SAM.gov registration is free
You need an active SAM.gov registration to bid on or receive a federal contract. It costs nothing, it can take up to 10 business days to go active, and it expires every 365 days. Those three facts are most of what you need, and the third one is the one that bites people.
GSA puts it in one sentence: “You do not need to pay a third party to complete your registration.” GSA — Register your business There is a whole industry charging veterans a few hundred dollars to type their own business name into a free federal form. They cannot make it faster and they cannot make it more likely to be approved.
The short version
| Cost | Free. No fee to register, and no fee to apply for SBA certification either.SBA — MySBA Certifications help |
|---|---|
| Time to activate | Up to 10 business days after you submit. Nobody can expedite it.SAM.gov — Entity registration |
| Renewal | Every 365 days, or the registration goes inactive and you become ineligible for award.SAM.gov — Entity registration |
| Sign-in | Through Login.gov — the same account you may already use for other federal systems.SAM.gov — Entity registration |
| Identifiers issued | UEI and CAGE code, both assigned during registration. No separate application for either.GSA — Register your business |
The six steps
This is GSA's own sequence. GSA — Register your business
1. Create your sign-in
SAM.gov authenticates through Login.gov. Set that up first — it is the same account that gets you into most federal systems, so if you already have one for the IRS or the VA, use it rather than making a second.
2. Enter your business details and get your UEI
Legal business name and physical address, exactly as they appear on your formation paperwork and your IRS records. The Unique Entity ID is issued here. GSA calls the UEI "the authoritative identifier for those doing business with the federal government" — it replaced the DUNS number.
3. Select your NAICS codes
The industry codes describing what you actually sell. You can pick more than one. This is not a formality — see the size standard section below, because these codes decide whether the government considers you small.
4. Confirm your size standard
SBA assigns a size standard to every NAICS code, and you confirm where you fall using SBA guidance. Get this wrong and you are either locking yourself out of set-asides you qualify for, or certifying to something you cannot support.
5. Add points of contact and payment information
Banking details for electronic funds transfer, plus the humans the government contacts. Use an email you will still control in three years — a registration nobody can access is a registration that lapses.
6. Complete representations and certifications
The reps and certs: a long set of statements about your business you are legally attesting to. Read them rather than clicking through. These are the statements a contracting officer relies on, and getting one wrong is not a paperwork problem.
You might not need the full registration
SAM.gov has two doors, and the guides that walk you through the long one without mentioning the short one are not doing you a favour. A full entity registration is what you need to bid on and receive contracts. But if you only need to be identified — certain grant and subrecipient situations — there is a UEI-only path where, in SAM's words, “you only need to provide your legal business name and physical address.” SAM.gov — Entity registration
Work out which one your situation actually calls for before you start handing over banking details you were never required to give.
The step everyone rushes: NAICS and your size standard
Steps 3 and 4 look like dropdowns. They are the two that decide whether the federal government thinks you are a small business, which is the entire basis of every set-aside you might later chase.
SBA assigns a size standard to every NAICS code, and standards are expressed in different units depending on the industry — headcount for most manufacturing, average annual receipts for most non-manufacturing, with real exceptions either way. SBA's own rules of thumb are most manufacturers at 500 employees or fewer, and most non-manufacturers under $7.5 million in average annual receipts, but it says outright that there are exceptions by industry. SBA — Size standards
Do not eyeball it. SBA publishes a size standards tool and a full table — run your actual codes through it. You can hold more than one NAICS code, and you can be small under one and large under another, which is exactly the kind of detail that turns into a size protest later. Full breakdown, including the three calculation rules that catch people: NAICS codes and size standards.
The 365-day clock
“You must renew your registration every 365 days to keep it active.” SAM.gov — Entity registration Not each calendar year — 365 days from your last renewal, which drifts. An inactive registration makes you ineligible for award, and people discover this the week a proposal is due. Put the renewal date in a calendar the day your registration goes active, and set the reminder a month early so a 10-business-day processing window still fits inside it.
Questions people actually ask
How much does SAM.gov registration cost?
Nothing. GSA states plainly: "You do not need to pay a third party to complete your registration." SBA says the same about its certification programs — "SBA does not charge any costs for applying to our programs." There is an entire industry built on charging veterans several hundred dollars to type their own business details into a free federal form. Those companies are not doing anything you cannot do, and none of them can make it go faster.
How long does SAM.gov registration take to become active?
SAM.gov says "Registration can take up to 10 business days to become active." That is processing time on their end, not how long the form takes you. Plan around it: if a solicitation closes in a week and you are not registered yet, you are probably not bidding on it. Nobody can expedite this, whatever they charge.
Do I need a full registration, or just a Unique Entity ID?
Depends what you are doing. A full entity registration is what you need to bid on and receive federal contracts. If you only need to be identified — some grant and subrecipient situations, for example — SAM.gov offers a UEI-only path where "you only need to provide your legal business name and physical address." That is dramatically less work. Check which one your situation actually requires before you start filling in banking details you did not need to hand over.
Does my SAM.gov registration expire?
Yes, and this is what catches people. "You must renew your registration every 365 days to keep it active." Not every calendar year — every 365 days from your last renewal. An expired registration makes you ineligible for award, and people find out at exactly the wrong moment. Put the date in a calendar the day you register, with a reminder a month out.
What is a CAGE code and do I have to apply for it separately?
No. The Commercial and Government Entity code is assigned as part of entity registration, alongside your UEI — GSA lists both as identifying information collected during the process. You do not file a separate application or pay anyone for one.
Do I need SAM.gov registration before applying for SDVOSB certification?
Yes — an active SAM registration is the foundation everything else sits on, which is why it is worth doing first and doing carefully. SBA certification through MySBA Certifications is also free. If you are still working out whether you qualify at all, run the eligibility check before you spend a day on paperwork.
Next: check whether you qualify for SDVOSB before you spend a day on paperwork, how the certification itself works, or what your state adds on top.