently

This is where most small businesses stumble. Finding federal contracts isn’t a one-time task — it’s an ongoing process. New opportunities are posted continuously. Response windows are often short: two to four weeks from posting to proposal deadline. Miss a posting by a few days and you may miss the question submission deadline, which means you can’t get clarification before the proposal is due.

Manual SAM.gov monitoring requires logging in, applying your filters, sorting by posting date, and reading enough of each opportunity to know whether it’s worth pursuing. Then doing that again the next day.

Most small businesses try this for a few weeks and then stop. The monitoring becomes the bottleneck. For a deeper look at why this matters and what consistent monitoring actually requires, see our complete guide to SAM.gov contract monitoring for small businesses.

A simpler way: daily email alerts

The monitoring problem is exactly what ContractRadar solves. Set up your profile once — your NAICS codes, the states you work in, and any certifications you hold — and ContractRadar checks SAM.gov every day. When a contract matches your profile, you get an email with the details and a direct link to the SAM.gov posting.

No manual searching. No logging into SAM.gov every morning. No missed deadlines because you forgot to check.

Setup takes less than five minutes. ContractRadar is $30 a month — one flat rate — with a free trial month for new accounts. It’s built specifically for small businesses that are new to federal contracting and don’t have a business development team watching SAM.gov on their behalf.

The bottom line

Federal contracting is not as complicated as it looks from the outside. The basic process is:

1. Know your NAICS codes
2. Get the right certifications if you qualify
3. Register in SAM.gov when you’re ready to bid
4. Monitor SAM.gov consistently for new opportunities that match your business

Steps 1 through 3 are one-time setup. Step 4 is where the ongoing work is — and where a monitoring tool pays for itself the first time it catches an opportunity you would have missed.

The $163 billion awarded to small businesses last year went somewhere. The businesses that got it were watching when the contracts were posted. That’s the whole game.