Guides
What the dates are for
This site indexes 41,333 federal contracts reaching the end of their period of performance within six months. An end date is only useful if you know what it obliges you to do, and when. These explain that.
Start here · 9 min
How to win a federal recompete
The whole sequence, counted backwards from the incumbent's end date: registration, research, shaping the requirement, the Rule of Two, teaming, the proposal, the debrief. If a date on this site does not yet mean anything to you, this is the page that fixes that.
Sourcing · 6 min
How to find a recompete before the solicitation drops
Where the dates come from, why USAspending cannot be searched by them, and how to build a pipeline out of contracts that have not been announced yet.
The clock, in one screen
Every recompete runs to roughly this schedule, counted backwards from the day the current contract ends. Which window a contract is in decides what is still possible.
- 18mo+PositionToo early to chase this specific contract, which makes it the right time to become someone the office can legally award to.
- 18mo → 12moResearchThe agency is beginning to plan the follow-on. You want to know more about this requirement than the notice will ever tell you.
- 12mo → 9moShapeThe requirement is being written now. This is when a specification quietly comes to describe one company's way of working.
- 9mo → 6moSources soughtThe highest-leverage window on the whole clock, and the one most small businesses sleep through.
- 6mo → 3moTeamThe competition is now effectively fixed. What is left to decide is who you are standing with when it opens.
- 3mo → 1moSolicitationThe RFP typically posts in this window, and everything about it is fast.
- 1mo → endAward or bridgeEither an award is imminent or the agency has run out of runway.
Each of those in full, with what closes at every boundary, is in how to win a federal recompete.