A federal construction solicitation can run hundreds of pages once you count the specifications, drawings, wage determination and clauses incorporated by reference. You do not need to read all of it to decide whether to bid. A small number of items decide whether you are eligible, whether the job fits your bonding, and whether the evaluation method plays to your strengths. Find those first, decide go or no-go, and only then spend estimating hours.
This guide walks through those items in the order that saves the most time, with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) section behind each one. FAR citations are to the version on acquisition.gov in October 2026 (FAC 2026-01).
An earlier version of this article was written as a first-person account with hit rates, estimating costs, bidder counts and a won-by-$212,000 story that we could not verify. Those have been removed. It also misstated the FAR 36.204 magnitude ranges and the 8(a) competitive threshold, both corrected below.
What you are holding
Sealed bid or negotiated
Federal construction is bought two main ways.
Sealed bidding under FAR Part 14 uses an Invitation for Bids (IFB). Bids are opened publicly and award goes to the responsible bidder whose responsive bid is most advantageous considering only price and price-related factors, per FAR 14.101. Under FAR 36.103, contracting officers must use sealed bidding for construction when the conditions in FAR 6.401(a) are met, including that award will be made on price and price-related factors and discussions are not needed.
Negotiated procurement under FAR Part 15 uses a Request for Proposals (RFP). The agency can evaluate technical approach, past performance and price, and can hold discussions. Design-build is commonly bought this way through the two-phase process in FAR Subpart 36.3.
The form and the format
Construction solicitations over the simplified acquisition threshold use Standard Form 1442, Solicitation, Offer, and Award (Construction, Alteration, or Repair), under FAR 36.701. In sealed bid solicitations, Block 13D states how many calendar days your offer must remain open for acceptance after offers are due. That matters for material pricing and for how long your bid bond is tied up.
Many contractors expect the lettered Sections A through M of the uniform contract format, with Section L for instructions and Section M for evaluation factors. FAR 14.201-1 says that format need not be used for construction. Some agencies use it anyway, and some RFPs follow the Part 15 uniform format. Others organize the package around the SF 1442, a bid schedule, project specifications in CSI divisions, and attachments. Either way, the instructions to offerors and the evaluation basis are somewhere in the package. Find them early.
Where to find solicitations
Agencies must synopsize proposed contract actions expected to exceed $25,000 on the government-wide point of entry, under FAR 5.101. That is SAM.gov Contract Opportunities. You need an active SAM registration at the time you submit an offer under FAR 4.1102; see our SAM.gov registration guide for construction contractors. Buildermuse's free bid board pulls the same federal construction notices and lets you filter by state, for example Texas.
First pass: eligibility and fit
NAICS code and size standard
Every solicitation names one NAICS code, and that code carries an SBA size standard. Under 13 CFR 121.201, NAICS 236220 (commercial and institutional building construction) and 237310 (highway, street and bridge construction) are $45.0 million in average annual receipts, and most specialty trade codes, including 238210 electrical, 238220 plumbing and HVAC, and 238160 roofing, are $19.0 million. If the job is set aside and you are over the standard for that code, you cannot compete. If the code looks wrong for the work, raise it during the question period.
Set-aside type
The set-aside tells you who can bid:
- Total small business set-aside: open to any firm small under the solicitation's NAICS code. Under the "rule of two" in FAR 19.502-2, contracting officers set work aside when they expect offers from at least two responsible small businesses at fair market prices.
- 8(a): limited to SBA 8(a) participants. Under FAR 19.805-1, 8(a) acquisitions must be competed among eligible 8(a) firms when the anticipated value exceeds $5.5 million for non-manufacturing work, which includes construction, and two or more eligible firms are expected to offer. Below that, sole-source 8(a) awards are possible. The earlier version of this article said $4.5 million.
- HUBZone, service-disabled veteran-owned and women-owned set-asides: limited to firms with the matching SBA status.
- Full and open (unrestricted): anyone can bid. In full and open competitions, certified HUBZone firms get a price evaluation preference under FAR 19.1307: the contracting officer adds 10% to offers from firms other than HUBZone small businesses and other small businesses, unless the HUBZone firm waived the preference.
The government-wide statutory goals under 15 U.S.C. 644(g) are at least 23% of prime contract dollars to small businesses, with 5% for service-disabled veteran-owned firms, 3% for HUBZone firms, 5% for small disadvantaged businesses and 5% for women-owned small businesses. Those goals are why market research notices and set-asides matter.
Magnitude range
FAR 36.204 bars agencies from disclosing the government estimate, but requires advance notices and solicitations to state the magnitude of the project in one of these price ranges:
| Range |
|---|
| Less than $25,000 |
| $25,000 to $100,000 |
| $100,000 to $250,000 |
| $250,000 to $500,000 |
| $500,000 to $1,000,000 |
| $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 |
| $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 |
| More than $10,000,000 |
The top bracket is "more than $10,000,000"; the earlier version of this article listed ranges up to $500 million, which the FAR does not use. Compare the range to your surety's single-job limit before going further. If the drawings look like far more or far less work than the range, either you are misreading the scope or the agency is. That is a question for the question period.
Second pass: cost floor and risk
Wage determination
Construction contracts over $2,000 for public buildings or public works carry the Construction Wage Rate Requirements statute, formerly the Davis-Bacon Act, under FAR 22.403-1. The wage determination attached to the solicitation, or issued later by amendment, sets the minimum base rate and fringe for each classification. Check:
- The schedule type (building, residential, highway or heavy) matches the work.
- Your key trades are listed. Missing classifications have to be added through a conformance process after award.
- Amendments that replace the wage determination before bid opening.
Under the Payrolls and Basic Records clause, FAR 52.222-8, the contractor must submit payrolls weekly for each week any contract work is performed, and keep payroll records for three years. Price the admin time. Our guide to Davis-Bacon prevailing wages on federal bids covers the details.
Bonds
Performance and payment bonds are required on federal construction contracts over $150,000 under FAR 28.102-1, each at 100% of the original contract price under FAR 52.228-15. When a bid guarantee is required, it must be at least 20% of the bid price, capped at $3 million, under FAR 28.101-2. In sealed bidding, a missing or deficient bid guarantee requires rejection of the bid under FAR 28.101-4, with limited exceptions. Bond premiums depend on your surety, your financials and the contract size, so get a quote for the specific job. Our construction bonding guide explains how sureties set limits.
Self-performance requirement
When included, the Performance of Work by the Contractor clause, FAR 52.236-1, requires you to do a minimum percentage of the work with your own forces. Under FAR 36.501, that percentage is ordinarily not less than 12%, and the clause is generally required in fixed-price construction contracts expected to exceed $2 million. On small business set-asides, the limits on subcontracting in FAR 52.219-14 apply instead: no more than 85% of the amount paid, excluding materials, may go to subs that are not similarly situated on general construction, and 75% for special trade contractors.
Evaluation method
For an IFB, award is on price and price-related factors. For an RFP, find the evaluation factors and their relative importance.
Under lowest price technically acceptable (LPTA), described in FAR 15.101-2, proposals are rated acceptable or unacceptable on non-price factors, tradeoffs are not permitted, and award goes to the lowest-priced acceptable offer.
Under a tradeoff, the agency can pay more for a better technical or past performance rating if the solicitation says so. Language such as "technical factors combined are significantly more important than price" tells you price alone will not win.
If you have little federal past performance, IFBs and LPTA work are a reasonable place to start. If you have strong CPARS ratings on similar work, tradeoff procurements give that record weight.
Change order history
For construction solicitations expected to go to a small business, FAR 36.211 requires the agency to post its policies on definitizing equitable adjustments for change orders, plus data for the prior three fiscal years on how long it took to definitize them, in brackets from 30 days or less to more than 365 days. That table is one of the few places a solicitation tells you how fast an agency pays for changes. Read it.
Key dates
- Bidding time. For sealed bids that require a synopsis, FAR 14.202-1 calls for at least 30 calendar days between issuance and bid opening, and FAR 5.203(c) sets a 30-day minimum response time for actions over the simplified acquisition threshold. A shorter window on a sizable job is worth a second look.
- Site visit. The Site Visit (Construction) provision, FAR 52.236-27, urges offerors to inspect the site, because the Differing Site Conditions and Site Investigations clauses will be in the contract. If an organized visit is scheduled, the date and location are listed.
- Questions. The instructions usually set a cutoff for questions. Calendar it.
- Offer due date and time. Under FAR 14.304, a late bid generally will not be considered.
Red flags and the checklist
Things that deserve a closer look
- Experience requirements narrow enough to fit one firm. Check award history on USAspending.gov for the agency, location and NAICS code to see whether one contractor has held the work for years.
- Brand-name specifications. Under FAR 11.104, brand-name-or-equal descriptions must list the salient characteristics an "equal" product has to meet. A brand name with no salient characteristics or no "or equal" language is worth a question.
- Many amendments close to bid day, which often means the design is not finished.
- A wage determination that does not fit the work type.
If a solicitation is defective, a bid protest is an option. GAO's bid protest annual report for fiscal year 2025, issued December 12, 2025, counted 1,688 protests filed, a 14% sustain rate, and a 52% effectiveness rate, which counts cases where the protester got some relief through a sustain or agency corrective action, as summarized by Covington & Burling's Inside Government Contracts blog. Protests are a tool for clear errors, not a bidding strategy.
Go/no-go checklist
Work through these in order and stop at the first hard no:
- NAICS code and size standard: are you small under this code, or is it unrestricted?
- Set-aside: do you hold the required status?
- Magnitude range: does it fit your single-job bonding limit with room to spare?
- Location: can you staff and supervise it at a reasonable cost?
- Scope: can you self-perform or reliably subcontract the work, and meet any self-performance or subcontracting limit?
- Wage determination: how do the rates for your main trades compare with what you pay now?
- Evaluation method: does it reward your strengths, price or record?
- Calendar: can you make the site visit and the question deadline with time to price?
- Competition: who has been winning this work at this location?
- Payoff: is the likely margin worth the estimating cost at your realistic chance of winning?
Our step-by-step guide on how to bid federal construction contracts covers what happens after you decide to bid.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between an IFB and an RFP in federal construction?
An Invitation for Bids is sealed bidding under FAR Part 14: bids are opened publicly and award goes to the responsible bidder with the most advantageous responsive bid on price and price-related factors, with no discussions. A Request for Proposals is negotiated procurement under FAR Part 15, where the agency can weigh technical approach and past performance against price and hold discussions.
What does the magnitude range tell me?
Under FAR 36.204, the agency must state a price range instead of its estimate, from "less than $25,000" up to "more than $10,000,000." Use it to check the job against your bonding limit and to sanity-check the scope.
Do I need a bid bond to submit a federal construction bid?
When the solicitation requires a bid guarantee, generally whenever performance and payment bonds will be required, yes. Under FAR 28.101-2, it must be at least 20% of the bid price, capped at $3 million. In sealed bidding, a missing or deficient bid guarantee requires rejection of the bid under FAR 28.101-4, apart from a few listed exceptions.
What is the 8(a) competitive threshold for construction?
Under FAR 19.805-1, 8(a) acquisitions must be competed among eligible 8(a) participants when the anticipated value exceeds $5.5 million for non-manufacturing NAICS codes, including construction, and at least two eligible firms are expected to offer. Below that, sole-source 8(a) awards are possible.
How do I find out who has won similar work?
Search USAspending.gov by agency, NAICS code and place of performance and look at recent awards. A long run of awards to one firm at one installation tells you who knows the site, though it does not by itself mean the solicitation is unfair.
How much time do I get to bid?
For sealed bids that require a synopsis, FAR 14.202-1 calls for at least 30 calendar days between issuing the solicitation and opening bids, and FAR 5.203(c) sets a 30-day minimum response time for actions over the simplified acquisition threshold. The solicitation states the exact due date and time, and late bids generally are not considered.
