AmericaFind who won a federal contract, without a paid database.
Start with USAspending for an open award lookup. Search the contract number or recipient, select contracts, then verify the agency and unique award key. SAM.gov remains an official procurement source, but its public Contract Awards results require a signed-in account. An open opportunity is not proof that a contract has been awarded.
Record essentials
- SAM Contract Awards access
- Account required to view public search results; no specific role required Verify this field ↗
A complete worked lookup: the ISS deorbit vehicle
NASA’s June 26, 2024 announcement names SpaceX as the selected company for the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle. The government award record identifies the recipient by its legal name and UEI and assigns contract number 80JSC024CA002. That gives you two independent handles: an agency announcement and a structured award record.
The record also reports solicitation identifier 80JSC023R0003. Keep it separate from the contract number. A request for offers, a notice identifier and a signed contract identify different parts of the procurement process. Searching only the notice can miss the later award.
Match the record, not just the company name
The full unique award key is CONT_AWD_80JSC024CA002_8000_-NONE-_-NONE-. Save that key, the agency, the PIID and the source date together. Similar names, parent companies and individual establishments can otherwise be mixed into a single company total.
This example identifies a prime recipient. It does not identify every supplier, employee, facility or eventual beneficiary. Do not treat a matching company name as evidence that every result belongs to the same project.
Use the official systems for different questions
USAspending provides award, money, location and transaction records. SAM.gov provides procurement domains and related contract data. GSA says the former FPDS public search moved to SAM.gov and ezSearch was decommissioned on February 24, 2026. Old tutorials that send you only to FPDS need that update.
If no award is found, widen the date range, check the legal recipient identifier, confirm the awarding agency and look for a separate award notice. A failed search alone does not establish that there was no award or that a record was concealed.
Reproduce the public-data calculation.
These dated source snapshots preserve the selected award fields, exact POST request bodies, pagination, and transaction rows used for the worked examples. They are public records, not a live national database. For readability, the transaction extract maps federal_action_obligation to obligation, action_date to actionDate, and modification_number to modificationNumber. Request and pagination metadata remain attached.
What you can do next
- Open USAspending Advanced Search and select contracts rather than all award types.
- Enter the contract number when known. Otherwise combine the agency with a recipient name or UEI.
- Expand the date range when researching a contract signed in an earlier year.
- Open the award profile and compare the legal recipient, agency, scope and PIID with the original announcement.
- Save the unique award key and dated money labels. Use SAM.gov or the contracting office for procurement documents not present in the spending record.
This page does not submit a comment, register you to vote, allocate money, or contact an official on your behalf.
Keep this boundary in view
The worked example is one public NASA contract. USAspending is not a complete archive of original solicitations, technical specifications or all subcontracts. This guide does not provide bid-protest or procurement legal advice.
Selected federal prime-award examples. This is not every federal dollar, a complete recipient portfolio, or a finding of fraud. Snapshot figures can change with later transactions.
Primary sources
- Official award detail: ISS U.S. Deorbit Vehicle ↗2026-10-09 · Consulted October 9, 2026
- NASA award announcement ↗2024-06-26 · Consulted October 9, 2026
- GSA: FPDS transition and SAM access ↗2026-10-09 · Consulted October 9, 2026
- USAspending Advanced Search ↗2026-10-09 · Consulted October 9, 2026
Questions worth resolving
Is SAM.gov contract award search free?
GSA says anyone with a SAM.gov account can access public Contract Awards results without a specific role. This is different from anonymous access.
Does an inactive solicitation identify the winning contractor?
Not by itself. Verify a later award notice or the actual contract record and match the agency and identifiers.
Keep your own evidence notes.
Use this space to record a source, an unresolved question, or a next step. Nothing is uploaded or saved by America.co. Avoid entering sensitive personal information.