Guide
How to search for government contracts
Searching for government contract opportunities sounds simple — type a keyword, get a list of contracts. In practice, it’s rarely that easy. Federal, state, and local agencies post contracts on dozens of different websites, each with its own search interface, terminology, and update schedule. This guide walks through the search options that actually exist, what each one is good and bad at, and how small businesses can search efficiently without spending hours on government portals.
Where government contracts are posted
Before you can search for government contracts, you need to know where they live. There is no single government-wide search engine — each level of government runs its own database.
Federal contracts are posted on SAM.gov — the System for Award Management. Every federal agency above a dollar threshold posts there. Federal subcontracting opportunities live on the SBA’s SUBNet portal. State contracts are posted on each state’s own portal — Cal eProcure in California, MyFloridaMarketPlace in Florida, NYSCR in New York, and so on. Local contracts (cities, counties, school districts, transit authorities) are usually on yet another portal run by that jurisdiction. ContractRadar consolidates all of these into one feed, but if you’re searching manually, you’ll need to visit each portal directly.
For a complete picture of which databases hold which contracts, see our guide to the government contracts databases.
How to search on SAM.gov
SAM.gov has a public search interface at sam.gov/search. You don’t need an account to browse — accounts are required only when you submit proposals. The basic flow is:
- Pick the right tab. SAM.gov searches across many record types — contract opportunities, awarded contracts, entity registrations. For finding open opportunities, use Contract Opportunities.
- Enter a keyword. Use the words an agency would use, not the words your industry uses. “Janitorial” and “custodial” return different results.
- Apply filters. Filter by NAICS code, place of performance (state), set-aside type, agency, and notice type. Combining filters narrows results from thousands to dozens.
- Sort by posted date. New opportunities at the top is usually what you want — that’s where deadlines haven’t already lapsed.
SAM.gov supports saved searches and email alerts after you create a free account. The alerts work well if your filters are tight; they get noisy quickly if they aren’t.
How to search state and local portals
Every state runs its own procurement portal, and they vary widely in quality. Some — Massachusetts’s COMMBUYS, California’s Cal eProcure, New York’s NYSCR — are full-featured search systems with category filters and email alerts. Others are simple lists of PDFs that you have to skim manually.
The biggest practical difference from SAM.gov is that state and local search is fragmented by jurisdiction. If you operate in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, you have three different portals to check, each with its own login, filter system, and result format. There is no cross-state search. For an introduction to which portal each state uses, see our state contracts hub.
Local procurement portals are even more fragmented. A landscaping company that wants city contracts in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville will likely visit three different websites with three different search interfaces. ContractRadar pulls from these portals on a daily schedule, so the same email shows federal, state, and local matches together.
Keyword search vs. NAICS code search
The two main ways to search government contracts are by keyword and by NAICS code. Each catches opportunities the other misses, which is why most experienced searchers use both.
Keyword search finds contracts whose title or description mentions a specific word. It’s good when the agency uses the same vocabulary your industry does. It misses contracts that mean the same thing but use different words — the “janitorial” vs. “custodial” problem.
NAICS search finds every contract tagged with a particular industry code. It’s comprehensive within a category but only as accurate as the agency’s tagging. If the agency tagged a snow removal contract as “Other Services” instead of “Landscaping Services,” a NAICS search for landscaping won’t catch it. Worse, NAICS codes are picked by the contracting officer, not the bidder — which means a contract relevant to your business may sit under a code you’d never think to search.
The practical answer is to search both ways. Run a keyword search for your top three terms and a NAICS search for your top two codes. Cross-check the results. Anything appearing in both searches is a high-confidence match; anything appearing in only one is worth a second look.
Semantic search: finding contracts by meaning
Keyword and NAICS search both rely on exact matches. Semantic search compares the meaning of your query against the meaning of each contract description. It’s the same technology behind modern AI assistants — instead of matching words, it matches concepts.
In practice, this means a search for “cybersecurity consulting” surfaces contracts titled “information assurance services,” “network defense support,” and “security operations center augmentation” — even though none of those titles contain the literal word “cybersecurity.” A search for “painting and waterproofing” surfaces both residential-style painting contracts and large-scale tank coating contracts.
ContractRadar’s search at contractradar.io/search uses semantic search across every source we monitor — federal, state, and local. Free accounts get 5 searches per day; subscribers get unlimited. You can describe what you want in plain language and get results regardless of whether the contract uses your industry’s vocabulary.
A search checklist for small businesses
If you’re starting from zero, here’s a search routine that takes about 30 minutes and covers federal, state, and local opportunities in your area:
- Identify your top 2 NAICS codes and your top 3 keywords.
- Search SAM.gov by NAICS code, filtered to your state and posted in the last 30 days.
- Search SAM.gov by keyword for the same window. Compare the two result lists.
- Repeat keyword search on your state procurement portal.
- Repeat keyword search on the local portal for your largest nearby city or county.
- Save searches with email alerts on every portal that supports it.
If 30 minutes a day on government portals isn’t realistic, consider letting a monitoring tool do it. Our guide to contract monitoring and alerts walks through the options. For the bigger picture of how government contracting works for small businesses, see our complete guide to government contract monitoring.