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Who actually wins US federal contracts

Everyone else lists the solicitations that are open. This lists the awards that were made — who won them, how much of each category a handful of firms hold, which agencies buy the work, and where it gets performed. 351,812 awards, 43,565 named winners, straight from USASpending.gov.

One caveat up front, because it changes how you should read every number here: this is a mid-size slice of federal spending, not all of it. Everything below sits between $136k and $2M. The full coverage note is at the foot of this page and it is worth thirty seconds.

351,812
Awards analysed
43,565
Distinct winning firms
324
Categories with a page
44
Buying agencies with a page

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The least concentrated categories

Categories with at least 300 awards where the five biggest recipients hold the smallest share of the money. A low share means the work is spread across many firms rather than locked up by a few primes — which is the difference between a bid worth writing and one you were never going to win.

NAICS 236220

Commercial and Institutional Building Construction

Top 5 hold 4.2% of $13.6B across 16,383 awards to 2,687 firms.

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NAICS 238220

Plumbing, Heating, and Air-conditioning Contractors

Top 5 hold 5.6% of $1.7B across 2,390 awards to 1,020 firms.

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NAICS 623110

Nursing Care Facilities

Top 5 hold 6% of $1.5B across 2,072 awards to 813 firms.

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NAICS 561210

Facilities Support Services

Top 5 hold 7.7% of $3.8B across 5,362 awards to 1,137 firms.

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NAICS 541715

Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences

Top 5 hold 8.1% of $16.8B across 16,456 awards to 4,646 firms.

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NAICS 561730

Landscaping Services

Top 5 hold 8.2% of $1.1B across 1,723 awards to 653 firms.

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Browse by category

All 324 NAICS codes with enough awards to analyse

A category needs at least 100 awards in this dataset to get a page. Below that a concentration figure is arithmetic rather than an insight, so we don’t publish one — the same floor the tender hubs apply. The table covers the 40 categories with the most awards; every other category is listed after it with the same top-5 share, and the full numbers are one click away on its page.

NAICSCategoryAwardsFirmsTop 5 holdHow held
541330Engineering Services21,3092,7689.4%Widely spread
541519Other Computer Related Services18,9721,94818.4%Moderately spread
541715Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences16,4564,6468.1%Widely spread
236220Commercial and Institutional Building Construction16,3832,6874.2%Widely spread
336413Other Aircraft Parts and Auxiliary Equipment Manufacturing11,56293423.4%Moderately spread
541611Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services11,5272,28511.1%Widely spread
325411Medicinal and Botanical Manufacturing11,0183299.7%Very concentrated
339999All Other Miscellaneous Manufacturing7,62021893.4%Very concentrated
541990All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services6,1131,60312.8%Widely spread
541512Computer Systems Design Services5,5931,35021.3%Moderately spread
324110Petroleum Refineries5,39820535.1%Concentrated
561210Facilities Support Services5,3621,1377.7%Widely spread
541511Custom Computer Programming Services3,9621,3689.3%Widely spread
334111Electronic Computer Manufacturing3,88836232.8%Concentrated
622110General Medical and Surgical Hospitals3,68317838%Concentrated
336611Ship Building and Repairing3,52247721%Moderately spread
334516Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing3,40954040%Concentrated
334511Search, Detection, Navigation, Guidance, Aeronautical, and Nautical System and Instrument Manufacturing3,31959228.3%Moderately spread
511210Software Publishers3,30156647.6%Concentrated
541620Environmental Consulting Services3,15567720.8%Moderately spread
481211Nonscheduled Chartered Passenger Air Transportation3,15315572.5%Very concentrated
561320Temporary Help Services2,93638818.3%Moderately spread
541712Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences2,92465024.8%Moderately spread
541310Architectural Services2,7705338.4%Widely spread
562910Remediation Services2,66154925.1%Moderately spread
115310Support Activities for Forestry2,65177313.2%Widely spread
238220Plumbing, Heating, and Air-conditioning Contractors2,3901,0205.6%Widely spread
561720Janitorial Services2,36384111.1%Widely spread
541690Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services2,35368727.6%Moderately spread
237310Highway, Street, and Bridge Construction2,3327738.6%Widely spread
481212Nonscheduled Chartered Freight Air Transportation2,32811242.5%Concentrated
334220Radio and Television Broadcasting and Wireless Communications Equipment Manufacturing2,17945534.5%Concentrated
339112Surgical and Medical Instrument Manufacturing2,07731836.7%Concentrated
623110Nursing Care Facilities2,0728136%Widely spread
334517Irradiation Apparatus Manufacturing1,9767687%Very concentrated
325412Pharmaceutical Preparation Manufacturing1,90618558.8%Very concentrated
811210Electronic and Precision Equipment Repair and Maintenance1,88160818.5%Moderately spread
423450Medical, Dental, and Hospital Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers1,84013643.1%Concentrated
561730Landscaping Services1,7236538.2%Widely spread
811310Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment1,66184213.2%Widely spread

The other 284 categories. The percentage after each is the share of the dollars held by its five biggest recipients — low means open, high means carved up.

Browse by buying agency

All 44 agencies with enough awards to analyse

AgencyAwardsFirmsTotal valueTop 5 hold
Department of Defense189,13422,527$140.5B10.3%
Department of Veterans Affairs34,2925,758$22.6B6.8%
Department of Health and Human Services18,2103,958$13.6B6%
Department of Agriculture15,8433,648$11.1B6.1%
Department of Homeland Security14,0753,718$11B6.2%
Department of Justice12,1712,241$7.8B16.6%
Department of the Interior11,4104,023$7.5B4.1%
Department of Transportation9,6672,044$7.1B12.6%
General Services Administration9,2881,845$5.8B9.2%
Department of State6,7931,764$4.6B9.1%
Department of the Treasury4,8011,394$3.9B26.2%
National Aeronautics and Space Administration4,7231,518$3.4B14.9%
Department of Commerce4,3651,589$3.2B8.4%
Environmental Protection Agency3,066496$2.2B30.3%
Department of Energy2,379774$1.6B11.6%
Social Security Administration1,374511$1B20.5%
Agency for International Development1,357466$1B48%
Department of Labor910420$708M10.4%
Smithsonian Institution695340$445M16.3%
Department of Housing and Urban Development680257$585M24.6%
Department of Education580317$470M14.2%
Securities and Exchange Commission509202$372M24.6%
Nuclear Regulatory Commission453214$321M17.8%
National Science Foundation414194$330M17%
U.S. International Development Finance Corporation284145$181M21.6%
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau281125$193M22.3%
Small Business Administration276158$244M16.2%
U.S. Agency for Global Media275133$181M24.3%
Millennium Challenge Corporation274159$217M23.7%
National Archives and Records Administration250137$181M16.8%
Office of Personnel Management241104$221M41.4%
Government Accountability Office20992$148M34.1%
Export-Import Bank of the United States184113$107M15.4%
Executive Office of the President183100$126M31%
District of Columbia Courts17689$74M20.8%
Federal Trade Commission175110$135M22.1%
Federal Communications Commission174108$128M25.3%
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation157107$117M21.2%
Consumer Product Safety Commission15192$91M24.3%
Commodity Futures Trading Commission148106$94M16.8%
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission14775$119M21.5%
National Gallery of Art144106$84M20.5%
Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency13478$101M24.3%
Peace Corps13394$105M31.3%

Honest about coverage

These pages count 351,812 federal contract awards pulled from USASpending.gov. Every one is a real, published award to a named winner. They are not all of federal spending, and reading them as if they were would mislead you.

The fetch asks USASpending for awards between $25,000 and $2,000,000 — the band a small business actually competes in. It reads them highest-value first, and it has not yet reached the bottom of that band. The smallest award currently in the dataset is $135,957. So what you are looking at is a mid-size slice: 351,812 awards between $135,957 and $2,000,000. It is not a representative sample of federal contracting, and it is emphatically not a sample of small awards.

What that means for the numbers on these pages

  • Counts and shares are exact for this dataset. “The top five recipients hold 24% of the dollars” means 24% of the dollars in these 351,812 awards — not 24% of the sector.
  • The medians and size bands describe this slice only. You will not find an “average federal contract value” anywhere on this site, because the distribution here is cut off at the bottom and that number does not exist in this data.
  • A firm missing from a page has not necessarily stopped winning work — it may simply not have an award inside this band and these windows. Absence is not evidence here.
  • We publish no “still active” or “gone quiet” signal. The data arrives in two fetch windows (2023-01-01 to 2025-07-25 and 2025-07-26 to 2026-07-25) that have reached different depths ($441,837 and $135,957), and the period-of-performance start date can predate either of them, so any recency claim would be measuring our own backfill rather than the market.

The backfill is still running, so the floor moves down over time and these pages are regenerated from it. Figures as of 2026-08-03. Always confirm an award on USASpending.gov before you act on it.

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Award records sourced from USASpending.gov. Confirm any award on the original record before acting on it.

Who actually wins US federal contracts