UEI Number Lookup: How to Find Any Company’s UEI

The Unique Entity ID (UEI) is the federal government’s standard identifier for every organisation that does business with it. You will need your own UEI to register, and you will often need to look up other companies’ UEIs — to check a potential partner, verify a subcontractor, or research a competitor. Here is exactly how to do both.

What a UEI looks like

A UEI is a 12-character alphanumeric identifier assigned by SAM.gov. It replaced the DUNS number in April 2022, so any guide or form still asking for a DUNS number is out of date. If a partner gives you a 9-digit number, that is a legacy DUNS — ask for their UEI instead.

How to find your own UEI

The fastest route is through your SAM.gov account. Sign in, open your entity registration, and your UEI appears at the top of your entity record. If you requested a UEI but never completed a registration, you can still retrieve it: sign in to SAM.gov, go to your workspace, and your UEI request record will show the assigned number.

If you cannot sign in — because the original administrator left, for example — you will need to go through SAM.gov’s entity administrator process to regain access. This is the slowest path, so keep your administrator credentials documented somewhere safe.

How to look up another company’s UEI

SAM.gov’s public search lets you find any registered entity. From the SAM.gov homepage, use the search function and enter the company’s legal business name. Filter by state or country if the name is common. The entity’s public record shows its UEI, its CAGE code, its registration status, and its listed NAICS codes.

Two practical tips. First, search by legal name, not trade name — a company registered as “Smith Consulting LLC” will not appear under “Smith Consulting Group” unless that name is also listed. Second, check the registration status field: an entity can have a UEI and still be inactive if its annual registration lapsed. An inactive registration means the company cannot receive new federal awards until it renews.

What if the lookup returns nothing?

A company with no SAM.gov record has either never registered, registered under a different legal name, or let its registration expire so long ago that the record is no longer displayed. If you are checking a potential subcontractor and find nothing, treat that as a red flag worth one direct question before you proceed: ask them to confirm their legal name and UEI in writing.

UEI vs CAGE code: do not confuse them

The UEI identifies your entity across the federal government. The CAGE code identifies your entity’s facility for Department of Defense and contracting purposes. You need both, but they serve different systems. A company can have a UEI without an active CAGE code if its registration is incomplete, so when verifying a partner, check both fields.

Why UEI lookups matter for winning work

Before you bid, look up the incumbent contractor on a contract you want. Their public record shows their size status and NAICS codes, which tells you whether the work is realistically in your lane. Before you team, look up your partner the same way — a few minutes of verification prevents months of trouble with a partner who is not actually eligible for the set-aside you are pursuing. GovQon surfaces this kind of entity information alongside matched opportunities, so you can check a lead and its competitive landscape in one place.

Quick reference

• Your own UEI: SAM.gov account, entity record, top of the page.
• Another company’s UEI: SAM.gov public search by legal business name.
• Always check: registration status (active vs inactive) and CAGE code.
• No result: likely unregistered, renamed, or long-expired — ask for written confirmation.

UEI lookups for subcontractors and teaming partners

The most valuable UEI lookups are the ones you run on other companies. Before signing a teaming agreement, verify that your partner’s entity is active, that its size status matches what it claimed, and that its NAICS codes cover the work it will perform. A partner that is inactive, or registered under codes unrelated to the scope, can disqualify a joint bid or create a compliance problem after award. The same check applies to subcontractors: an inactive subcontractor cannot be paid through federal systems until its registration is restored, and that delay lands on your project schedule. Running these lookups early — before proposals are written and prices are set — is one of the cheapest risk controls in federal contracting.

It is also worth checking the UEI of a company you are replacing or competing against. If an incumbent’s registration has lapsed, that tells you something about how seriously it is pursuing the recompete. If a competitor claims a set-aside status, its public record either confirms it or it does not. None of this replaces due diligence, but a two-minute lookup often answers questions that would otherwise take a week of emails.

Keeping your own UEI record accurate

Your UEI never changes, but the record attached to it does. When your address, ownership, or business size changes, update your SAM.gov registration promptly — a stale record means partners and contracting officers see outdated information when they look you up. Pay particular attention to your points of contact and your NAICS codes, since those are the fields other companies actually use. And if you are just starting out, work through our federal contractor registration checklist before you register, read what a CAGE code is so you can tell the two identifiers apart, and avoid the errors in our registration mistakes guide. A clean, current record makes every lookup — yours or someone else’s — come back with the right answer.

One last check before you rely on a lookup

A UEI lookup tells you what a company’s record says today, not what it will say next month. Registrations expire annually, ownership changes, and size status can shift as revenue grows. If a lookup underpins a bid, a teaming agreement, or a subcontract, re-check it close to the decision date rather than relying on a result from months earlier. That habit — verify early, verify again before you commit — costs minutes and prevents the most embarrassing version of this problem: discovering after submission that a partner’s status changed while your proposal was being written.