Federal construction award statistics (September 2026)

What this data is, and what it is not

Every figure on this page comes from the federal award records JobsiteBids collects to power its competition intel: 35,867 construction-NAICS contract awards from USAspending.gov, made by 38 federal departments and agencies to 9,573 distinct companies, totaling $98.1 billion. It is federal only — "Department of Transportation" here is the US DOT, not a state DOT — and it is a large sample, not a census. Our pipeline pulls the most recent awards for each trade-and-state combination that a live solicitation in our feed has triggered, so the collection is deepest where our customers bid and it says nothing about award volume by trade or by state. Within a slice, though, the timing, size, bidder-count and buyer statistics are the public record's own.

Two disclosures the rest of the page depends on. First, USAspending publishes the number of offers received on only 8,652 of these awards (24%), so every competition figure below uses that subset and says so. Second, 714 records (2%) carry no dollar value or a non-positive one, so dollar medians and shares use the 35,153 that do. Seasonality is measured on the two most recent complete federal fiscal years (October 2023 through September 2025, 18,157 awards), because a partial year would distort the month shares. We recompute all of it quarterly and move the date above when we do.

Finding 1 — September is a third of the year

The federal fiscal year ends September 30, and unspent money does not roll over. The award record shows exactly what that incentive does: across fiscal years 2024 and 2025, 31.6% of all federal construction awards — and 43.3% of the dollars — were made in September alone. The final quarter (July through September) carried 55% of awards. November is the trough at 3.1%. The pattern is not a one-year quirk: September was 28–41% of awards in each of the four complete fiscal years FY2022–FY2025, and 33% in FY2021, where our collection is thin (425 awards).

For a contractor, the implication is about readiness, not luck. Year-end money moves fast and it moves through vehicles that already exist — in FY2024–25, the $250k–$5M awards made in September were more often single-offer (43–47%) than the same size bands in the other eleven months (32–35%; 124–200 published bidder counts per cell), which is the signature of task orders on existing contracts rather than fresh competitions. A shop that wants a share of the September wave needs its SAM registration, bonding and set-aside certifications in order by early summer, and its name in front of the contracting offices that hold the vehicles — see finding primes to sub for. The federal procurement timeline walks the calendar from the other direction.

Finding 2 — small checks, big dollars

The median federal construction award is $110,947. Almost two-thirds of awards (62.8%) are under $250,000, and together they carry 1.5% of the dollars. At the other end, the 1.3% of awards worth $25 million or more carry 68.4% of the dollars. The quartiles tell the same story: a quarter of awards are under $26,840, three-quarters are under $526,519, and one in ten clears $2.57 million.

Two markets share one label. The dollar market is a small number of very large packages — 483 awards of $25 million or more in our three-year collection — won by firms with bonding capacity to match, and specialty trades reach it as subcontractors; the market-size guide covers that side. The volume market is the small direct awards — 22,534 under $250,000 in our collection alone — repairs, replacements and service-order work that a specialty contractor can win as the prime, usually under simplified acquisition procedures with a shorter path to award. The bids-by-trade pages show which of those are open right now for your trade.

Finding 3 — a third of reported awards had one bidder, and the trade decides

Of the 8,652 awards where USAspending records how many offers came in, 35.5% received exactly one, the median received three, and only a quarter (24.9%) received six or more. A single-offer award is usually not a contest a newcomer lost; it is most often a task order on an existing IDIQ or a sole-source justification — work that was never open to bid. That is why a bare "typical bidders" figure misleads, and why every competition number on this page carries its single-offer share beside it.

The bigger surprise is how much the trade matters. Plumbing and HVAC awards (NAICS 238220) were single-offer 48% of the time, electrical (238210) 45%, and other building-equipment contractors (238290) 49% — the mechanical and electrical trades that flow through facility-maintenance vehicles. Roofing (238160) is the opposite: a median of five bidders, with half of awards drawing five or more. Highway and bridge work (237310) medians four bidders with the lowest single-offer share of any large trade at 21%. If you are a mechanical or electrical sub, the direct federal lane is less about beating five competitors and more about being on the vehicle when the order is placed — which is a subcontracting and teaming question as much as a bidding one.

Competition also rises with size, but less than most contractors assume: single-offer awards fall from 40% under $250k to 12% above $25M, while the median bidder count moves only from two to three. The uncontested end of the federal market is the small end.

Finding 4 — Defense is four in ten awards and half the dollars

The Department of Defense made 41.5% of the awards in the sample (14,899) and 50.8% of the dollars ($49.9 billion), with a median award of $193,399 — nearly double the sample-wide median. Veterans Affairs is second by count at 12.0%, followed by Interior (10.9%), Agriculture (8.8%), Transportation (5.6%), GSA (5.3%) and Homeland Security (5.1%). Homeland Security is the outlier on value: one award in twenty, but 27.9% of the dollars, on a median award of just $34,999 — a handful of very large border and Coast Guard packages sitting on top of a long tail of small orders.

The buyer list shapes the strategy. Defense, Interior, Agriculture and VA award construction through hundreds of installations, parks, forests and medical centers, each with its own contracting office and its own small-job flow — which is where the volume market of Finding 2 lives. The award record is also broad at the winning end: the 9,573 recipients include 5,216 that appear once in our collection, and the 100 most frequent winners together hold 16.8% of awards. Our collection understates repeat winners by design (it samples the most recent awards per trade and state), so treat that as a floor on how open the field is, not a ceiling.

What to do with it

Four numbers to plan a year by: a third of federal construction awards land in September, so be registered, bonded and on the vehicles by June; the median award is $111,000, so the direct federal lane for a specialty sub is the small-job lane; a third of awards with a reported bidder count had one bidder, and in the mechanical and electrical trades it is nearly half, so getting onto contract vehicles beats out-bidding a crowd; and Defense writes four checks in ten. Our companion study of the solicitation side — bid windows, set-asides, and posting days — covers what happens before the award. The state-by-trade bid pages show the same award record cut for your state and trade, next to what is open there today.

Press and researchers can request custom cuts — by trade, state or awarding agency — through our contact page, and should attribute figures to "JobsiteBids federal construction award data, September 2026." The records themselves are USAspending's; the collection, cleaning and computation are ours.

Frequently asked questions

What month does the federal government award the most construction contracts?

September, by a wide margin. Across federal fiscal years 2024 and 2025, 31.6% of federal construction contract awards and 43.3% of the awarded dollars fell in September, the last month of the federal fiscal year; July through September together carried 55% of awards. November is the slowest month at about 3%. Source: 18,157 USAspending award records analyzed by JobsiteBids, September 2026.

How many bidders compete for a federal construction contract?

Among the 8,652 federal construction awards in the JobsiteBids sample where USAspending publishes the number of offers, the median award received three bids, 35.5% received exactly one, and about 25% received six or more. It varies sharply by trade: roofing awards drew a median of five bidders while plumbing/HVAC and electrical awards were single-offer nearly half the time, usually because they were task orders on existing contracts rather than open competitions.

What is the typical size of a federal construction contract award?

The median federal construction award in the JobsiteBids sample of 35,867 USAspending records is $110,947. About 63% of awards are under $250,000, but those carry only 1.5% of the dollars; the 1.3% of awards worth $25 million or more carry 68% of the dollars. The average is over $2.7 million, which is why the median is the more useful number for a contractor.

Which federal agency awards the most construction contracts?

The Department of Defense, with 41.5% of federal construction awards and 50.8% of awarded dollars in the JobsiteBids sample (September 2026). The Department of Veterans Affairs is second by count at 12%, followed by Interior (10.9%), Agriculture (8.8%), Transportation (5.6%), GSA (5.3%) and Homeland Security (5.1%). Homeland Security awards fewer contracts but very large ones — 27.9% of the dollars.