FedSift › Reports › Federal recompete outlook 2026
Federal recompete outlook: $193 billion in contracts reach their end date by March 2028
Which federal contracts end in the next eighteen months, who holds them, and which part of the market a small or mid-size contractor can realistically compete for.
What we found
- Most of the value is still shapeable; most of the count is not. 64% of expiring contracts (48,049) end within six months, too late to shape the follow-on. But those are mostly small: 55% of the value ($107.2B across 26,731 contracts) ends six to eighteen months out, the window in which a capture team can still meet the customer.
- A few very large contracts carry the dollars. 204 contracts of $100M or more are 37% of the value. 57,282 contracts under $1M are 77% of the count and 7% of the value.
- The $1M–$10M tier is where a small firm can compete. 14,778 contracts worth $44.7B, large enough to matter and small enough to win without a national footprint. The Department of Defense holds 8,765 of them.
- Defense is over half of everything. DoD accounts for 54.8% of the value ($105.8B) and 54.5% of the contracts.
When the contracts end
| Contract end date | Contracts | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 15–30 Sep 2026 (fiscal year end) | 16,621 | $26.8B |
| Oct–Dec 2026 | 19,547 | $38.4B |
| Jan–Mar 2027 | 15,869 | $46.4B |
| Apr–Jun 2027 | 10,416 | $25.1B |
| Jul–Sep 2027 | 6,905 | $31.2B |
| Oct–Dec 2027 | 3,381 | $16.7B |
| 1 Jan–15 Mar 2028 | 2,041 | $8.6B |
The spike at the end of September is the federal fiscal year: many periods of performance are written to end on 30 September.
By contract size
| Contract value | Contracts | Value | Share of value |
|---|---|---|---|
| $100M and above | 204 | $72.0B | 37.3% |
| $10M–$100M | 2,516 | $63.5B | 32.9% |
| $1M–$10M | 14,778 | $44.7B | 23.1% |
| $25K–$1M | 57,282 | $13.0B | 6.7% |
By agency
| Agency | Contracts | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense | 40,722 | $105.8B |
| Department of Veterans Affairs | 7,887 | $32.9B |
| Department of Homeland Security | 2,544 | $17.6B |
| Department of Health and Human Services | 3,621 | $8.0B |
| General Services Administration | 1,714 | $5.1B |
| Department of the Interior | 3,211 | $3.4B |
| Department of Transportation | 1,697 | $3.0B |
| Department of Agriculture | 2,558 | $2.9B |
| Department of State | 1,273 | $2.4B |
| NASA | 1,178 | $1.9B |
Top ten agencies by value. Every row links to the full list of that agency's expiring contracts.
By industry
| NAICS | Industry | Contracts | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 236220 | Commercial and Institutional Building Construction | 2,822 | $30.0B |
| 524114 | Direct Health and Medical Insurance Carriers | 24 | $16.9B |
| 336413 | Other Aircraft Parts and Auxiliary Equipment Manufacturing | 6,683 | $9.3B |
| 541330 | Engineering Services | 3,606 | $7.5B |
| 621111 | Offices of Physicians | 214 | $6.9B |
| 541519 | Other Computer Related Services | 5,243 | $6.3B |
| 336411 | Aircraft Manufacturing | 911 | $6.1B |
| 541715 | R&D in the Physical, Engineering and Life Sciences | 3,487 | $6.0B |
| 334511 | Search, Detection and Navigation Instruments | 1,011 | $5.6B |
| 541512 | Computer Systems Design Services | 885 | $4.8B |
Top ten NAICS codes by value. Large parts-supply categories (such as 336413) are often one-time buys rather than recurring services, so read counts there with care.
The largest incumbents
| Incumbent | Contracts | Value |
|---|---|---|
| TRIWEST HEALTHCARE ALLIANCE CORP | 1 | $16.3B |
| FISHER SAND & GRAVEL CO | 5 | $4.6B |
| ATLANTIC DIVING SUPPLY, INC. | 160 | $3.8B |
| THE BOEING COMPANY | 73 | $2.3B |
| SOUTHWEST VALLEY CONSTRUCTORS CO | 2 | $2.2B |
| RTX CORPORATION | 232 | $1.9B |
| QTC MEDICAL SERVICES INC | 2 | $1.8B |
| LOYAL SOURCE GOVERNMENT SERVICES LLC | 2 | $1.8B |
| OPTUMSERVE HEALTH SERVICES, INC. | 1 | $1.7B |
| VETERANS EVALUATION SERVICES, INC | 1 | $1.5B |
By value of contracts reaching their end date in the window. The first row is a single large health-care contract.
Method and caveats
- Source: USASpending.gov award data (from FPDS), as held by FedSift on 15 September 2026. USASpending runs four to eight weeks behind contract actions.
- Scope: definitive contracts and task orders whose current period of performance ends between 15 September 2026 and 15 March 2028, valued at $25,000 or more. IDIQ ceilings are excluded (a ceiling is not obligated money), as are government-owned, contractor-operated facility contracts, which are not meaningfully recompeted.
- Grouping: orders from the same vendor, agency, NAICS and product code that end in the same month are counted as one contract, because that is how they tend to be re-solicited. 74,780 grouped contracts represent 150,257 contract actions.
- An end date is not a recompete. Options can extend a contract, a bridge can replace it, a one-time purchase is never re-solicited, and some requirements simply end. These figures count contracts reaching their current end date, not confirmed solicitations.
- Value is obligated dollars to date on each contract, not a forecast of the follow-on's value.
Cite as: FedSift, Federal Recompete Outlook 2026, 15 September 2026, https://fedsift.app/reports/federal-recompete-outlook-2026/.
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