How to Find Federal Contracts for Your Small Business

The U.S. federal government spends over $700 billion on contracts every year. By law, at least 23% of that — roughly $160 billion — must go to small businesses. That’s not a program you have to apply to or a grant you have to win. It’s the government buying things it needs — IT services, construction, consulting, equipment, training — and your business can compete for that work.

The problem isn’t access. Registration is free. The opportunities are public. The process is open. The problem is that finding the right opportunities is genuinely hard. The government’s own search tool is frustrating to use, the terminology is opaque, and most small businesses give up before they find a single relevant contract.

This guide walks through the practical steps: how to get registered, how to find opportunities that match your business, how to filter out the noise, and how to make sure you don’t miss deadlines.

Step 1: Register on SAM.gov

Before you can bid on any federal contract, your business needs to be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM.gov). This is non-negotiable — no registration, no contracts.

The good news: registration is completely free. The bad news: it takes time. Expect 2–4 weeks for the full process if you’re starting from scratch.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• A Unique Entity ID (UEI) — this replaced the old DUNS number. You’ll get one automatically when you start your SAM.gov registration.
• Your EIN (Employer Identification Number) or Social Security Number if you’re a sole proprietor.
• Your bank account information for electronic funds transfer (how the government pays you).
• A Login.gov account — the government’s single sign-on system.

Go to SAM.gov, create a Login.gov account, and follow the entity registration process. There are third-party companies that charge $500–$2,000 to do this for you — don’t pay them. It’s tedious, but it’s not complicated.

If you’re a non-U.S. business, the process is different — you’ll need an NCAGE code first. See our complete guide to SAM.gov registration for foreign entities.

Important: Your SAM.gov registration expires after one year. Set a calendar reminder to renew it — if it lapses, you can’t receive contract awards until it’s active again.

Step 2: Figure Out Your NAICS Codes

NAICS codes (North American Industry Classification System) are how the government categorizes what businesses do. Every federal contract opportunity is tagged with one or more NAICS codes. If you don’t know your NAICS codes, you can’t effectively filter opportunities.

Most businesses have 3–8 relevant NAICS codes. A cybersecurity consulting firm might use:

• 541512 — Computer Systems Design Services
• 541519 — Other Computer Related Services
• 541690 — Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services
• 561621 — Security Systems Services

The easiest way to find your codes is to describe what your business does and see which codes match. Our NAICS Code Finder does this — describe your business in plain English and get matched codes instantly. For a deeper understanding of how NAICS codes work and why they matter, see our NAICS Codes Explained guide.

You’ll also want to know your PSC codes (Product and Service Codes) — a more granular classification used by contracting officers. Our PSC Code Finder works the same way.

Tip: Look at contracts your competitors have won and note which NAICS codes were used. This tells you which codes contracting officers actually associate with your type of work, which sometimes differs from the textbook definitions.

Step 3: Search for Opportunities

All federal contract opportunities over $25,000 are posted on SAM.gov. This is where the process gets frustrating for most people.

SAM.gov’s contract opportunities search has well-documented problems: no boolean search operators, filters that reset unexpectedly, and a keyword search that returns hundreds of irrelevant results. The Professional Services Council formally complained to GSA about these issues, and while improvements have been made, the core search experience remains clunky.

You have three options:

Option A: Search SAM.gov directly

It’s free and it’s the official source. If you go this route, our 5 SAM.gov search tips guide covers the most common mistakes and workarounds. The short version: filter by NAICS code first, use single keywords instead of phrases, and check daily rather than relying on email alerts.

Option B: Use a free search tool

GovTrove searches the same SAM.gov data with boolean operators (AND, OR, quoted phrases), reliable filters, and a mobile-friendly interface. It’s free to search — no account required. This is what we built, so take the recommendation with appropriate bias, but we built it because we had the same frustrations searching SAM.gov.

Option C: Use a paid platform

Tools like GovTribe ($1,350+/year) and GovWin IQ ($15,000+/year) offer competitive intelligence, pipeline management, and vendor research on top of opportunity search. These make sense once you’re actively winning contracts and need to scale your business development. They’re overkill if you’re just getting started.

Step 4: Filter by Set-Aside

This is where small businesses get their biggest advantage. The federal government reserves certain contracts exclusively for small businesses through set-aside programs. When a contract is set aside, large companies can’t bid on it — you’re only competing against other small businesses.

The main set-aside categories:

• Total Small Business Set-Aside — open to any qualifying small business
• 8(a) Business Development — for socially and economically disadvantaged businesses (SBA-certified)
• SDVOSB — Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business
• WOSB / EDWOSB — Women-Owned Small Business / Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned
• HUBZone — businesses in Historically Underutilized Business Zones

If you qualify for any of these programs, filter your searches accordingly. A small business set-aside with 3 bidders is a very different competition than an unrestricted contract with 30. You can also browse active contracts by set-aside type, NAICS code, and agency to see what’s available right now.

On SAM.gov, set-aside filtering uses internal codes (SBA, SDVOSBC, HZC, etc.) that aren’t intuitive. On GovTrove, you can type “veteran” or “women-owned” in plain English and it maps to the right codes automatically.

Step 5: Understand Notice Types

Not every posting on SAM.gov is an active solicitation you can bid on right now. Understanding notice types saves you from wasting time on opportunities that aren’t ready yet (or that have already closed).

The ones that matter most:

• Presolicitation — the agency is announcing an upcoming opportunity. You can’t bid yet, but you can start preparing. This is your early warning.
• Combined Synopsis/Solicitation — the most common type. The agency is both announcing and soliciting bids in a single posting. This is what you respond to.
• Solicitation — a formal request for proposals (RFP) or quotes (RFQ). Read the attached documents carefully — they contain the actual requirements.
• Sources Sought / RFI — the agency is doing market research. They want to know if qualified vendors exist before they write the solicitation. Responding to these doesn’t commit you to anything, but it gets you on the agency’s radar.
• Award Notice — the contract has been awarded. Useful for competitive research (who won, at what price) but not something you can bid on.
• Justification & Approval (J&A) — explains why a contract was awarded without full competition. Not directly actionable, but tells you about future recompetes.

Focus your daily search on Combined Synopsis/Solicitations and Solicitations — these are the active opportunities you can bid on. Check Presolicitations weekly to stay ahead of upcoming work.

Step 6: Set Up Alerts

Checking for new opportunities manually every day works, but it doesn’t scale. Once you know your NAICS codes and preferred set-aside types, set up saved searches that notify you when matching opportunities are posted.

SAM.gov offers saved search email alerts, but they’re unreliable — contractors frequently report missed or delayed notifications. If you rely on SAM.gov alerts, check manually at least twice a week as a backstop.

GovTrove’s Pro tier ($30/month) includes saved search alerts with email notifications. Because GovTrove ingests SAM.gov data through the official API and daily CSV feeds, new opportunities are typically searchable within hours of being posted.

Timing matters. Federal contract response windows can be as short as 15 days. If you find an opportunity on day 12, you’re scrambling. If you find it on day 1, you have time to write a thoughtful proposal. Alerts turn reactive search into proactive opportunity management.

Step 7: Read the Solicitation Documents

Finding a relevant opportunity is step one. Understanding what the government actually wants is step two — and it’s where most of the real work happens.

Every solicitation has attachments — the Statement of Work (SOW) or Performance Work Statement (PWS), evaluation criteria, delivery requirements, and contract terms. These documents tell you:

• What exactly they’re buying — not just the title, but the specific tasks, deliverables, and performance standards
• How they’ll evaluate proposals — is it lowest price technically acceptable (LPTA) or best value? What factors matter most?
• Whether you’re actually qualified — past performance requirements, clearance levels, certifications, minimum experience
• The response deadline and format — page limits, required sections, submission method

Read these carefully before deciding to bid. A 30-page proposal takes 40–80 hours to write well. That’s a real investment — make sure the opportunity is worth pursuing before you commit.

Quick-Start Checklist

If you want to start finding federal contracts today, here’s the minimum viable path:

1. Register on SAM.gov (if you haven’t already — this takes 2–4 weeks, so start now)
2. Find your NAICS codes using the NAICS Code Finder
3. Search for opportunities on GovTrove — filter by your NAICS codes and set-aside type
4. Read 5–10 solicitations in your space to get a feel for what agencies are buying and how they write requirements
5. Respond to a Sources Sought or RFI — low commitment, gets your name in front of the agency
6. Set up saved search alerts so you don’t have to check manually every day

You don’t need to bid on the first opportunity you find. Spend a week or two just reading solicitations and understanding the landscape. The contracts will keep coming — the federal government posts thousands of new opportunities every week.