SAM.gov and FPDS Data Deep Dive: What 5.5 Million Historical Opportunities Tell Us

But most contractors only scratch the surface. They search for open solicitations, scan a few results, and move on. They miss the patterns hiding in 5.5 million historical records. They miss the competitive intelligence buried in USAspending's 70.2 million contract actions. They miss the amendment patterns that reveal how agencies actually buy.

This article is a data-driven walkthrough of what SAM.gov and the broader federal procurement data ecosystem actually contain, how the numbers break down, and what contractors can learn from them.

All figures are verified against live data as of June 2026.

SAM.gov by the Numbers

SAM.gov is operated by the General Services Administration (GSA) and serves as the consolidated federal procurement portal. It absorbed FedBizOpps (FBO.gov) in November 2019, and FPDS.gov was fully decommissioned in February 2026, with its contract award data migrating to the SAM.gov Contract Awards API and USAspending bulk downloads.

Current Volume

Let those numbers sink in. Nearly 50,000 opportunities are open for bidding right now. Over 5.5 million historical records are available for competitive research. And USAspending tracks over 70 million individual contract actions going back to FY2008.

The distinction between SAM.gov and USAspending is important. SAM.gov tracks opportunities: the solicitations, notices, and awards that contracting officers publish. USAspending tracks spending: every contract action, modification, option exercise, and funding adjustment. One SAM.gov opportunity can generate dozens of USAspending contract action records over its lifetime as the contract is modified, funded, and extended.

Notice Type Breakdown: What Is Actually on SAM.gov

Not everything on SAM.gov is a solicitation you can bid on. The portal publishes eight distinct notice types, each serving a different purpose in the procurement lifecycle.

Active Opportunities (~50,000)

Only about 50% of active listings are actual solicitations (codes o and k combined). The other half are informational notices, award announcements, market research, or sole-source justifications.

This matters for two reasons. First, if you are counting "opportunities" without filtering by notice type, you are overstating the biddable pipeline by 2x. Second, the non-biddable notice types contain valuable intelligence that most contractors ignore.

Historical Distribution (~5.5 Million Records)

Award notices dominate the historical database at 44%. This makes sense: every completed procurement generates an award notice, and many solicitations result in multiple awards (especially IDIQs). The 2.4 million award records are a goldmine for competitive intelligence: they tell you who wins, how much they charge, and which agencies they serve.

The Procurement Lifecycle on SAM.gov

Understanding the flow between notice types reveals how agencies actually buy. A typical procurement moves through this sequence:

Sources Sought (r): The agency asks "Who can do this work?" Contractors respond with capability statements. This response directly influences whether the procurement gets set aside for small business. If you miss this stage, you may not get a chance to bid.

Presolicitation (p): The agency publishes advance notice that a solicitation is coming. This gives contractors 15 or more days to prepare, identify teaming partners, and start solution development.

Solicitation (o) or Combined Synopsis/Solicitation (k): The formal RFP, RFQ, or IFB drops. This is where proposals are submitted. Combined synopsis/solicitations streamline the process into a single document, typically for commercial item purchases under FAR Part 12.

Award Notice (a): The contract is awarded. The winner, contract value, and awardee identifiers (UEI-SAM, CAGE code) are published.

Running parallel to this lifecycle:

• Special Notices (s) announce industry days, scope changes, or informational updates
• Justification and Authorization (u) publishes sole-source rationale for transparency
• Intent to Bundle (i) notifies the market when the government plans to combine smaller contracts into one large one

Amendments: The Hidden Pattern

One of the most underappreciated data points on SAM.gov is the amendment frequency. Based on analysis of active solicitations, approximately 65% of solicitations receive at least one amendment before the response deadline.

Amendments serve several purposes:

• Deadline extensions: The most common amendment type. Agencies frequently push response dates by one to four weeks.
• Questions and answers: Industry questions are compiled, anonymized, and published as formal amendments.
• Specification changes: Requirements get modified based on industry feedback or internal review.
• Correction of errors: Typos, wrong NAICS codes, incorrect set-aside designations.

What this means for contractors: If you see a solicitation with a tight deadline, do not assume it is too late. There is a strong probability an amendment will extend the response date. More importantly, always check for amendments before submitting a proposal. Submitting against an outdated version of a solicitation is a common and avoidable mistake.

Bidovate's Vault feature tracks solicitation amendments automatically, alerting you when documents change so you never work from outdated requirements.

Procurement Thresholds: Where Opportunities Hide

Federal procurement thresholds determine what gets posted on SAM.gov and what stays invisible. Understanding these thresholds reveals a significant volume of "dark" procurement.

The micro-purchase gap: Any purchase under $15,000 (or $25,000 for DoD) can be made without competition and without posting to SAM.gov. The government processes millions of these transactions annually via purchase cards. They represent real revenue opportunities that are completely invisible on SAM.gov.

Similarly, many orders placed against existing GSA Schedules below the SAT ($350,000) route through GSA eBuy rather than SAM.gov. These RFQs are only visible to companies that hold GSA Schedule contracts.

Response Times: How Fast Do You Need to Move

The standard response time for competitive negotiated procurements (FAR Part 15 RFPs) is 30 days from solicitation publication to proposal deadline.

In practice, timelines vary significantly:

• Combined Synopsis/Solicitations (commercial items): Can be as short as 15 days
• Simplified acquisitions (under $350K): Typically 15-30 days
• Complex major procurements: 45-60 days or more
• Broad Agency Announcements (BAAs): Open for months or years

The 30-day standard means that by the time a solicitation drops on SAM.gov, the clock is already ticking. Companies that track presolicitations and sources sought notices have a 6-to-12 month head start on solution development, teaming, and capture planning compared to those who only react to published solicitations.

NAICS Code Distribution: Where the Money Flows

Every SAM.gov opportunity is tagged with one or more NAICS codes that classify the industry. The distribution of NAICS codes across active solicitations reveals which sectors the government is actively buying in.

The most active NAICS code families on SAM.gov include:

• 541 (Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services): IT consulting, engineering, R&D, management consulting
• 561 (Administrative and Support Services): Facilities management, janitorial, security guards, staffing
• 236/237/238 (Construction): Building construction, heavy civil, specialty trades
• 334 (Computer and Electronic Manufacturing): Hardware, communications equipment
• 336 (Transportation Equipment): Aircraft, ships, vehicles, defense platforms
• 511/518/519 (Information/IT): Software, data processing, cloud services

Each NAICS code also determines the SBA size standard for small business eligibility. A company might qualify as a small business under NAICS 541512 (Computer Systems Design, $34 million revenue cap) but not under NAICS 541330 (Engineering Services, $25.5 million cap for some subcategories).

Competitive vs. Sole-Source: What the Data Shows

Federal law requires "full and open competition" for most procurements under the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA). But the data from the SAM.gov Contract Awards API (which replaced FPDS after its decommissioning in February 2026) tells a more nuanced story.

The Contract Awards data includes fields that SAM.gov opportunity listings do not:

• Number of offers received per solicitation: How many companies actually competed
• Extent of competition: Full and open, not competed, sole source, follow-on, or limited competition
• Reason not competed: The statutory justification for sole-source awards

Sole-source justifications (J&A notices on SAM.gov) represent about 7% of active listings. But the actual share of non-competed contract dollars is higher when you account for follow-on contracts, bridge contracts, and orders under single-award IDIQs.

For contractors, this data reveals which agencies and program offices routinely sole-source, which incumbent contractors hold those positions, and where competitive opportunities are most likely to arise. Recompete tracking, identifying contracts that are approaching expiration and will return to competition, is one of the highest-value uses of this data.

USAspending: The Spending Side of the Equation

While SAM.gov tracks what the government plans to buy, USAspending.gov tracks what was actually spent. Operated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, it contains:

The contract data alone represents approximately 5.9 million new contract actions per year. This includes every modification, option exercise, funding increment, and administrative change.

USAspending data is available through a free REST API (no key required) and bulk CSV downloads covering FY2008 to present. The annual bulk files run 1.3-2 GB each, roughly 20-25 GB total compressed. A delta file for incremental updates is available at approximately 182 MB.

What USAspending Tells You That SAM.gov Does Not

• Actual obligated dollars vs. estimated contract value
• Spending by recipient: Which companies get the most money from which agencies
• Sub-award data: Who the prime contractors are subcontracting to
• Executive compensation for top contractor executives
• Historical spending trends by agency, NAICS code, place of performance, and recipient
• Contract modification history: Every dollar change over a contract's life

This is the data that powers competitive intelligence. If you want to know your competitor's revenue from a specific agency, their historical pricing patterns, or which small businesses they subcontract to, USAspending is where you find it.

How to Use This Data Effectively

For Business Development

Track sources sought notices and presolicitations in your NAICS codes. These are early signals of future solicitations, giving you months of lead time. Use award notices to identify who currently holds the contracts you want to pursue. Study their past performance and pricing through USAspending.

For Competitive Intelligence

Cross-reference SAM.gov award notices with USAspending contract data to build a complete picture of incumbent contracts. Look at modification history to understand how contracts grow over time. Analyze the number of offers received to gauge competition levels in your market.

For Proposal Strategy

Use historical award data to calibrate your pricing. If similar contracts consistently award at a certain range, pricing significantly above or below that range is a risk. Check amendment patterns for your target agencies, agencies that frequently amend solicitations may be open to pre-solicitation engagement and feedback.

For Pipeline Management

Platforms like Bidovate can automate much of this analysis. Mevin, Bidovate's AI assistant, can monitor SAM.gov for relevant opportunities across your NAICS codes and set-aside categories, track amendments, and surface competitive intelligence from award data. Vault stores solicitation documents and tracks changes, so you always work from the latest version.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many active opportunities are on SAM.gov right now?

As of June 2026, SAM.gov lists 49,987 active opportunities. However, only about 50% of these are actual solicitations open for proposals (notice types o and k). The rest are award notices, sources sought, special notices, and other informational postings.

What happened to FPDS.gov?

FPDS.gov was fully decommissioned on February 24, 2026. All historical contract award data has migrated to the SAM.gov Contract Awards API and is also available through USAspending.gov bulk downloads. The data is preserved, only the access method changed.

How many contract actions does USAspending track?

USAspending contains over 70.2 million contract action records, with approximately 5.9 million new actions added per year. The total database across all award types (contracts, grants, loans, direct payments) exceeds 166 million records.

What is the typical response time for a federal solicitation?

The standard response period for competitive negotiated procurements is 30 days. Combined synopsis/solicitations can be as short as 15 days. Approximately 65% of solicitations receive at least one amendment, and deadline extensions are the most common amendment type.

What is the micro-purchase threshold and why does it matter?

The micro-purchase threshold is $15,000 for civilian agencies and $25,000 for DoD. Purchases below this threshold do not require competition and are not posted on SAM.gov. They represent a significant volume of government buying that is invisible on the primary procurement portal. The simplified acquisition threshold ($350,000) marks the boundary where full FAR procedures begin to apply.