What is a federal prime award?

An award is the continuing contractual instrument or assistance relationship. Transactions are the reported actions that create or modify it, such as an initial obligation, option exercise, funding action, or deobligation.

Adding transaction amounts without respecting the award structure can double count or misstate the relationship. USAspending groups transactions under generated award identifiers so users can review both the award and its action history.

A prime award runs directly from the federal agency to the recipient. A subaward or subcontract runs from the prime recipient to another party. The subrecipient or subcontractor is not the federal agency's direct counterparty for that lower-tier relationship.

One entity can receive its own prime awards while also appearing under other organizations' reported subawards. Each record should retain the role, prime award identifier, and recipient UEI.

A contract's potential value, current award amount, and federal obligations answer different questions. Obligations record amounts the government has legally committed through reported actions. A ceiling or potential amount may include options or capacity that has not been obligated.

A contractor profile should state which measure it aggregates. federal.contractors uses observed award data and labels monetary fields rather than presenting every amount as money already paid.

A profile receives the Federal Contractor classification when a prime procurement award is observed for its UEI. The profile preserves award identifiers, agencies, dates, NAICS and PSC fields, amounts, and source-specific update dates so the classification can be traced to public records.