Federal Contractor Search
Updated
Federal contractors registered in SAM, filtered by NAICS code, state and small-business certification. This page covers who runs that query, what each filter matches, and what SBA's own Small Business Search does not do.
Who uses this
Three buyer profiles, one query.
Prime BD and capture
Hunting compliant subs to hit subcontracting plan goals (5% SDVOSB, plus WOSB, HUBZone, 8(a) and SDB targets). Large contracts require a subcontracting plan under FAR 19.7, and a contractor found to have willfully failed to make a good faith effort at it can be assessed liquidated damages.
Procurement and sourcing
Building a teaming list before a bid. You need the certification, NAICS and geography combination SBA's Small Business Search cannot filter cleanly.
Compliance and diversity spend
Documenting outreach to certified small businesses for diversity-spend reports and prime-contractor compliance audits.
What you can filter by
All filters combine. The tighter the combination, the more targeted the list.
| Filter | What it matches |
|---|---|
| NAICS code | 6-digit code from the North American Industry Classification System, no Y/N suffix. Matches both the firm's primary NAICS and any code in their full NAICS list |
| State | 2-letter US state code, or DC and PR. Matches the firm's physical address state |
| Certification | Self-cert codes from SAM Public V2: WOSB (8W), SDVOSB (QF), VOSB (A5), SDB (27), EDWOSB-sole (8E). Verified 8(a) and HUBZone status is in the Pro sba_profile block, returned by a UEI lookup |
| Registration status | The active-only filter restricts to firms whose SAM registration is currently active. Left off, the result set also carries firms whose registration has recently lapsed |
Why SBA's own search isn't enough
SBA's Dynamic Small Business Search is the official source, and it is free. Use it when you are checking one firm. What it will not do is hand you a list you can work:
- SBA's Small Business Search (formerly DSBS) is a web interface built for reading one firm at a time, not for working a list of several hundred matches.
- Three different access points in the last five years (SAM, GLS, connect.sba.gov), so stale bookmarks and broken auth flows.
- No API and no CSV export, so the filtered list never reaches a CRM, a spreadsheet or a script.
The same search from the API
The filters above run as an API call on every plan, which is how the whole result set reaches your own tooling: what the search endpoint accepts and returns, with the request and the JSON response documented in the API guide.
A Pro response on /api/v1/entities/{uei} carries the contractor's federal activity inline, so one lookup answers what the firm has registered for and what it has been paid: fpds_obligated_total and fpds_distinct_contracts for FPDS prime contract activity, documented in the Contracts API guide, and sub_revenue_total and top_paying_primes for FFATA sub-vendor income, documented in the Subawards API guide. The same lookup carries sba_profile: the NAICS codes SBA counts the firm as small for, and its SBA-administered certifications.
The filtered search itself needs no upgrade: it runs on every plan, the free trial included, and every plan gets the same fields in each record. The SBA profile is not one of them. It arrives on the single-entity lookup above, where Pro adds it. Which plan carries which dataset is on Pricing.
Data sourced from the SAM.gov Public V2 entity extract, refreshed monthly. Self-cert business types are what the public extract carries; the SBA-administered certification programs (8(a), HUBZone, SBA-cert SDB) are not in this free dataset, and the verified SBA-registered view is in the Pro sba_profile block on a UEI lookup.