How to Look Up a Federal Contract Award

Start with what you already know

Federal award lookups almost always begin with one piece of information. The fastest path depends on which one you have. If you have a company name, search the name. If you have a five-character CAGE code or a twelve-character Unique Entity ID (UEI), those identify a specific business and lead straight to its profile. If you have a procurement identifier (PIID) printed on a contract document, that points to a specific award.

If you do not have any identifier yet — for example, you only know an agency or an industry — you can browse by awarding agency, by NAICS industry code, or by Product and Service Code (PSC). Each of those groups awards so you can scan for the company or contract you need.

Step 1 — Search or browse

Enter your term in the search box. Exact identifiers (CAGE, UEI, PIID) match a single record; company names and agency names may return several results. If you prefer to browse, open the contractor index, an agency page, or a NAICS/PSC category page and scan the list.

Step 2 — Open the matching profile

Each result links to a profile page. Award pages describe one contract action; company and UEI pages summarize all of an entity's awards in the dataset; agency, NAICS, and PSC pages summarize a category. The most important facts appear at the top of every page in a plain table so you can read them without scrolling.

Step 3 — Read the key facts

• Who received the award (recipient legal name, UEI, CAGE where available).
• Who awarded it (awarding agency, sub-agency, and contracting office).
• How much it is worth (obligated amount, current value, and potential ceiling).
• When it happened (action date and period of performance).
• What it is for (NAICS industry code and PSC product/service code).
• Where the work is performed (place of performance).

Step 4 — Confirm at the official source

Every award page links to the official source record. For decisions that matter — bids, due diligence, lending, or compliance — open that link and confirm the figures directly. Public datasets are summarized and can lag the official systems, so the source record is always the authority.

What to do when you get several results

Common company names can map to multiple legal entities. Disambiguate using the UEI or CAGE code, the city and state, and the awarding agency. Two businesses with similar names will have different UEIs; the UEI is the most reliable way to be sure you have the right entity.

A worked example: from a company name to a single award

Suppose you have a company name on an invoice and want to confirm its federal work. Start by searching the name. You will often get more than one result, because similar names exist and a parent company may have several registered entities. Open the contractor profile that matches the city and state you expect, and note its Unique Entity ID — that twelve-character code is the anchor for everything else.

From the contractor profile, scan the recent awards. Each row shows the awarding agency, the current value, and the action date. Pick the award you care about and open it. Now you are on a single award page with the full fact table: the procurement identifier (PIID), the recipient, the awarding agency and office, the obligated, current, and potential dollar figures, the period of performance, and the industry and product/service classifications.

Finally, follow the official source link at the top of the award page and compare the figures. If the obligated amount and the dates match, you have verified the award end to end — from a fuzzy company name to a confirmed, source-backed record.

Glossary of fields you will see

• PIID — the Procurement Instrument Identifier for a specific contract action.
• UEI — the 12-character Unique Entity ID for the recipient organization.
• CAGE — a 5-character code for a business location (often absent in award data).
• Obligated amount — money the government has committed so far.
• Current value — the current total, including exercised options where reported.
• Potential value — the ceiling if every option is exercised (not actual spending).
• NAICS — the industry classification assigned to the contract.
• PSC — the product or service code describing what was bought.
• Period of performance — the start and current end dates for the work.
• Place of performance — where the work is carried out.

Common mistakes when looking up awards

• Treating the potential ceiling as money spent — it is a maximum, often never reached.
• Matching on company name alone — confirm with the UEI to avoid name collisions.
• Assuming a missing CAGE code signals a problem — award data frequently omits it.
• Relying on a summarized figure for a decision — confirm it at the official source.
• Comparing an obligated amount on one award to a ceiling on another — compare like with like.

What a lookup does not tell you

A lookup shows the public, reported facts of an award. It does not show subcontracts issued underneath the prime contract, the quality of performance, evaluations or disputes, or any classified or redacted detail. It also reflects data as of the last update, so a very recent modification may not appear yet. Use a lookup to understand the shape of an award, and treat the official systems as the authority for anything you will rely on.

Frequently asked questions