$777B in federal contracts, filed under 923 codes

How the six digits work

The first two digits: the sector.

Twenty sectors cover the economy, from 11 (agriculture) to 92 (public administration). Manufacturing spans 31 to 33, retail 44 and 45, transportation 48 and 49.

Three and four digits: the subsector and the industry group.

54 is professional, scientific and technical services; 541 is the subsector; 5415 is computer systems design and related services.

Five and six digits: the industry.

541512 is computer systems design services, the code on the contract. The sixth digit is where the United States, Canada and Mexico each define their own industries.

The buyer picks the code.

The contracting officer assigns one code to each solicitation for the work it mainly buys. A company can hold as many codes as describe its business, and it is small or large under each one separately.

Size standards, in words

• SBA sets a size standard for every NAICS code: the largest a company can be and still count as small under that code.
• Most service, retail and construction codes measure size in average annual receipts over the last five fiscal years; most manufacturing, wholesale and some transportation codes measure it in average employees over the last 24 months.
• Size is counted with affiliates included, and it is certified on each offer against the code the buyer assigned to that solicitation, so a company can be small under one code and large under another.
• GovSmith checks a client's size against SBA's current table for every code on every opening it matches, and tells the client before it pursues work it could not be small for.

The table itself is SBA’s, at sba.gov, and it changes by rule; these pages state its shape, never a figure they did not read.