Guide

Federal contracting terms, in plain words

The words on a notice, explained for a company bidding for the first time, each with the official source where a number or a rule matters. Read a notice page on this site with this open and nothing on it should need a second tab.

Last reviewed 27 October 2026

Four groups: who may bid, the kinds of notice, what is inside the documents, and the money and the market. Where a term has a guide of its own on this site, it is linked.

Who may bid

NAICS code: A six digit industry code from the North American Industry Classification System. Every notice carries one, and it decides which size standard applies. Your SAM.gov registration lists the codes you work under; a notice in a code you do not hold can still be bid, but the fit is yours to argue. NAICS search, Census Bureau.
Size standard: The ceiling, in average annual receipts or in employees, under which a business counts as small for a given NAICS code. It is set by the SBA, code by code, and a set-aside is open only to firms under the standard of the code on the notice. 13 CFR 121.201, the table of size standards.
Set-aside: A notice reserved for a group of businesses: small businesses, 8(a) firms, HUBZone firms, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSB), or women-owned small businesses (WOSB and EDWOSB). If the notice is set aside for a status you do not hold, you cannot win it as the prime contractor, however good the fit. SBA contracting assistance programs.
UEI: The Unique Entity ID, twelve letters and digits, that SAM.gov assigns when you register. It replaced the DUNS number in 2022 and is how agencies and award records identify your company. SAM.gov.
SAM.gov registration: The free registration every federal contractor needs before an award, renewed every year. It holds your UEI, your NAICS codes, your representations and certifications, and your banking details for payment. Nobody needs to be paid to register you. Entity registration, SAM.gov.
CAGE code: The Commercial and Government Entity code, five characters, assigned during SAM.gov registration. Forms and contracts ask for it beside the UEI.

The notices

Solicitation: The agency's formal request for offers, with the documents that define the work and the rules for bidding. An RFP (request for proposals) is scored on more than price; an RFQ (request for quotations) is usually simpler and smaller; an IFB (invitation for bids) is sealed bidding, lowest price wins.
Combined synopsis/solicitation: A notice that is the whole solicitation in one, used for commercial items under FAR Part 12. The requirements that would otherwise be in Sections L and M sit in addenda to clauses 52.212-1 and 52.212-2.
Presolicitation: A notice that a solicitation is coming, usually within weeks. It carries the NAICS code and often the set-aside, which is enough to decide whether to prepare.
Sources Sought: Market research: the agency asks who could do the work before it decides how to buy it, including whether to set it aside. There is nothing to bid, and answering is how small firms shape the set-aside decision. Our guide to Sources Sought notices.
Amendment: A change to a solicitation after it posts: a moved deadline, a changed set-aside, new attachments, answers to questions. Most must be acknowledged in your offer, often on Standard Form 30, and a missed amendment is a common way to be thrown out.
Questions deadline: The date by which bidders may send questions to the contracting officer, usually well before offers are due. The answers come back as an amendment for everybody to see.
Period of performance: The dates the work runs between. Many contracts have a base period and option years the agency may exercise, so the end date on an award record can move.

Inside the documents

Statement of work (SOW, PWS, SOO): The description of the work itself. A performance work statement (PWS) describes results rather than methods; a statement of objectives (SOO) leaves the approach to the bidder. Here a "shall" is a promise you make about the work.
Section L and Section M: In the uniform contract format, Section L is the instructions to offerors (volumes, page limits, how and where to submit) and Section M is how offers are evaluated and in what order of importance. Both belong on a compliance checklist. Our guide to the compliance checklist.
FAR: The Federal Acquisition Regulation, the rules every federal purchase follows, cited by part and clause number (52.212-1, 52.219-14). Agencies add supplements of their own, such as the DFARS for defense. The FAR, acquisition.gov.
Wage determination: A schedule of minimum wages and fringe benefits the Department of Labor sets for named labor categories in a named place, under the Service Contract Act or the Davis-Bacon Act. On a covered contract your labor rates are set by law, not by you. Our guide to wage determinations.
LPTA and best value: Two ways offers are judged. Lowest price technically acceptable: every offer that meets the minimum is ranked by price alone. Best value trade-off: the agency may pay more for a better technical offer, and Section M says how much the technical factors weigh.
Compliance matrix: The list of every requirement the solicitation places on your offer, where each is written, and where your proposal answers it. It is how a team makes sure a good proposal is not thrown out unread for a missed form or a page over the limit.

The money and the market

FFP, T&M, IDIQ: Firm fixed price: one price for the work, whatever it costs you. Time and materials: paid by the hour at agreed rates plus materials. Indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity: a contract that sets terms, with the work ordered later as task or delivery orders.
Contract vehicle: A contract that orders are placed under rather than competed from scratch: IDIQs, government-wide acquisition contracts (GWACs), the GSA Multiple Award Schedule, blanket purchase agreements. Holding one, or teaming with a holder, is often the way in.
Incumbent: The contractor doing the work now. Award records on USASpending.gov name the incumbent, the amount and the period of performance, which is how you know when the work comes up again. USASpending.gov.
Recompete: A contract that is ending and whose work the agency expects to buy again, usually through a new solicitation. The end date is public, so there is a year to prepare rather than a week. How InstantSam tracks recompetes.
Past performance: Your record of similar work: who the customer was, what it was worth, when it ran, and who will take the reference call. Agencies record their own view of contractors in CPARS, the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System.
Contracting officer: The government official with the authority to sign a contract, often written CO or KO. Questions about a solicitation go to the contracting officer named on it, by the questions deadline, and only the contracting officer's written answers count.
Debrief and protest: After an award, an unsuccessful bidder may ask for a debriefing on how its offer was evaluated, within the days the FAR allows. A protest challenges the award itself, to the agency or the Government Accountability Office, and has strict deadlines of its own. Bid protests, GAO.

General explanations of how federal contracting works, not legal advice. Where a rule or a number decides something for you, the source linked beside it is the authority.

Read a solicitation with every term already explained

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