How to find a company's subcontractors on USAspending.gov

USAspending.gov publishes the first-tier subcontracts that federal prime contractors report under the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA). Open Advanced Search, filter by the prime's name or UEI, switch the view from prime awards to subawards, and each row names a subrecipient, its UEI, the amount, the date and the prime award it sits under. You will see only what the prime reported: first-tier subcontracts at or above the FAR 4.1403(a) threshold, which is $40,000 as of October 21, 2026, and nothing from the tiers below.

This guide explains the rules as of October 21, 2026. It is not legal advice: the clauses in your contract decide what applies to you.

What USAspending.gov means by a subaward

USAspending.gov's glossary defines a sub-award as "an agreement that a prime recipient makes with another entity to perform a portion of their award. On our website, these recipients are known as sub-recipients. Sub-awards might also be referred to as a sub-contract or a sub-grant." Its sub-recipient entry gives an example: the Department of Transportation awards Bridge Company A a bridge construction contract, Bridge Company A awards Bridge Company B a sub-award to supply the steel, and Bridge Company B is the sub-contractor.

Two warnings in the same glossary matter for a supplier program. Sub-award amounts "are funded by prime award obligations and outlays", so "To avoid double-counting the overall value of a prime award, do not sum up sub-award amounts and prime award obligations or outlays." And the Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) is "an alphanumeric code created in the System for Award Management (SAM.gov)" that identifies the registered entity; it is the key that joins a USAspending row to a SAM.gov registration.

Who has to report subcontracts, and what

The reporting duty is in FAR clause 52.204-10, Reporting Executive Compensation and First-Tier Subcontract Awards (Jun 2020). Paragraph (b) says the Transparency Act "requires the Contractor to report information on subcontract awards. The law requires all reported information be made public, therefore, the Contractor is responsible for notifying its subcontractors that the required information will be made public."

Paragraph (d)(2) sets the trigger and the clock: "by the end of the month following the month of award of a first-tier subcontract valued at or above the threshold specified in FAR 4.1403(a) on the date of subcontract award, the Contractor shall report the following information". FAR 4.1403(a), as published on acquisition.gov under FAC 2026-01, puts the clause in "all solicitations and contracts of $40,000 or more", so that is the subcontract threshold too. Paragraph (e) adds that the contractor "shall not split or break down first-tier subcontract awards to a value below the threshold".

What counts as a first-tier subcontract is narrower than "every supplier". Paragraph (a) defines it as "a subcontract awarded directly by the Contractor for the purpose of acquiring supplies or services (including construction) for performance of a prime contract. It does not include the Contractor's supplier agreements with vendors, such as long-term arrangements for materials or supplies that benefit multiple contracts and/or the costs of which are normally applied to a Contractor's general and administrative expenses or indirect costs."

The clause text still names FSRS as the place to report. SAM.gov's subaward reporting page says: "As of March 8th 2025, FSRS.gov was retired, and all subaward reporting data and functionality are now on SAM.gov." and "Entities that need to report subawards will need a role in SAM.gov."

How to find subcontractors on USAspending.gov, step by step

1. Open Advanced Search at usaspending.gov/search. The filters are grouped under five headings: Time Period ("Find awards by specific date or date range"), Location, Sources ("Find awards by the source of funding (agency, Treasury Account Symbol, or Disaster Emergency Fund Code)"), Recipients ("Find awards by business, nonprofit, other organization, and more") and Characteristics ("Find awards by award type, ID, industry code, and more").
2. Name the prime. Under Recipients, the Recipient filter takes a name or a UEI; the autocomplete behind it searches the recipient name, UEI and DUNS fields. A UEI is exact; a name can match several registrations with similar names, so prefer the UEI when you have it.
3. Narrow the award type and dates. Under Characteristics, Award Type lets you keep contracts and leave out grants and loans. Under Time Period, pick the fiscal years you care about. Other filters you may want: Agency (for example, the Department of Defense as awarding agency), NAICS, Product and Service Code (PSC) and Award Amount.
4. Switch the view to subawards. The results table has a View By control with two choices, "Prime Awards and Transactions" and "Subawards". Choose Subawards; the address bar gains subawards=true, so the view can be bookmarked and shared.
5. Read the table. The subaward columns are Subaward ID, Subrecipient Name, Subaward Obligations, Subaward Action Date, Subaward Description, Subrecipient UEI, Subrecipient Location, Subaward Primary Place of Performance, Subaward Type, Prime Award ID, Prime Award Recipient Name and Prime Award Recipient UEI, with the awarding agency and sub-agency, NAICS and PSC available as well. With the prime filtered, the Subrecipient Name and Subrecipient UEI columns are the list you came for.
6. Open a prime award to see everything under it. Each Prime Award ID links to the award's profile page. The glossary says these pages let users browse a prime award summary "including the list of transactions that constitute the prime award summary, the list of sub-awards funded by the prime award summary, and the list of federal accounts which have funded the prime award summary."
7. Reverse the search when you are the supplier. Put your own company in the Recipient filter and choose Subawards: the Prime Award Recipient Name column is then the list of primes that have reported you.

What the subaward data does not show

• Second tier and below. The clause covers first-tier subcontracts. A subcontractor's own suppliers are not reported by anyone.
• Anything under the threshold. Subcontracts below the FAR 4.1403(a) amount are not reported, and the clause ties the test to the threshold "on the date of subcontract award", so older rows were reported against older figures.
• Supplier agreements with vendors. Long-term material arrangements that serve many contracts, or that sit in indirect costs, are outside the definition in paragraph (a).
• Exempt contractors. Under paragraph (g), a contractor whose gross income "from all sources" in the previous tax year was under $300,000 "is exempt from the requirement to report subcontractor awards", and a prime "does not need to report awards for" a subcontractor under the same figure.
• Classified work. Paragraph (c): "Nothing in this clause requires the disclosure of classified information."
• Timing and accuracy. A subcontract is reported "by the end of the month following the month of award", and the data is what the prime entered. A row can carry a subrecipient name without a UEI, or a name spelled differently from the SAM.gov registration, which is why a program that starts from this data needs a matching step.

So the USAspending list is a floor, not a map. It is the public, auditable part of a prime's supply chain and the right place to start, and it will miss suppliers that a contracting officer may still expect you to know about.

How to look up a company on SAM.gov by UEI

SAM.gov's Entity Information page carries a search box over "All Entity Information" with a Show active only option. Put in a UEI, a CAGE code or a name. The public part of a registration includes the legal business name, UEI, CAGE code, physical address, registration status and expiration date, and whether an exclusion is active. A registrant may opt out of public display altogether; SAM.gov says federal users "must sign in with your federal email address to view registrants who have opted out of public search", so a company you cannot find may be registered and hidden rather than unregistered.

Two checks worth doing on every subrecipient: that the registration is active and when it expires, and that no exclusion is listed.

Where Tiermark fits

Tiermark's supplier map is this search done for you. On Overview, Build my map reads the public record for your organization's UEI, "the awards and subawards reported on USAspending.gov and the registrations in SAM.gov", writes your exposure report and puts the suppliers it found on your map; a build takes one to three minutes. A supplier that came from a subaward shows Subaward in the Source column, with a match percentage when the public record matched the registration at less than 100%, and each one gets a grade and a record with its UEI, CAGE, state and NAICS from SAM.gov. A supplier the public record does not show, a second-tier shop or one under the threshold, can be added by its UEI. Which clauses you then owe each supplier is the subject of How primes check their suppliers' cybersecurity; turning what you learn into a register with owners and dates is in How to keep a supplier risk register.

Sources

• USAspending.gov Advanced Search and its glossary: Sub-Award, Sub-Recipient, Prime Award Summary and Unique Entity Identifier (UEI)
• FAR 52.204-10, Reporting Executive Compensation and First-Tier Subcontract Awards (Jun 2020)
• FAR 4.1403, Contract clause
• SAM.gov: Subaward Reporting in SAM
• SAM.gov: Entity Information