How to Win Federal Landscaping Services Contracts as a Small Business

The winnable way into federal landscaping services contracting is not the multimillion-dollar competed award. It is the small-dollar lane the government streamlines and reserves for small business. Over the last 12 months federal agencies made 2,354 landscaping services awards in that lane ($15,000 to $350,000), spread across 1,068 different vendors, an average of 2.2 awards per firm. Here is exactly where it is, who buys it, and how to get in.

The numbers on this page are a snapshot as of 2026-08-13, from the federal prime-contract record (FPDS) plus SAM.gov opportunities, trailing 12 months since 2025-08-13. To pull the current figures yourself, the endpoints that produced them are listed at the bottom.

The entry lane, and why it exists

Federal buys fall into three value bands, and they are not equally winnable for a newcomer.

103 landscaping services solicitations are open to bid right now

Currently-open landscaping services solicitations in NAICS 561730 (Solicitation and Combined Synopsis/Solicitation notices not yet archived, counted as distinct procurements), soonest deadline first. This is the actionable end of the analysis: the work you can pursue today.

This is the exact call behind the list: GET /api/v1/opportunities/search?naics=561730&active_only=true&due_after=2026-08-13&notice_type=Solicitation,Combined Synopsis/Solicitation. Each notice carries its contracting officer's name, email, and phone on the opportunity record, plus its requirement documents.

What the work actually requires

A solicitation title tells you almost nothing; the requirement lives in the attached documents, the statement of work, the price schedule, the wage determination, the amendments. Most tools stop at the notice. This returns the files. Here are the 5 documents on one open landscaping services solicitation:

The API also searches inside these files: GET /api/v1/opportunities/search?naics=561730&content=wage+determination finds every landscaping services notice whose attachments mention a requirement, not only its title.

What's coming: 72 planned landscaping services buys

Agencies publish what they intend to buy before any solicitation posts. These are the earliest signal of landscaping services demand, often a year out, so you can build past performance and agency relationships ahead of the crowd.

One thing to know before you chase these: buys marked AbilityOne or Mandatory Source are reserved (usually for nonprofits that employ people with disabilities) and cannot be competitively bid. Focus on the small-business set-asides. Sourced from GSA, DHS, HHS and other agency forecast systems; the full record adds the direct program-office and small-business-specialist contacts for each planned buy.

The recompete pipeline: 1,302 competed contracts expiring within 18 months

Every contract whose current term is ending is a coming opening. Known single-bidder awards are filtered out, so these were open last cycle; where the bidder count was reported it is shown. Soonest first. Position 6 to 18 months before the incumbent's contract ends, not when the solicitation drops.

Each row carries the incumbent's UEI, the option runway, and whether the incumbent sits on the federal exclusion list. Filter the full pipeline by agency, set-aside, or value on the recompete endpoint.

How open the landscaping services lane is

The distinct-vendors column is the tell: how many different firms actually won in each band. A high count means the work is genuinely spread out, not captured by a few incumbents.

Note: micro-purchase counts are a floor, since many buys under $15,000 go on a government purchase card and never reach FPDS. The simplified-acquisition band is the well-captured, and most winnable, lane.

What a federal landscaping services contract pays

The award-value distribution for firm-fixed-price landscaping services contracts, from 5,766 awards. Pricing type shifts the number sharply, so this reads the firm-fixed-price awards a small business actually bids. Price to the record, not a guess.

What you must pay the crew

On a service contract, labor is the bid, not the award value. The Service Contract Act sets a legal wage floor for the Laborer, Grounds Maintenance classification, and you cannot bid below it. Here is that floor across 1,028 wage determinations.

Hourly, per worker. The base wage for Laborer, Grounds Maintenance ranges $9.50 to $23.95 depending on the work's county, and the $5.55 health-and-welfare fringe is on top of it. Add payroll taxes, supervision, equipment and overhead, and you have your real cost basis before you price the $63K median award.

How much competition to expect

The number of offers agencies received on federal landscaping services awards. High on average, but a real share drew only one bidder, the least-contested way in.

601 of 1,982 awards in the lane received just one offer. Those are the openings a focused small business wins.

Who to sell to

The contracting offices awarding the most landscaping services in the simplified-acquisition lane, with how many different vendors each spreads work across and the share of their awards set aside for small business. 4 of these top 8 offices reserve at least half of their landscaping services work for small business.

Respond to these offices' sources-sought and RFI notices: it surfaces you to the contracting team before a solicitation is written.

Where the landscaping services work is

The states with the most federal landscaping services awards over the last 12 months. Local presence is an edge a national incumbent rarely presses.

How the landscaping services market is moving

Federal landscaping services awards per quarter. The rhythm, including the federal fiscal-year-end surge, tells you when to have your bids ready.

Read this as timing, not growth: Our federal prime-award record is complete from FY2025 (October 2024) forward; earlier years are sparse and not shown, so figures here reflect that window. The quarter-to-quarter shape shows the fiscal-year buying rhythm, not a market expanding from zero.

Which certification unlocks the most landscaping services work

How landscaping services solicitations split across set-aside programs, by share of notices over the last two years. If a program fits your firm, that certification does more for your odds than any keyword.

Who holds it now

The largest federal landscaping services recipients by obligated dollars, with each one's share of the market (the top five hold 25.1% between them). In the small-dollar lane you compete with them; on larger work, teaming with an established prime is often the faster route in. Any firm flagged below sits on the federal exclusion list, which is an opening on its recompete.

Find teaming partners and their contacts →

The market is not locked up

Of the 1,358 vendors that won a federal landscaping services award in the last year, 941 (69%) hold just one or two awards in this market. That long tail of occasional and first-few-time winners is the sign a lane is open to newcomers, not captured by a handful of incumbents.

Our federal prime-award record is complete from FY2025 (October 2024) forward; earlier years are sparse and not shown, so figures here reflect that window. So this counts low-repetition vendors within that window, which is an honest accessibility read, not a claim about any firm's all-time history.

How to win your first federal landscaping services contract

The words landscaping services buyers use

The phrases that recur most in the titles of federal landscaping services solicitations over the last two years. The exact terms to work into your profile and capability statement.

How capability-statement keywords get you found →

Federal landscaping services contracts: common questions