48.9% of $84.0B Federal Contract Value Goes to 10 Vendors

Ten vendors, half the money

Federal contract spending reported under proactive disclosure from 2023 to 2025 totalled $84.0 billion across 205,572 contracts, awarded to 45,177 vendors. Ten suppliers took $41.1 billion of that, or 48.9%.

The concentration runs deeper than the top ten. The top 1% of vendors, 452 companies, took 81.7% of contract value. That leaves the remaining vendors sharing the rest.

For a small or mid-sized supplier, the headline number is not a reason to stay away. It tells you which parts of the market are effectively closed to you and which parts are not. The ten largest awards are not contests a small firm can enter. The table below shows why.

The top of the table is a different market

The largest reported contract value in the window went to SkyAlyne Canada Limited Partnership: one contract worth $11.2 billion, reported by one department. Irving Shipbuilding Inc. followed with two contracts worth $8.0 billion across two departments. Vancouver Shipyards Co. Ltd. had six contracts worth $3.7 billion, and AIRBUS DEFENCE AND SPACE SA had two contracts worth $3.7 billion.

These are defence, shipbuilding and major platform buys. They are single, very large awards with long delivery horizons. A supplier without the industrial capacity to build ships or aircraft will not win them, and no amount of bid preparation changes that.

The practical point is that this money is not a pipeline you can sell into directly. It is a set of programs that buy from a small number of prime contractors. If you want any of it, you are looking at subcontracting or teaming, not a prime bid. The data does not show subcontracting flows, so the size of that opportunity is not in the data.

The typical contract is small

The median contract across all 205,572 awards was $25,425. Half of all contracts were worth less than that. This is the number that should shape your expectations, not the $84.0 billion total.

The size bands make the split clear. Contracts of $10,000 to $24,999 were 49.4% of all contracts but 2.0% of value. Contracts of $25,000 to $99,999 were 33.6% of contracts and 4.1% of value. Together, contracts under $100,000 were 83.0% of all contracts.

At the other end, contracts of $10 million and up were 0.3% of contracts and 70.0% of value. Contracts of $1 million and up were 2.4% of contracts and 83.8% of value.

Read those pairs together and the market divides in two. Most contracts are small and most money is in a few very large ones. A supplier deciding where to bid has to pick a side of that line.

Where a smaller supplier can actually win

The band data points to the $10,000 to $999,999 range as the realistic territory for a small or mid-sized supplier. Contracts of $100,000 to $999,999 were 14.6% of contracts and 10.1% of value. That is a meaningful slice of spending, and it is spread across many awards rather than a handful.

The $1 million to $9.9 million band is the step up. It was 2.2% of contracts and 13.8% of value. Winning here requires a track record, but the band is not dominated by the ten vendors at the top of the table.

The $10,000 to $24,999 band is where most contract volume sits, at 49.4% of contracts and 2.0% of value. These awards are numerous and small. They can build a reference list and a past-performance record, but they will not carry a company on their own.

A supplier should treat the small bands as an entry route and the $100,000 to $9.9 million range as the target. The data shows that range holds 10.1% of value in the $100,000 to $999,999 band and 13.8% in the $1 million to $9.9 million band, spread over far more awards than the top of the market.

What concentration means for your bid decision

Concentration at the top does not mean the rest of the market is closed. It means the largest awards are decided among a small group, while the remaining value is spread across tens of thousands of contracts and thousands of vendors.

The top 1% of vendors took 81.7% of value. The remaining vendors shared the rest. That is still a large pool of money, and it is awarded through many separate decisions rather than a few.

The risk for a small supplier is chasing the wrong band. Bidding on a $10 million and up opportunity against the vendors in the table above consumes bid resources with little chance of a win. Bidding on a requirement in the $100,000 to $999,999 band in the same department is a different contest.

These figures do not show win rates or which vendors lost: only winners are known in award data. Departments do report the number of bids for part of their contracts, and we analyse those counts separately in How many bids federal contracts receive; this article does not use them, so it cannot tell you how crowded any single competition was.

Practical steps

Target the $100,000 to $999,999 band first. It was 14.6% of contracts and 10.1% of value, and it sits below the range where the ten largest vendors operate. Build a record here before bidding higher.

Use the $10,000 to $24,999 band deliberately. It was 49.4% of contracts. Treat these awards as past-performance building blocks, not as revenue targets, because the band was only 2.0% of value.

Plan a step up to the $1 million to $9.9 million band once you hold references. That band was 2.2% of contracts but 13.8% of value, so a small number of wins moves your revenue materially.

Do not build a strategy around the $10 million and up band. It was 0.3% of contracts and 70.0% of value, and the table above shows the vendors holding it. Approach those programs as a subcontractor or teaming partner instead, and note that subcontracting values are not in this data.

Check the department count in the table before you assume a program is open. Several of the largest awards were reported by a single department, which means the buying relationship is narrow and the entry point is likely through the prime, not a direct bid.

Track your own win rate by band rather than overall. The median contract was $25,425, so an overall average will tell you little about whether you are competitive in the bands where you actually bid.

Remember the reporting limits when you size the market. The data covers contracts over $10,000 reported under proactive disclosure, amendment rows are excluded, and values for amended contracts reflect the value reported at award. Name variants that could not be matched count as separate vendors, so the 45,177 vendor count and the 452 top-1% count are both affected by matching.