How the Agency spend numbers work
Before you chase an agency, you need to know what it signs, who wins that work, and what is about to come back to market. The Agency spend page answers those questions from public records. We describe what agencies bought. We don't score agencies, rate your chances, or predict awards.
Where the numbers come from
Every contract figure comes from USAspending.gov, the U.S. Treasury's public record of federal awards and payments. Planned purchases come from the agency's own published forecast.
We count contracts only: purchase orders, task and delivery orders, BPA (blanket purchase agreement) calls, and stand-alone contracts. Grants, loans, and direct payments are left out.
Most figures cover one federal fiscal year, October 1 to September 30. FY2025 is October 2024 through September 2025. By default we show the latest fiscal year that ended at least 120 days ago, so late records don't shrink the view.
Numbers can be up to a day old. If USAspending is down, we show the last numbers we have, up to a week old.
Two kinds of money: signed and paid
Signed is money an agency has committed on a contract. Government reports call this an obligation. It is recorded for every award and change, so it adds up cleanly by year. Every total on the page is signed money.
Paid is money the agency has actually sent to the contractor. Government reports call this an outlay. It comes from agency accounting systems, not contract records, and it is less complete.
Money is signed up front and paid as the contractor bills, so paid often trails signed. One order at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services started in December 2022 and ends in December 2026. In the latest records it shows $29.6 million signed and $28.5 million paid, which shows reported payments rather than how much work remains.
When we show paid amounts
Paid amounts appear in one place: the list of large contracts ending in the next 12 months. There they show reported payment progress. Payments alone do not show how much work remains or whether the agency will buy it again.
We show a paid amount only when all three of these are true:
- You have picked an agency that links its contract and financial records. Each quarter, USAspending counts contracts matched to agency financial records. A match does not guarantee that a payment is reported. We use the latest quarter. At 90% or more, we show paid amounts. From 60% to 90%, we show them with a note that some are missing. Below 60%, or if we can't check, we leave them out and say why. For the quarter ending June 2026, Health and Human Services matched about 93%, Veterans Affairs about 6%, and Defense about 4%.
- The contract started on or after October 1, 2021. Agencies weren't required to report payments on all contracts until FY2022. Older contracts show "Not reported before FY2022."
- A payment is on record. If it is missing, zero, or negative, we show "Not reported." A zero does not prove that nothing was paid.
If paid is more than signed, we show the paid amount and "(all of it)."
We never add payments across many contracts to report a share paid for an agency or an industry. That total would mix finished contracts, new ones, and contracts with missing records, and it would measure reporting gaps more than payment.
What each number means
| On the page | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Read the summary | Three or four sentences built from the figures below. |
| Signed in FY | Money signed in the chosen industry and agency during the year, compared with the year before. |
| Went to small businesses | The share of signed money that went to firms listed as small businesses, overall and for new awards. |
| New awards | Contracts and orders first signed during the year, and the money signed on them. The rest went to options and changes on work already under way. |
| Through existing contracts | The share of signed money that went out as orders on contracts firms already hold, such as BPAs and multiple-award contracts. To win these, a firm needs that contract or a partner who has it. A new order counts here and under New awards, so the two overlap. |
| Who can win here | Signed money by set-aside program. The gray "Unclassified records" row includes amounts outside the listed categories. These may include orders whose set-aside is recorded on a parent contract, missing codes, or other set-aside codes. "Open to any firm" means no set-aside. "Awarded without competition" includes 8(a) sole-source awards. |
| How big the jobs are | Contracts with any activity during the year, grouped by how much has been signed on each so far. The first band ends at the simplified acquisition threshold: $250,000 through FY2025, $350,000 from FY2026. Below it, agencies can use simpler, faster buying steps. |
| Ending in the next 12 months | From the 100 largest contracts active in the current or past fiscal year, the 10 that end soonest within a year of today. This list follows today's date, whatever year you pick. Its signed and paid amounts are totals over each contract's life, not for one year. Options can extend an end date. Planned purchases from the agency's forecast appear below it. |
| When contracts are signed | Signed money by month. Contracts are usually signed months after the notice goes out, so watch for notices well before the busy months. |
| Firms signed the most and Small firms that signed the most here | Firms ranked by money signed to them during the year: all firms, and firms listed as small businesses. Names link to USAspending.gov profiles. |
| Breakdowns | Top buyers, industries, agency divisions, places of work, and signed money by year. Most percentages are shares of the top 10 shown. For an agency's industries, they are shares of everything the agency signed. |
Known limits
- Records arrive late. Most agencies report contract actions within about five days. Defense and the Army Corps of Engineers hold records for 90 days, so recent months look smaller than they will.
- Signed money counts toward the agency that signed the contract. GSA and Veterans Affairs buy for other agencies, so their totals include work done for those agencies.
- "Small business" uses USAspending's label, which partly relies on what firms say about their own size in SAM.gov. A firm's size on an order is usually its size when the parent contract was awarded.
- End dates are the current ones. A contract can be extended or ended early.
- Very small purchases are often missing. Many buys under $15,000 ($10,000 before FY2026) are made by government card and never appear as contracts.
- Agencies correct their records, so past figures can change.
Sources
- USAspending.gov and its data dictionary
- USAspending data sources and award linkage
- OMB Memorandum M-20-21, which set the FY2022 start for reporting payments on all awards
- Federal Acquisition Regulation 2.101, thresholds as adjusted on October 1, 2025
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Contract-linkage figures last checked October 27, 2026.