Federal Agencies / Federal agency guide
Department of War: $527B in contracts in FY2025
The Department of War (USAspending still lists it as the Department of Defense) is the largest buyer on earth: more contract dollars than every other federal agency combined, spread across the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force and the defense agencies. It buys everything from aircraft and ships to janitorial services at a thousand installations, and most of it moves through enterprise vehicles, base-level simplified buys and the subcontracts of the large primes.
Its mission, in its own words
The mission of the Department of Defense is to provide the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the security of our country.
As recorded on USAspending.gov; 36 sub-agencies and bureaus buy under it. www.defense.gov
- Small-business set-asides
- $32B
Source: USAspending.gov, FY2025 contract obligations under a small-business set-aside, read 2026-11-05.
- Set-aside share
- 6.1%
Source: USAspending.gov, FY2025 set-aside obligations over all contract obligations, read 2026-11-05.
What DoW buys, by code
The NAICS codes with the most DoW contract dollars in FY2025: together $346B, 65.6% of everything it obligated. Each code links to its own page with the buyers under it across government.
| NAICS code | FY2025 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| $62.6B | 11.9% | |
| $41.7B | 7.9% | |
| $36.2B | 6.9% | |
| $34.6B | 6.6% | |
| $32B | 6.1% | |
| $20.7B | 3.9% | |
| $19.9B | 3.8% | |
| $17.2B | 3.3% | |
| $14.1B | 2.7% | |
| $13.5B | 2.6% | |
| $11.5B | 2.2% | |
| $11.4B | 2.2% | |
| $11.3B | 2.1% | |
| $9.5B | 1.8% | |
| $9.5B | 1.8% |
Source: USAspending.gov, FY2025 contract obligations by NAICS code, read 2026-11-05.
The small-business share
$31,965,815,751 of DoW’s FY2025 contract dollars, 6.1% of the total, went out under a small-business set-aside: competitions and sole-source awards reserved for small firms, 8(a) participants, HUBZone, service-disabled veteran-owned and women-owned businesses. The dollars primes placed with small subcontractors sit on top of that and are not counted here.
Source: USAspending.gov, FY2025 set-aside obligations, read 2026-11-05.
The vehicles
OASIS+ and Alliant 3
GSA's professional-services and IT GWACs, used heavily by defense components for staff and systems work.
SEWP VI
NASA's IT hardware and solutions vehicle, the Department's favorite for equipment and software.
ITES-4H and ITES-4S
The Army's enterprise IT hardware and services contracts.
SeaPort-NxG
The Navy's professional-services IDIQ, ordered through the PIEE Solicitation Module.
NETCENTS-2 and AFNCP
The Air Force's network, IT and telecom vehicles.
Other Transaction Authority
Prototype agreements through DIU, AFWERX and the OTA consortia, the door for companies that never sold to defense before.
What GovSmith does with this
How GovSmith wins at DoW for you
GovSmith reads the Department's notices by installation and by command, watches the small set-aside buys that never leave a base, the SBIR topics and the OTA calls, and finds the primes that need a subcontractor with the client's skill. Defense wants new suppliers more than its paperwork suggests; the vCM does the paperwork.