How does a small contractor register in SAM.gov?

What a SAM.gov registration is and what it costs

SAM.gov, the System for Award Management, is the federal government's registration system for anyone who wants to bid on federal contracts or apply for federal assistance. Registering assigns your company a Unique Entity ID (UEI); a Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) code is assigned after you submit if you do not already have one. SAM.gov states:

A registration allows you to bid on government contracts and apply for federal assistance.

You must renew your registration every 365 days to keep it active.

Registration costs nothing. The General Services Administration's registration checklist reads:

SAM.gov is FREE to use. There is no charge to get a Unique Entity ID, register your entity, and maintain your entity registration at SAM.gov.

A DoD-funded APEX Accelerator training deck on capability statements makes the same point and warns about third-party companies. You can get a UEI alone with just your legal name and physical address, but a UEI by itself does not let you apply for federal awards. Since April 4, 2022 the UEI, generated inside SAM.gov, has replaced the DUNS number; CAGE codes were not affected.

What to gather before you start a SAM.gov registration

An All Awards registration has these sections: Unique Entity ID, Core Data, Assertions, Reps and Certs, Architect and Engineering responses, the DFARS questionnaire if applicable, Points of Contact, and the SBA supplemental page for small businesses. Have these ready before you start:

• Legal business name and physical address as filed. A post office box may not be used as your physical address.
• Date and state of incorporation.
• Taxpayer Identification Number and the taxpayer name and address exactly as the IRS has them, for the IRS consent form.
• Bank routing and account numbers for electronic funds transfer, plus a remittance name and address.
• NAICS codes looked up at census.gov/naics. Product service codes are optional.
• Size metrics: annual receipts and number of employees, measured under 13 CFR 121.
• Disaster Response Registry answers, including your construction bonding levels per contract and in aggregate if you opt in.
• Points of contact for the registration.

If you have no CAGE code, answer no and one is assigned after you submit. SAM.gov validates your name and address; if it cannot, you open a help ticket from the page and continue once the UEI is issued.

The 11 steps from Login.gov to an active SAM.gov registration

GSA's entity validation deck lays the process out in order:

1 Sign in to SAM.gov 2 Get Started 3 Validate Your Entity 4 Receive Unique Entity ID 5 Start Registration 6 Complete All Sections 7 Submit Registration 8 IRS Validation 9 CAGE Validation 10 Registration Active 11 Renew Registration (365 days after submission)

Your SAM.gov account is a Login.gov account. Validation independently checks that your entity exists and is unique; it runs on first registration, every renewal, and any name or address change. When validation needs documents, GSA reports an average of 14 business days to resolve the ticket once correct documents are in. After you submit, the IRS taxpayer match and the CAGE check take 7 to 12 business days, and SAM.gov tells you to allow up to 10 business days for a registration to become active. Emails come from fsdsupport@gsa.gov. Start the renewal well before the 365-day mark, because validation runs before a renewal too.

Choosing your NAICS codes as a construction contractor

Sector 23 splits by what you are responsible for. Subsector 236, Construction of Buildings, is for general contractors and for-sale builders responsible for whole buildings. Subsector 237, Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction, covers engineering projects such as highways and utility lines. Subsector 238, Specialty Trade Contractors, is for firms that perform a component: concrete, framing, masonry, roofing, electrical, plumbing and HVAC, finishes, site preparation. Two edge cases the Census Bureau spells out: traffic signal installation is 238210 with electrical work, and excavation, grading, and demolition are 238910, Site Preparation Contractors.

Your primary NAICS also sets your small business size standard. Per the 13 CFR 121.201 edition current as of January 1, 2025, the specialty trade codes in 238 carry a $19.0 million standard (238290, Other Building Equipment Contractors, is $22.0 million), and the 236 and 237 codes carry $45.0 million, with land subdivision at $34.0 million. The measure is average annual receipts, which SBA defines as total income plus cost of goods sold from your tax returns, averaged over your latest five complete fiscal years, including affiliates. A firm under five years old divides its total receipts by weeks in business and multiplies by 52.

After SAM.gov: the registrations that do not carry over

SAM.gov covers federal work only. State departments of transportation, cities, counties, and transit agencies keep their own vendor lists and their own disadvantaged, minority, and women-owned business certifications. In Missouri that means MoDOT vendor registration and MissouriBUYS for state purchasing. In Illinois, the Illinois Unified Certification Program takes one DBE application for all of its members, and the Business Enterprise Program is a separate state certification. Federal set-aside certifications (8(a), HUBZone, WOSB, VetCert) are separate applications through SBA Certifications, a free online process.

Free help exists. APEX Accelerators, the DoD-funded centers formerly called PTACs, assist firms pursuing federal, state, and local contracts at any tier, and the DoD program announcement states that most of the assistance they provide is free. Find the nearest one at apexaccelerators.us.