How to find federal recompetes 6 months before they hit SAM.gov
By the time a solicitation appears on SAM.gov, the agency has usually written its requirements and met the vendors who asked early. The earlier signal is public: every awarded federal contract has a current end date in USAspending.gov. A contract that ends in the next 6 to 18 months, with no options left, is the next recompete.
How many are there?
These are live counts from Awardtide on 8 October 2026, for contracts whose current period ends within 6 months (USAspending data built 3 Oct 2026, 44,905 contracts):
| NAICS | Contracts ending | Total potential value |
|---|---|---|
| 541330 Engineering services | 2,543 | $67.7 billion |
| 561210 Facilities support | 709 | $59.0 billion |
| 541512 Computer systems design | 1,077 | $58.7 billion |
| 236220 Commercial building construction | 1,694 | $25.7 billion |
| 541611 Management consulting | 970 | $15.9 billion |
| 541511 Custom programming | 741 | $16.8 billion |
Potential value is the award's total value including options, not what is left to spend. Still, the point stands: in one NAICS code there are hundreds of contracts coming up, far more than any small team can chase.
Try it: contracts ending in NAICS 541512 (free)
Narrow it to the ones you can win
- Your NAICS, a 6-month window. Start narrow. 12 months is for planning; 6 months is for action.
- Set-aside. In 541512, 116 of the 1,077 were set aside for small businesses last time. Agencies often keep the same set-aside on the follow-on, so those are the first ones a small firm should read.
- The incumbent. A large incumbent on a small-business set-aside may have outgrown the size standard. A small incumbent that was acquired may no longer qualify.
- The office. The contracting office on each row is who to contact. Offices that buy the same service every few years are a relationship worth starting now.
- The award record. Each row links to the official USAspending page: read the options and modifications before you decide.
Real rows, 8 Oct 2026, NAICS 541512, small-business set-asides ending soonest:
| Ends | Agency | Incumbent | Potential value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-11 | Defense Information Systems Agency | Bluestone Logic, LLC | $18.5 million |
| 2026-10-15 | Internal Revenue Service | At-Impact LLC | $15.5 million |
| 2026-10-17 | GSA Office of Administrative Services | FedTec LLC | $13.3 million |
| 2026-10-31 | Internal Revenue Service | RightDirection Technology Solutions, LLC | $61.5 million |
Contracts that end this month are mostly decided already (extensions, bridges or awards in progress). Use them to learn who buys what; put your effort on the ones 6 to 12 months out.
Do it every week, not once
New awards and modifications move end dates all the time. Save the filter and check what is new each week: a short list of fresh matches is easier to act on than a spreadsheet of 1,000 rows. Awardtide Radar Pro keeps 25 saved filters and sends a weekly feed of new matches.
If you want to do it yourself, the USAspending API (/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/) supports end-date filters; expect to page through results and dedupe task orders against their parent vehicles.
Related: Find expiring federal contracts by NAICS (free search).