SAM.gov is the U.S. federal government’s official portal for two things: registering as an entity that can be paid by the government, and finding contract opportunities that federal agencies publish to the public. If you want to sell anything to a federal agency—from software licenses to landscaping—you will end up on SAM.gov.
What SAM.gov is and what it replaced
SAM.gov stands for the System for Award Management. The General Services Administration (GSA) operates it as the consolidation of several older federal systems that used to live at separate URLs.
SAM launched in July 2012 as the first phase of a multi-year consolidation that merged the Central Contractor Registration (CCR), the Excluded Parties List System (EPLS), the Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA), and the Federal Agency Registration (FedReg) into one login. In November 2019, FedBizOpps (better known as FBO.gov)—the legacy site where agencies posted opportunities—was retired and its functionality was folded into SAM.gov as well. A few smaller systems, including the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA, now called Assistance Listings), followed.
The practical result: where a contractor in 2014 might have logged in to four different government websites to register, search, and check exclusion status, today there is one portal at SAM.gov. That domain matters—see the misconceptions section below.
What SAM.gov is used for
SAM.gov has three primary functions.
1. Entity registration
Any organization that wants to receive federal contract or grant money has to be registered as an active entity on SAM.gov. The registration record contains your legal business name, address, banking information for payment, the NAICS codes you operate under, points of contact, and a long list of federal representations and certifications. Registration is free and must be renewed every 12 months. If your registration lapses, agencies cannot award you new contracts and existing contract payments can be held.
2. Public search of contract opportunities
SAM.gov hosts the official feed of federal contract opportunities. By regulation, federal agencies must publicly post solicitations over a certain dollar threshold, and SAM.gov is where they post them. You do not need an account to search; the opportunity data is public and is also available through a free API. See the different notice types for how a procurement moves from Sources Sought through award.
3. The federal exclusion list
SAM.gov publishes the list of individuals and companies that are debarred, suspended, or otherwise excluded from receiving federal contracts and grants. This list replaced the old EPLS. Federal Contracting Officers must check it before making an award, and prime contractors must check it before issuing a subcontract. Search is free and open to anyone.
Who has to register on SAM.gov
The short answer: anyone who wants to be paid by the federal government as a vendor or grant recipient. The longer answer depends on your role.
Prime contractors
If you intend to bid directly on a federal solicitation, your entity must be registered and active in SAM.gov before you submit a proposal—not just before award. Contracting Officers will reject offers from unregistered entities. The same goes for sole proprietors and single-member LLCs operating under their own name. For the full step-by-step process, see how to register on SAM.gov.
Subcontractors
Subcontractors are not always required to be registered on SAM.gov, but a UEI is required for any entity receiving a subaward over $30,000 on a federally funded prime contract or grant, and for any subrecipient on a federal grant. Many primes also require their subs to maintain an active SAM.gov registration as a matter of policy, because it simplifies vetting and exclusion checks.
Grant recipients
Federal grants run through the same registration system. Any organization applying for a grant on Grants.gov must first be registered on SAM.gov—nonprofits, universities, state and local governments, and tribal entities included. The registration record is shared across both systems.
The UEI: what changed in 2022
For decades, the federal government identified contractors using the nine-digit DUNS number issued by Dun & Bradstreet, a private company. The dependency on a single commercial provider was awkward for a number of reasons, and in April 2022 the government cut over to a new identifier: the Unique Entity ID, or UEI.
The UEI is a 12-character alphanumeric string assigned by SAM.gov itself. SAM.gov generates it free of charge as part of the registration process, and it stays with your entity for its lifetime. You do not pay anyone for a UEI—if a service offers to “get you a UEI” for a fee, they are charging for something the government gives away.
If your organization had a DUNS number before April 2022, SAM.gov automatically issued you a UEI. The DUNS is no longer used in federal award systems, though some legacy contract documents still reference it.
What you can find on SAM.gov for free
The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requires agencies to publicly post almost every contract opportunity above the simplified acquisition threshold—effectively any procurement expected to exceed $25,000, with limited exceptions for classified work and certain emergencies. That makes SAM.gov, in principle, a near-complete record of federal buying activity.
The public data on SAM.gov includes:
- Active opportunities—presolicitations, Sources Sought, solicitations, and combined synopsis/solicitations for everything from $25k task orders to multi-billion-dollar GWACs.
- Award notices—the public notice issued after a contract is awarded, including the awardee, dollar value, NAICS code, and set-aside designation if any.
- Full solicitation packages—the RFP, the Statement of Work (SOW), evaluation criteria, contract clauses, wage determinations, and Q&A logs are all available as downloadable attachments on the opportunity page.
- Entity information—basic public profile data for any registered entity, including its NAICS codes and business size representations.
- The exclusion list—searchable by name or identifier.
All of this is free and most of it is available through public APIs. Our awards database is built on top of those same federal data feeds.
SAM.gov’s limitations
SAM.gov is a system of record, not a workflow tool. Its search accepts keywords but offers no ranking by fit, no scoring against your capability statement, and no saved-search notifications by NAICS or agency without third-party tooling. Full opportunity descriptions and attachments often require a separate API call or page load to retrieve, which makes systematic scanning painful. The result is that most experienced federal contractors use SAM.gov as the authoritative source for the solicitation document itself, and use a downstream product to find which solicitations are worth opening in the first place.
Common misconceptions
SAM.gov is free. sam.gov.com is a scam.
The official site is SAM.gov—the bare government domain. Look-alike domains such as sam.gov.com and federal-contractor-registration-style sites are not affiliated with the U.S. government. They typically charge $300 to $800 for “registration assistance” that consists of filling out the same free form on SAM.gov on your behalf. Some are functional services; some collect your information and disappear. The government has never charged a fee for SAM.gov registration, UEI issuance, or renewal.
You don’t need a paid service to register
Entity registration is genuinely free, takes a few hours of careful data entry, and the official help desk (the Federal Service Desk at fsd.gov) will answer specific questions at no charge. If you choose to hire a consultant for an unusually complex registration—joint ventures, foreign entities, multiple legal structures—that is a legitimate use case. For a standard small business registration, it is not necessary.
Search results are not exhaustive by default
SAM.gov’s default search filters often hide award notices, archived opportunities, and certain notice types. If you are looking for a specific contract and cannot find it, expand the notice-type and status filters before assuming it isn’t there.
How to get started
If you are new to federal contracting, work through these in order:
- Pick the NAICS codes that match what you sell. These drive everything downstream—your size standard, which set-asides you qualify for, and which opportunities surface in search.
- Check which small business set-asides you may qualify for: 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, WOSB, and EDWOSB. Some require certification before they take effect.
- Complete your SAM.gov entity registration and obtain your UEI. Allow a week or two for verification.
- Start watching Sources Sought notices in your NAICS codes. These are how agencies signal upcoming procurements before the formal solicitation drops.
Once those four pieces are in place you are eligible to bid. Winning is a different problem—but you cannot win a contract you are not registered to bid on.