Guide
The government contracts database, explained
People who search the web for “government contracts database” or “federal business opportunities database” are usually looking for one thing: the official place where the U.S. government publishes the contracts it’s buying. The short answer is SAM.gov for federal contracts, with separate databases for state, local, and subcontracting opportunities. The longer answer — what each database actually contains, how to use it, and what its limits are — is what this guide is for.
What replaced FedBizOpps (FBO)
For nearly two decades, the federal contracts database was called FedBizOpps (FBO.gov). In November 2019, FedBizOpps was retired and its data was migrated to SAM.gov. If you still see search results pointing at fbo.gov, those URLs redirect to SAM.gov today. Searches for “fed biz ops search” or “FBO database” should be aimed at SAM.gov.
The migration consolidated several legacy government systems — FBO, the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, the Federal Procurement Data System, the Wage Determinations website — under a single SAM.gov umbrella. Each of those systems still exists as a section inside SAM.gov, with its own search interface and record type.
SAM.gov: the federal contracts database
SAM.gov (the System for Award Management) is the official federal business opportunities database. It contains every active federal contract opportunity above the simplified acquisition threshold — currently $250,000 for most goods and services, with lower thresholds for certain categories. Anyone can search SAM.gov without an account.
The database is split into sections you should know:
- Contract Opportunities — open solicitations agencies are still accepting bids on. This is what most people mean by “the government contracts database.”
- Contract Data — historical records of awarded contracts and modifications.
- Entity Information — registered businesses (the “vendors”) eligible to win federal awards.
- Federal Hierarchy — the directory of every federal agency, sub-agency, and office that can issue a contract.
- Wage Determinations — required wage rates for service and construction contracts.
- Federal Assistance Listings — grants and cooperative agreements (formerly the CFDA).
For step-by-step instructions on running a useful search, see our guide to searching for government contracts.
USAspending.gov: the awarded contracts database
SAM.gov tells you what the government is buying. USAspending.gov tells you what the government has already bought. It’s the public ledger of every federal contract award, grant, loan, and direct payment, with full detail down to the line item — agency, recipient, NAICS code, dollar amount, performance period, set-aside type, and place of performance.
For small businesses, the most useful application is competitive intelligence. Before bidding on a SAM.gov solicitation, you can search USAspending.gov for past awards from the same agency under the same NAICS code with the same set-aside type. The result tells you who’s won that work before, what they were paid, and how long the contract ran. ContractRadar pulls this past-award data into every federal match automatically — so you see the historical context next to the open solicitation, not in a separate browser tab.
SBA SUBNet: the subcontracting database
SAM.gov is for prime contracts — the contracts an agency awards directly to a vendor. But federal law requires large prime contractors to subcontract a portion of every major contract to small businesses, and those subcontracting needs are posted in a separate database: SBA SUBNet.
SUBNet is a smaller, less polished system — it looks like a 2010-era government website — but the opportunities are real. Prime contractors list specific subcontracting needs along with the relevant NAICS codes, location, and a contact at the prime. You search by NAICS or keyword, find a matching listing, and contact the prime directly. For 8(a), HUBZone, WOSB, and SDVOSB businesses, SUBNet is especially valuable because primes have legal obligations to fill subcontracting plans with certified small businesses. For more, see our guide to federal subcontracting opportunities.
State and local procurement databases
The federal level has a single contracts database. Below the federal level, there is no national database — each state runs its own. ContractRadar currently monitors procurement databases in 40+ states, including:
- California — Cal eProcure
- Texas — ESBD (Electronic State Business Daily)
- New York — NYSCR (New York State Contract Reporter)
- Florida — MyFloridaMarketPlace
- Massachusetts — COMMBUYS
- Washington — WEBS
- Pennsylvania — PA eMarketplace
- Illinois — BidBuy
Below the state level, large cities and counties run their own portals — NYC’s PASSPort, the City of Los Angeles’s RAMP, San Francisco’s DataSF procurement database, Boston’s boston.gov procurement portal, Houston’s BeaconBid, and many more. There is no national cross-portal search. See our state contracts hub for direct links to each state’s database, and the coverage page for the full list of sources we monitor.
Consolidated feeds and monitoring tools
The fundamental challenge with government contracting is that the data is scattered across many databases, each with its own format and update cadence. There is no government-run unified search. Filling that gap is what monitoring tools — including ContractRadar — exist to do.
ContractRadar pulls fresh contract data daily from SAM.gov, SBA SUBNet, and 40+ state and local procurement portals into a single searchable database. You search once and see federal, state, and local matches together. You can also subscribe to email alerts that scan all of those sources every day and email you only the contracts that match your business. For details on alert options, see our guide to contract monitoring and alerts.