The US federal government spends over $800 billion a year on contracts, and agencies aim to award a meaningful share — roughly 23% of prime contract dollars — to small businesses. The opportunity is real. What stops most small firms isn’t eligibility; it’s the setup and the search. This guide is the practical path from “interested” to “bidding.”
Federal spending is enormous and steady, and a large slice is legally reserved for small businesses through set-asides. Past performance compounds: your first small contracts build the track record that wins bigger ones. And it’s not only federal — state, local, and education (SLED) buyers add a whole second market on top.
Before you chase a single opportunity, put the basics in place:
- Register in SAM.gov.Get your UEI (Unique Entity ID) and an active registration. It’s free, mandatory, and can take a couple of weeks — so do it before you find a bid you want.
- Identify your NAICS codes. These classify your industry and set the SBA size standard that determines whether you qualify as small — and for which set-asides. See NAICS vs CPV.
- Check your set-aside eligibility. 8(a), WOSB (women-owned), SDVOSB (service-disabled veteran-owned), HUBZone — these restrict competition to qualifying firms and are a real edge.
- Write a capability statement. A one-page summary of what you do, your differentiators, past performance, and codes — the document buyers ask for first.
SAM.govis the primary source: federal agencies must post opportunities over $25,000 there, and it’s free to search by keyword, NAICS, set-aside type, and agency. Beyond it sit the paid intelligence layers (GovWin, Bloomberg Government) and the SLED aggregators for state and local — all covered in the US tender platforms guide.
The catch is volume: SAM.gov posts tens of thousands of notices a month, and keyword searches bury the fits in near-misses. That’s the problem catalog matching solves — score each notice by how well it fits what you actually deliver, instead of scrolling.
Skip the SAM.gov scroll
Match your catalog and let qlows surface the federal contracts you can actually win.
Fewer, better-fit opportunities — across federal and public buyers.
Match my catalog free →- Start small. Pursue contracts in the $25k–$250k range first to build past performance — agencies weight it heavily.
- Consider subcontracting.Large primes need small subs to hit their own participation goals; it’s a fast route to experience and relationships.
- Prep every bid properly. Federal solicitations are dense and unforgiving on compliance. Extract every requirement into a matrix before drafting — the compliance checklist and qlows bid preparation exist for exactly this.
Ready to look? Browse live US tenders by industry in the directory, or start from the US platforms guide.