Blog / 2026-10-22
Federal contracting data sources: where the data lives in 2026
If you work in capture or marketing for a defense or space company, most of what you know about a pursuit starts in a handful of public systems. Several of them changed in 2025 and 2026. Here is where the data lives now and what each source is good for.
SAM.gov: registration, opportunities and contract awards
SAM.gov, the System for Award Management, is where companies register to be eligible for federal prime awards. USAspending.gov uses it as the authoritative source of recipient names and codes.1 It is also where agencies post Contract Opportunities, and GSA has linked opportunities, contract awards and subaward reporting inside the same site.2
The biggest recent change is contract award search. GSA decommissioned the ezSearch function on FPDS.gov on February 24, 2026. SAM.gov is now the authoritative location to search federal contract award data, and all the data previously available in FPDS.gov is available there.23 You need a SAM.gov account to view results, though no special role is required.2
According to GSA, the award records cover publicly available information about all unclassified contract actions above the micro-purchase threshold, plus modifications that change previously reported data.2
The Contract Awards API
If your team pulled data from the old FPDS ATOM feed, GSA replaced it with the SAM.gov Contract Awards API, documented on open.gsa.gov, and advised users to move to the API.23
USAspending.gov: public, no account needed
For anyone who does not want a SAM.gov account, GSA notes that the data remains available to the public on USAspending.gov.3 USAspending.gov publishes federal award data starting from fiscal year 2001.4
It assembles data from several systems. Contract transactions come from FPDS as File D1. Executive compensation and recipient data come from SAM.gov as File E. Subaward data comes from SAM.gov as File F, since the FFATA Subaward Reporting System was retired on March 8, 2025.15
NAICS codes: the shared vocabulary
NAICS, the North American Industry Classification System, is the standard U.S. federal statistical agencies use to classify business establishments.6 FPDS contract records include an industry (NAICS) field, which makes NAICS one of the simplest ways to connect a company's capabilities to the work an agency buys.1
What each source answers
- Who can win this work? Registration and entity data in SAM.gov.
- What is the agency buying now? Contract Opportunities in SAM.gov.
- Who holds the work today, and when might it recompete? Contract award data in SAM.gov, or USAspending.gov without an account.
- Who are the subcontractors? Subaward data, published on USAspending.gov.
From records to a shared view
These systems record transactions. They do not tell your marketing team which pursuit capture is working on, or which audiences matter to it. That is the gap Account Signal Intelligence is built for. Aperture, Trihelix's federal contracting data source for defense and space, follows contracts, incumbents, agencies, recompete windows and NAICS codes daily, and Refraction connects that context with your own data.
Sources
- USAspending.gov, Data Sources.
- GSA / SAM.gov, Contract Award Data in SAM.gov.
- GSA bulletin, FPDS.gov Decommissions on February 24, 2026 (February 9, 2026).
- USAspending.gov, About the Data (PDF).
- Treasury Financial Manual, Chapter 6000, Agency Reporting Requirements for USAspending.gov.
- U.S. Census Bureau, North American Industry Classification System.