Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and the voice in President Biden’s Cabinet for America’s more than 34 million small businesses, announced that small businesses received more than $183 billion in prime contracts from the federal government – 28.8% of all federal contracting dollars – in fiscal year 2024, which ended September 30, 2024.
The prime contracts are awarded to small businesses to work directly with the government. And these prime contracting awards exceeded the federal government’s 23% small business contracting goal and broke last year’s record of $178 billion in prime contracts going to small businesses.
Along with the record-breaking totals, the preliminary prime contracting numbers reveal that small and disadvantaged businesses received $78.1 billion, another record surpassing FY23. Service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses received the highest amount at $32.8 billion. Nearly all categories tracked continued to see a year-over-year (YoY) increase in federal contracts for goods and services.
Aligning with the Biden-Harris Administration’s goals, SBA Administrator Guzman has led a multi-year commitment to expand small businesses’ access to federal contracting and modernize the customer experience to better compete for government contracts, which can help boost their revenue and growth. Under her leadership, the SBA made transformational reforms to its training, certifications, and regulations to better position small businesses to bid and win contracts to take advantage of the more than $630 billion in federal contracting opportunities.
These recent actions include the launch of two new online tools to assist small businesses with securing federal contracts:
— MySBA Certifications, a streamlined federal contracting certification tool launched in late 2024, allows small business owners to apply for multiple federal contracting certifications through one secure login and with a single application. It built on and enhanced the agency’s successful launch of VetCert in 2023, a streamlined application system for veterans and service-disabled veterans. Previously, SBA’s small business certification programs ran through four separate systems and different teams with distinct applications, compliance, and review procedures. Before launching MySBA Certifications, SBA cleared a backlog of applications to certify 18,219 small businesses – a single-year record and a nearly 40% increase over FY23.
— GovCon Match helps small businesses find federal government agencies interested in buying the small business’ products or services. Developed in cooperation with the University of Virginia’s School of Data Science, GovCon Match uses a custom algorithm to find agencies most likely to contract with small businesses.
Looking to create more contracting opportunities for small businesses, SBA recently proposed regulatory changes to increase small-business participation on multiple-award contracts and in subcontracting. And these follow regulatory updates to the Historically Underutilized Business Zone program for businesses that operate in HUBZones.
The SBA also launched two new in-person cohort-style training programs for small, disadvantaged businesses and Veteran Owned 8(a) firms through the Empower to Grow Program, a virtual and in-person coaching and training program to help disadvantaged small businesses grow in the federal marketplace.
As a follow-on to the FY24 data, the SBA has also released the FY25 agency contracting goals for federal agencies detailing how much of their contracting dollars should be awarded to small businesses. And in setting these goals, the agency continued to press forward for reaching President Biden’s goal of 15% for small, disadvantaged companies by 2025. Each agency has individual prime contracting and subcontracting small business goals, which may differ from government-wide goals.
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, the SBA also started releasing disaggregated data tracking the federal government’s contracting with small and minority-owned firms broken down across several racial and ethnic categories – a move advocated by Administrator Guzman to promote transparency and accountability in contracting.
KEY QUOTE:
“Four straight years of increased small business contracting opportunities reflects the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to leveling the playing field for small businesses looking to do business with the federal government – the world’s largest buyer of goods and services. While there is more work to be done to ensure more entrepreneurs can share in this growth, the SBA celebrates the record levels of small business contracting achieved over the course of this historic presidential administration.”
– SBA Administrator Guzman
