Federal contract recompetes: how to find them before the solicitation
There is no published list of future recompetes, and anyone selling you one is selling you a guess. What exists is public and specific: the date every federal prime contract’s current period of performance ends, in the government’s own spending record, years ahead of the notice. This page is about how to read that, and what it does not tell you.
238,660 contracts end within 365 days in the data as of October 21, 2026.
The timeline, as the record shows it
- Award. The contract is signed with a period of performance and, usually, option years. Both are in the USAspending record from that day.
- Option exercised, or not. An exercised option extends the contract without a competition and moves the end date. This is why an end date is a date, not a verdict: it can move.
- The agency decides. Recompete, extend, consolidate into a larger vehicle, insource, or stop buying. Nothing in the award record says which, and the decision is taken before anything is published.
- Market research, then the notice. Sources sought and RFI notices come first, then the solicitation, on SAM.gov. By then the requirement is written, and the incumbent has been part of the conversation.
The gap between step one and step four is where capture work happens, and it is the only part of the sequence that is public from the start. That is the whole thesis of this site.
The five signals, and what they are worth
Each expiring contract collects points from fixed rules applied to fields in its award record. The arithmetic is public, the total is capped at 100, and every alert and every row shows which rules fired, in words.
- +40the same vendor has held at least two consecutive awards with this agency and NAICS
- +20at least one option has already been exercised
- +15competition was limited, or two or fewer offers were received
- +15a set-aside applies
- +10the current end date is also the potential end date, so no option periods are left
A high score means those signals are present. It is not a probability, it is not a forecast, and it is not generated by a language model — the AI disclosure says exactly what runs where.
Who prepares for a recompete, and when
- The incumbent starts first: it knows its own end date and talks to the customer every week. Its advantage is time.
- A challenger needs that time too. Capture teams commonly start a year or more before the solicitation, because the requirement, the evaluation criteria and the set-aside decision are shaped by market research that happens before anything is posted.
- Teaming partners and subcontractors join a prime’s team months ahead of the bid. Knowing which contracts end in your code is how you are on a team when it forms.
A recompete checklist, from the public record
- List the contracts ending in your NAICS codes and in the states where you can perform: the NAICS directory has a page per code and per state.
- Open the award on USAspending: the incumbent, what has been obligated, the contracting office, and whether options have been exercised.
- Check the competition fields: a set-aside, limited competition or few offers changes who can bid and how hard it will be.
- Watch SAM.gov for a sources sought notice or an RFI from that office, and answer it: that is where the requirement is still being shaped.
- Talk to the agency’s small business office and the contracting office before the solicitation, while questions are still welcome.
How Findingbase alerts you
You choose your NAICS codes, your states, how far ahead to look (90, 180 or 365 days) and a minimum contract size. A weekly or daily email lists every contract that has entered that window since the last one, soonest first: the incumbent, the agency, the place of performance, the end date and the days left, the amount, the renewal score with the rules that fired, and the award identifier to open on USAspending. The first step of the checklist is done for you, and the score’s reasons answer part of the second and third.
Recompetes: common questions
What is a federal contract recompete?
A recompete is a new competition for work an agency is already buying, held when the current contract reaches the end of its period of performance. The incumbent has to win it again; everyone else is bidding against somebody who has been doing the job and talking to the customer. It is not the same as a new requirement, and it is not the same as an option year, which extends the existing contract without a competition.
How early can you see a recompete coming?
The end date is in the award record from the day the contract is signed, so it is visible years ahead in USAspending. What is not visible is the agency’s decision: whether to recompete, extend, consolidate the requirement into a larger vehicle, or stop buying it. That decision is normally taken and the requirement written well before a solicitation appears on SAM.gov, which is why the end date is the earlier signal.
How many contracts are coming up for recompete?
Nobody can say, and a service that quotes you a number is quoting you the wrong one. What can be counted is what ends: 238,660 prime contracts reach the end of their current period of performance within 365 days, 79,058 of them within 90. Some fraction of those will be recompeted. The award record does not say which.
Does Findingbase predict which contracts will be recompeted?
No. It scores each expiring contract with five fixed, published rules applied to fields in the award record, and shows which rules fired on every row. There is no model and no machine learning in the scoring. A high score means the signals of a renewal are present, not that a recompete is certain, and a contract that has not been through scoring is shown as not yet scored rather than as a zero.
How is this different from an agency forecast of contracting opportunities?
A forecast is what an agency says it plans to buy; many publish one, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Homeland Security among them. It is worth reading, but it lists only what the agency chose to announce, when it chose to. The end dates come from the award records of every prime contract, whether or not a forecast mentions them. Read the two together: a contract ending in your code that also appears in the forecast is probably a recompete the agency has started to plan.
Where do the solicitations appear?
On SAM.gov, which is the government’s own system and free. Findingbase does not publish solicitations, does not sell contracts and is not affiliated with any agency: it watches the end dates in USAspending so that you are looking at the right agency before the notice is posted.
Watch your own codes
Pick your NAICS codes and states once and get a weekly or daily email of what has entered your window: the incumbent, the agency, the end date, the amount, and the score with its reasons. No sales call, and one-click unsubscribe on every message.
Sign-in is by emailed link; there is no password. Current prices are read live from the billing records.
See also: expiring federal contracts by industry and state · pricing.