Your SAM.gov registration is the gateway to federal contracts. If it is not active on the day an agency checks, you cannot receive an award, no matter how strong your proposal is. Checking your registration status takes only a few minutes, but many new contractors do it wrong: they log in and assume everything is fine because they can see their entity record, or they search the public database and misread what they find. This guide explains both ways to check, what each status means, and what to do when the answer is not the one you expected.
Why your status matters more than your paperwork
Federal contracting officers are required to verify that a vendor is registered and active in SAM.gov before making an award. That check happens at a specific moment, not when you submitted your proposal weeks earlier. A registration that was active when you bid can lapse before the award date, and a lapsed registration can cost you the contract. The same rule applies to subcontractors on many federal jobs: primes routinely check SAM.gov before they bring a subcontractor on board. Keeping your status active is therefore not administrative housekeeping. It is a condition of getting paid for federal work.
Status also matters for visibility. An active registration means your entity record appears in the searches that agencies and primes run when they are looking for vendors. An inactive or expired record drops out of those searches, so opportunities stop finding you even if you are still bidding through other channels. If you want to understand the full registration process first, start with our SAM.gov registration guide, then use this article as your regular status check.
Method 1: Check your own status after signing in
The most reliable check is inside your own SAM.gov account. Sign in at SAM.gov with the account linked to your entity, then go to your workspace or entity management area and open your entity record. The status is displayed prominently near the top of the record, alongside your Unique Entity ID (UEI), your legal business name, and your registration expiration date. If you have more than one entity, check each one separately. Statuses are per entity, not per login account, so one active entity does not cover another.
While you are there, note three dates: the date your registration was last updated, the date it expires, and the date of your next required annual renewal. SAM.gov registrations expire one year after activation, and renewal is your responsibility. Set a reminder at least thirty days before expiration. Our SAM.gov renewal guide walks through the renewal steps so you are not scrambling in the final week.
Also check that the contact information on the record is current. Renewal reminders, validation questions, and messages from contracting officers go to the contacts listed on the record. An old email address that nobody monitors is one of the quietest ways a registration lapses: the warnings arrive, nobody sees them, and the status flips to expired without anyone in the company noticing until a bid is affected.
Method 2: Search the public SAM.gov database
You can also check a registration without signing in, using SAM.gov’s public search. Search by legal business name, UEI, or CAGE code. This is the same view a contracting officer or a prime contractor sees when they look you up, so it is worth checking periodically even if your own dashboard looks fine. A public search confirms what the outside world can actually see about your entity.
When you run a public search, pay attention to two things. First, confirm that the record you found is really yours: similar business names are common, and a search can return several entities with overlapping names. Match the UEI and the address before drawing any conclusions. Second, read the status field itself rather than assuming that the existence of a record means the registration is active. SAM.gov keeps records for entities whose registrations have expired, and an expired record looks very similar to an active one at a glance.
If you are checking someone else’s status — a potential subcontractor, a joint venture partner, or a prime you hope to work with — the public search is the right tool. It also powers the exclusions check, which is a separate and equally important verification. Our guide on SAM.gov exclusions explains what an exclusions record means and why you should check it before partnering with anyone.
What each status means
Active. Your registration is current, validated, and eligible for federal awards. This is the only status that lets you receive a new contract. If your record says Active, you are in good shape, but still note the expiration date and keep it on your calendar.
Submitted or Pending. You have submitted a registration or a renewal, but it has not yet completed validation and activation. You cannot receive an award while you are in this state. If a submission sits in this status for longer than a few weeks, something usually needs attention: a validation question may be waiting in your account inbox, or a piece of information may not match IRS or other official records. Check your account messages and your contact email before assuming the delay is normal processing time.
Expired. Your registration has passed its expiration date without a completed renewal. You are not eligible for new federal awards until you complete a renewal and the registration becomes active again. An expired registration does not erase your entity record or your UEI, but it does stop you from winning work. Renew as soon as possible, and be aware that reactivation takes time: it is not instant the moment you submit the renewal form.
Inactive. In SAM.gov terminology, an entity can also show as inactive for other reasons, including an entity that has been deactivated at the owner’s request or after a prolonged lapse. Treat inactive the same way you treat expired: you need to restore an active registration before you can be awarded work. If you are unsure why a record shows inactive, contact the SAM.gov help desk rather than submitting a duplicate registration, which can create a second record and a confusing mess that takes longer to untangle.
Not found. If a public search returns no record at all, the entity may never have completed registration, may have been registered under a different legal name, or may have a typo in the search term. Double-check the UEI first, because a UEI search is far more precise than a name search. If you are certain the entity should be registered and it is not found, the registration was probably never completed or was submitted under a different entity name.
Common mistakes when checking status
The first mistake is confusing a UEI with an active registration. Having a UEI is a step toward registration, not the same thing as being registered. Many businesses request a UEI early, then assume they are done. A UEI alone does not make you eligible for awards. You need a completed, active registration attached to that UEI. If you are still at the UEI stage, our UEI lookup guide explains how to verify a UEI, and our federal contractor registration checklist lists everything else you need before you submit.
The second mistake is checking once and never again. Registration status changes once a year at renewal, and it can also change if validation flags a mismatch after an update. Make status checks part of your routine: check before every major proposal submission, check when you change your business address or banking details, and check monthly if you have active bids in evaluation. A five-minute check before a proposal deadline is cheap insurance against losing an award you already earned on merit.
The third mistake is relying on a screenshot or a confirmation email from months ago. Status is a live fact, not a historical one. A confirmation from last year proves you were active last year. It says nothing about today. Always check the live record.
What to do if your status is not active
Start by signing in and reading any messages in your SAM.gov account. Validation holds, requests for additional documentation, and renewal reminders all appear there. If a message asks for a correction, make it promptly and keep a copy of what you submitted. If there is no message and the status has been pending for an unusually long time, contact the SAM.gov help desk with your UEI ready. Have your legal business name, your EIN, and the date you submitted available when you call, because those are the first things support will ask for.
If your registration expired, begin the renewal immediately. Do not wait for a contracting officer to tell you it expired, because by then the award decision may already have moved to another vendor. While the renewal is processing, be honest with primes and partners about your status and your expected reactivation timeline. A prime that learns about an expired registration from SAM.gov rather than from you will trust you less than one you told proactively.
Finally, fix the root cause so it does not happen again. If expiration caught you by surprise, set calendar reminders at ninety, thirty, and seven days before the next expiration, and name a backup person who also receives the reminders. Registration maintenance is a small recurring task, and the companies that treat it as one never lose a contract over it.
How often should you check?
At a minimum, check your status once a month and before every proposal submission. If you are actively bidding, check weekly during evaluation periods. If you are a subcontractor, expect primes to check you, so check yourself first and fix problems before a prime finds them. And if you manage registrations for multiple entities, keep a simple tracker: entity name, UEI, status, and expiration date, reviewed on the first working day of each month. That one habit prevents almost every status-related surprise in federal contracting.
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Registration Status: Make the Check a Monthly Habit
The cheapest way to protect your registration status is to make the check routine. Put it on the same calendar as your invoicing or your proposal deadlines: once a month, open your SAM.gov record and confirm the registration status is still Active, and check the expiration date while you are there. A registration status that is checked monthly rarely surprises anyone; a registration status that is checked once a year is a renewal that has already expired. When the registration status changes, it changes quietly — there is no alert for a renewal you forgot to file.
If the record ever shows anything other than Active, do not guess at the fix: the SAM.gov workspace tells you what is outstanding. Check the registration status again the week the renewal goes through, because a registration status can sit in Submitted for days while validation runs. And if you are starting from scratch, our SAM.gov registration guide walks through the renewal that restores it — keep the registration status in your pre-bid checklist, and the award will never be blocked by the one detail you forgot to check.
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