Search Federal Contracts

search_federal_contracts — broad search of U.S. federal contract awards / signed obligations / USAspending.gov cross-recipient discovery. Combine any filters — awarding agency, NAICS code, PSC code, keywords, obligation value range, contract start-date range, small-business set-aside type, recipient name/UEI — and get back matching awards with recipient, agency/sub-agency, obligated dollar amount, contract type, dates, and place of performance. Results are ranked by amount or date.

Use this when you want to discover awards by criteria rather than for one known company — e.g. "which vendors won DoD cybersecurity contracts over $10M?", "recent NAICS 541512 awards", "small-business set-aside awards from the VA", or "who holds contracts with the Department of Energy?".

Do NOT use this when: (1) you already know the company and want ITS contract footprint — use company_contracts; (2) you want OPEN solicitations / RFPs still open for bids — use search_gov_opportunities or company_gov_opportunities; (3) you want a company's prime/sub teaming network — use company_gov_relationships.

Requires the SAM.gov (Data.gov) integration to be configured.

Credits

1 — Per call. See the full credit table for how AI Credits work.

Parameters

Name	Type	Default	Description
recipientName	string	-	Recipient (awardee) company name, partial/fuzzy match, e.g. "Lockheed Martin". For a single known company prefer company_contracts; use recipientUei here for an exact match.
recipientUei	string	-	Exact 12-character SAM.gov Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) of the recipient. Use for a precise match instead of fuzzy recipientName; takes precedence when both are given.
awardingAgency	string	-	Awarding agency name to filter by, e.g. "Department of Defense" or "Department of Veterans Affairs".
naicsCode	string	-	6-digit NAICS industry code to filter by, e.g. "541512" (Computer Systems Design Services). Look codes up with search_industries_naics_sic if unknown.
pscCode	string	-	Product/Service Code (PSC) to filter by, e.g. "D310" (IT & telecom — cyber security). Categorizes what was bought, complementary to naicsCode.
keywords	string	-	Free-text terms matched against contract descriptions, e.g. "cybersecurity" or "cloud migration".
minAmount	number	-	Minimum total obligated amount in USD (inclusive), e.g. 10000000 for $10M+ awards.
maxAmount	number	-	Maximum total obligated amount in USD (inclusive).
start_date_after	string	-	Only awards whose period-of-performance start date is on/after this date (ISO "YYYY-MM-DD", e.g. "2024-01-01").
start_date_before	string	-	Only awards whose period-of-performance start date is on/before this date (ISO "YYYY-MM-DD").
setAsideType	string	-	Small-business set-aside type code, e.g. "SBA" (Total Small Business), "8A", "WOSB", "HZC" (HUBZone). Omit to include all award types.
limit	integer	50	Maximum number of awards to return (1-100, default 50).
offset	integer	0	Number of awards to skip for pagination, in the current sort order (default 0).
sort_by	string	amount	Ranking field: "amount" (obligated dollar value) or "date" (award start date). Default "amount".
sort_direction	string	DESC	Sort direction for sort_by: "DESC" (largest/most recent first) or "ASC". Default "DESC".

Required Integrations

This tool is only available when your organization has the following integration configured in the HG Insights Integrations settings:

• SAM.gov (Data.gov) (datagov)

Use Cases

• Which vendors won the largest federal awards in a NAICS category? — naicsCode + sort_by:amount
• Recent Department of Defense cybersecurity awards — awardingAgency + keywords + sort_by:date
• Find $10M+ federal awards across all recipients — minAmount, ranked by obligation
• Small-business set-aside awards from a given agency — setAsideType + awardingAgency
• All federal awards to a recipient by exact UEI (no fuzzy name match) — recipientUei

Example Usage

Largest Computer Systems Design (NAICS 541512) awards over $10M

{
  "tool": "search_federal_contracts",
  "arguments": {
    "naicsCode": "541512",
    "minAmount": 10000000,
    "sort_by": "amount",
    "limit": 10
  }
}

Recent DoD cybersecurity awards

{
  "tool": "search_federal_contracts",
  "arguments": {
    "awardingAgency": "Department of Defense",
    "keywords": "cybersecurity",
    "sort_by": "date",
    "limit": 10
  }
}

IT-services (PSC D310) awards after 2024, by date

{
  "tool": "search_federal_contracts",
  "arguments": {
    "pscCode": "D310",
    "start_date_after": "2024-01-01",
    "sort_by": "date"
  }
}

Response Format

Field	Type	Description
totalCount	number	Total matching contracts
contracts	array	List of federal contract awards matching the search criteria
contracts[].awardId	string
contracts[].recipientName	string
contracts[].recipientUei	string
contracts[].awardingAgency	string
contracts[].awardingSubAgency	string
contracts[].totalObligation	number
contracts[].totalObligationFormatted	string
contracts[].startDate	string
contracts[].endDate	string
contracts[].contractType	string
contracts[].naicsCode	string
contracts[].naicsDescription	string
contracts[].pscCode	string
contracts[].pscDescription	string
contracts[].setAsideType	string
contracts[].placeOfPerformance	object
contracts[].placeOfPerformance.city	string
contracts[].placeOfPerformance.state	string
contracts[].placeOfPerformance.country	string
contracts[].description	string
hasMore	boolean	Whether more results are available

Related Tools

company_contracts, search_gov_opportunities, company_gov_opportunities, company_gov_relationships, search_companies