Fed biz opps: where federal contract notices moved to
If you came here looking for FedBizOpps, the short answer is that it no longer exists. Federal contract opportunities are now published in the Contract Opportunities section of the federal System for Award Management at sam.gov. Everything below explains what changed, what to do instead and where the old habits still work.
| Match | Solicitation and agency | NAICS | Set-aside | Place of performance | Response due |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 80 | Enterprise Cloud Support Services | 518210 | Total small business | Virginia | 13 Oct |
| 73 | Tactical Data Link (TDL) Interoperability Software | 541511 | Full and open | Langley Afb, Virginia | 10 Oct |
| 64 | B--SHAKEALERT PRODUCTION CODE REVIEW | 541519 | Full and open | Not stated | 16 Oct |
| 63 | MARCORSYSCOM RFI Product Support Analysis | 518210 | Full and open | Quantico, Virginia | 24 Sep Closes today |
| 63 | ARTS-V3 Third-Party Software Initiative | 541511 | Full and open | Not stated | 6 Oct |
The straight answer first
FedBizOpps, the site most contractors knew as fbo.gov or simply fed biz opps, was the federal government's notice board for contract opportunities for around two decades. It was retired and its function moved into sam.gov, which consolidated several separate federal procurement systems into one login and one search.
- Federal contract notices are now published under Contract Opportunities on sam.gov
- Old fbo.gov links no longer resolve to the notices they used to point at
- Your old saved searches and email alerts did not migrate themselves
- Registration on sam.gov is free, and searching notices does not require an account at all
- An active registration in the same system is still required in order to be awarded federal work
Nothing here is affiliated with any government agency. It is a plain description of a change many contractors still have not been told about.
What the current federal system does
The federal system publishes the notices, which is a genuinely useful thing to do well.
- Every federal solicitation, presolicitation, sources sought, amendment and award notice
- Search by keyword, NAICS code, set-aside type, agency, place of performance and notice type
- Saved searches with email notification, which mail you the notices that match your keywords
- Attachments, question periods and amendment history attached to each notice
- No charge for any of it
Use it. It is the source of record and we read it too.
What it does not do, and what that costs you
The federal system publishes. It does not decide, and it does not know anything about your company.
- It has no idea what you are good at, so it cannot rank anything for you
- A saved search mails raw notices, so the volume problem comes straight back
- No reason is ever given for why a notice reached you
- State, county and municipal work is not there at all, because it is not federal
- Award history lives in a separate federal system, so competitor research means a second tab and a second vocabulary
For a company with one narrow NAICS code this is survivable. For anybody with two business lines it turns into an hour a day of reading, done by the most expensive person on the team.
FederalContracts on top of the same public record
We read the same public notices, plus state and local boards, and score each one against your company profile: NAICS codes, capability line, past performance, set-aside status, geography and contract size band.
- A ranked short list each morning instead of a raw feed
- A score out of 100 and one plain sentence per match
- Question and response deadlines tracked, with reminders before each
- Competitor award history beside the opportunity instead of in another system
- Federal, state and local in one board on Capture and Enterprise
See the difference on a real snapshot
Bid Match scores a dated snapshot of public federal solicitation records against a profile you type in. Full result, no signup, about a minute.
Related reading: sam gov opportunities search, federal contract bids, how to read a federal solicitation.