U.S. Federal Contracting Glossary
Plain-English definitions of the 31 most-used terms in U.S. federal contracting and proposal writing — from contract vehicles and IDIQs through to small business participation, the FAR and best-value tradeoff. Each term includes how it affects your proposal in practice.
Contract vehicles
How federal agencies buy: IDIQs, GWACs, GSA Schedules, BPAs and the formal acquisition procedures.
IDIQ Contract
An Indefinite-Delivery, Indefinite-Quantity contract that lets an agency place task or delivery orders agai…
GSA Schedule (MAS)
A long-term, government-wide contract vehicle holding pre-negotiated prices and terms that agencies order f…
Task / Delivery Order
An individual order placed against a parent IDIQ, GWAC, or GSA Schedule, issued by an agency to a holder on…
Fair Opportunity Competition
A streamlined competition run among the holders of an IDIQ or GSA Schedule to award a specific task or deli…
Full and Open Competition
A federal procurement open to all responsible sources, where any interested offeror may submit a proposal i…
Set-Aside
A procurement reserved for a defined category of small business — limiting competition to firms that meet t…
Contract Line Item (CLIN)
A separately identified, priced item of work in a federal contract, used to organize deliverables, funding,…
Documents and stages
The documents and stages of a federal acquisition, from Sources Sought through RFP to award.
Request for Proposal (RFP)
The formal solicitation an agency issues inviting proposals in a negotiated procurement, containing the req…
Section L — Instructions to Offerors
The part of a federal solicitation that tells offerors exactly how to prepare and submit their proposal — f…
Request for Quotation (RFQ)
A solicitation requesting quotes against a defined requirement, used in simplified acquisitions and for ord…
Request for Information (RFI)
A pre-solicitation request asking industry for capability and market information to help the agency shape a…
Invitation for Bids (IFB)
A sealed-bid solicitation where award goes to the lowest responsive, responsible bidder on price — used whe…
Sources Sought Notice
A pre-solicitation notice posted to identify capable sources and gauge small-business interest before an ag…
Portals and bodies
The federal portals and bodies that publish, manage and aggregate federal contracting opportunities.
SAM.gov
The U.S. federal government's official system for contract opportunities and entity registration, consolida…
Unique Entity ID (UEI)
The 12-character identifier assigned in SAM.gov that uniquely identifies your business across federal syste…
General Services Administration (GSA)
The U.S. government's central acquisition agency, operating the GSA Schedules and government-wide vehicles …
GWAC (Government-Wide Acquisition Contract)
A pre-competed, government-wide IDIQ for IT and related services that any agency can order from, run by GSA…
Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA)
A simplified, ongoing arrangement an agency sets up to fill repetitive needs by placing orders on pre-agree…
FAR / DFARS
The Federal Acquisition Regulation and its Defense supplement — the rulebooks that govern how U.S. agencies…
Evaluation and award
How contracting officers evaluate proposals, the protest period, and how offerors decide which opportunities to pursue.
Evaluation Factors (Section M)
The published factors and subfactors an agency uses to evaluate proposals and select for award, set out in …
GAO Bid Protest
A challenge to a solicitation or award filed with the Government Accountability Office, which can trigger a…
Bid / No-Bid
The structured decision to pursue (or pass on) a specific opportunity, based on win probability and the cos…
Policy and compliance
The legal and policy framework — FAR/DFARS, small business participation, subcontracting plans, best-value vs LPTA.
NAICS Code & Size Standard
The industry classification code assigned to a solicitation and its associated SBA size standard, which tog…
CUI & Cybersecurity (CMMC)
The federal requirements for safeguarding Controlled Unclassified Information, including DFARS 252.204-7012…
Small Business Subcontracting Plan
A required plan, under FAR 52.219-9, showing how a large prime will provide subcontracting opportunities to…
Past Performance & CPARS
The federal record of how well a contractor performed prior work, documented in CPARS and used as an evalua…
Capture Management
The disciplined pre-RFP process of positioning to win a specific opportunity — intelligence gathering, cust…
Best-Value Tradeoff vs. LPTA
The two main federal source-selection approaches: paying a premium for higher-rated proposals (tradeoff) ve…
Roles and eligibility
Offeror roles, small-business status and the NAICS size standards that determine which set-aside rules apply.
Small Business Offeror
An offeror that qualifies as a small business under the SBA size standard for the solicitation — a category…
Negotiated Procurement
A federal acquisition conducted under FAR Part 15, where the agency may hold discussions and award on a bes…
Simplified Acquisition
A streamlined federal buying process under FAR Part 13 for requirements at or below the Simplified Acquisit…
See also: long-form contracting guides, per-agency guides for 170+ federal agencies, or GovCon comparisons.