Federal contracting has its own vocabulary, and most of it is worse than the idea underneath it. Here is what the words actually mean. We use the real terms rather than friendlier substitutes, because you will meet these everywhere else and you should not be locked out of the conversation.
The single most important idea here, and the one most people miss.
A long-term agreement between an agency and a pre-approved list of companies. Think of it as an approved-supplier list with a spending limit attached. Once you are on it, the government can buy from you directly — no public competition, no proposal requested.
They typically run five to ten years. If you are not on the list, that money is not reachable, however good you are. It is not lost on merit; it was never offered.
Why it matters: about 71% of federal contract dollars move this way. Outsiders break into that work under 2% of the time. Most firms losing at federal contracting are not losing bids — they are competing for the small slice that reaches open competition and never realizing the rest exists.
Also written as IDV, IDIQ, GWAC or BPA. Same idea, different flavours.
A standalone contract, competed in the open. The kind an outsider can actually bid on.
Only about 0.5% of federal award actions — but they carry 20% of the dollars, and they let newcomers in 46% of the time, versus under 2% for work ordered off a vehicle. This is the door.
An order placed against a contract vehicle that already exists. You will see these in the data as huge sums of money — and they are not available to you unless you hold a place on the underlying vehicle.
A six-digit number classifying what your business does. 236220 is commercial building construction; 541519 is other computer services.
It describes your paperwork, not your capability. Seven out of ten small businesses win in exactly one code and earn a median of $60,804 a year. Firms winning in two clear $272,490. Your code is where you are registered, not the limit of what you can do.
A second classification, but for what is being bought rather than who sells it. Finer-grained than the industry code, and often a better signal of whether work suits you.
The government's request for bids — an RFP, RFQ or invitation to bid. It has a closing date, after which nothing you submit counts.
Different ways of saying the buyer already decided who is getting the work and wrote a justification for it.
These often look like wonderful opportunities — one bidder, easy win — and they are nothing of the sort. We label them Restricted rather than letting them sit on your list looking winnable.
Contracts reserved for a category of small business — women-owned, veteran-owned, HUBZone, 8(a), and so on.
Counterintuitive but measured: set-asides generally attract more competition, not less. Across 2.8M federal awards, unrestricted work drew a single bidder 52.6% of the time; small business set-asides only 14.0%. Fencing off an opportunity herds every certified firm in the country into the same pen. Your certification is worth having — it is just a poor search filter.
The exception is 8(a), which goes single-bidder 99.9% of the time — because it is largely a sole-source authority rather than a competition. That is not a contradiction; it is the same rule read the other way round.
An existing contract reaching the end of its term and being bid again. For work locked behind a vehicle, the recompete is frequently the only realistic way in — and if you miss it, the next chance may be a decade away.
Your record of completed government contracts. It is a scored factor on serious solicitations, which is why small jobs matter more than they look: nine contracts at $52,000 total about the same money as one at $468,000, but leave you with nine entries on your record instead of one.
How many companies bid. This is the number we predict. Two or fewer means you had a real chance; fifteen means you were making up the numbers. The government publishes it after the award, which is how we can check whether we were right.