Federal Contracting for Veteran-Owned Businesses

SDVOSB (Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business) and VOSB (Veteran-Owned Small Business) certification is handled by the U.S. Small Business Administration through its Veteran Small Business Certification program (VetCert). The certification function moved from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the SBA on January 1, 2023 under the FY2021 National Defense Authorization Act, replacing the VA's former Center for Verification and Evaluation. SBA began accepting applications in the new portal on January 9, 2023.

Do you qualify? (eligibility)

Two separate tests must both be met — 51% ownership alone is not enough:

• Ownership. One or more veterans (for VOSB) — or one or more veterans the VA has rated service-disabled (for SDVOSB) — must directly and unconditionally own at least 51% of the business (13 CFR 128.200, 128.202).
• Control. A qualifying veteran must control both long-term decisions and day-to-day operations, hold the highest officer position (usually President or CEO), and generally work full-time during normal business hours (13 CFR 128.203).
• Small business. The firm must qualify as small under the SBA size standard for at least one NAICS code in its SAM.gov profile. See section 4 on picking NAICS codes.
• Service-disabled status (SDVOSB only). The owner's service-connected disability must be recorded by the VA. Importantly, the regulation (13 CFR 128.102) sets no minimum disability-rating percentage — a veteran with any service-connected rating recorded by the VA, even 0%, can meet the definition. There is no rating floor, despite a common misconception otherwise.

Before you apply

• Register in SAM.gov first and get your free Unique Entity Identifier (UEI). Size eligibility is judged against the NAICS code(s) in your SAM profile. Have your UEI and company bank account number handy.
• Match your VA records exactly. Your full legal name (including middle name and any suffix), date of birth, and personal residential address must match what the VA has on file, or the electronic VA validation will fail. Reconcile your profile at va.gov first, and do not resubmit until SBA and VA records agree. Because SBA validates veteran status electronically against VA data, a separate DD-214 or rating-letter upload is generally not needed when records match.

Documents you'll likely need

SBA does not publish one fixed checklist — required documents depend on your entity type and your answers to situational questions, and a reviewer may ask for more. As a general guide from the SBA fact sheet:

• LLC — Articles of Organization (with amendments), state certificate of formation, Operating Agreement (with amendments), and minutes evidencing operating practices.
• Corporation — Articles of Incorporation, by-laws (with amendments), state certificate, shareholder agreements, minutes, and the most recent stock ledger.
• Partnership — Partnership Agreement plus proof of formation/existence (and minutes for LP/LLP).
• Sole proprietorship — one of: the IRS SS-4 EIN letter, a fictitious/trade-name certificate, or your most recent Schedule C.
• Situational — e.g., marriage certificate (surviving spouse), VA written determination of permanent and total disability plus caregiver appointment (caregiver applicant), franchise agreement, an ethics letter if a household member is a federal employee at GS-13+, or a revocable trust agreement if the business is trust-owned.

Apply — for free

• Cost: nothing. SBA's portal states, "SBA does not charge any costs for applying to our programs." Be wary of third parties charging a fee to "get" you certified.
• Timeline: as of November 11, 2025, SBA reported processing averaged about 12 days after clearing its backlog to zero actionable cases. This is a point-in-time figure — it averaged 30 days at the program's launch and reached 81 days by the end of 2024 — so don't count on a guaranteed turnaround.
• Help: email [email protected] or call 866-SBA-HELP (866-722-4357), Mon–Fri 8:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. ET.

Primary source: SBA — Veteran contracting assistance programs and the SBA VetCert fact sheet (April 2024).

SAM.gov (the System for Award Management) is the federal government's front door for doing business with agencies. Registration and the Unique Entity ID are free — the government warns you do not need to pay a third party.

Get your UEI

The Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) is now the authoritative federal identifier (it replaced the DUNS number) and is assigned inside SAM.gov. For a UEI-only request you only need your legal business name and physical address.

Complete a full entity registration

To bid on contracts as a prime contractor you need a full, active registration — and it must stay active when you submit an offer, at award, and throughout the life of the contract. A full registration includes:

• Core data — UEI, legal business name, TIN, and financial/banking information.
• Assertions — the goods and services you provide and your NAICS codes.
• Representations & Certifications — the statutory/regulatory reps and certs.
• Points of contact.

Plan ahead: SAM processing averages a few business days, with external reviews that can take up to about 10 business days. See GSA — Register your business.

What certification unlocks in the system

• Once SBA certifies a firm, its VOSB/SDVOSB status is verified and visible to contracting officers through SBA's Small Business Search (the former Dynamic Small Business Search / DSBS) at search.certifications.sba.gov, and the firm's status is designated in SAM. Contracting officers are required to verify a firm is designated in SAM as an SBA-certified SDVOSB before making an SDVOSB award (FAR 19.1403(b), effective Jan 1, 2024).
• Self-certification has ended: for sole-source/set-aside awards as of December 31, 2023, and for subcontracting and agency goaling credit as of December 22, 2024. A firm must now be SBA-certified — not self-certified — to count.

A note on honesty: a business that is still pursuing certification (like ours) is not yet certified, cannot yet be designated as an SDVOSB in SAM, and cannot count toward SDVOSB goals or win SDVOSB set-asides until SBA grants certification. Plan your bidding around when you'll actually hold the certificate.

Certification opens the door; competitive intelligence is how you walk through it. Here is the practical research toolkit veterans use to find where the money is and where they can realistically compete.

Where SDVOSBs win

• The VA is the most favorable. Under the VA "Veterans First" program (38 U.S.C. 8127–8128; VAAR Subpart 819.70) and the Supreme Court's Kingdomware decision, the VA must set a contract aside for SDVOSBs/VOSBs whenever the "Rule of Two" is met — a reasonable expectation that two or more eligible certified firms will bid at a fair price. VA SDVOSB sole-source awards are allowed up to $5 million. VOSB/SDVOSB set-asides take priority over other small-business set-asides at the VA.
• Government-wide is discretionary. Across other agencies (FAR Subpart 19.14), contracting officers may — but are not required to — set aside or sole-source to SDVOSBs under the Rule of Two. So outside the VA, the government-wide goal and relationship-building matter more.
• Sole-source caps (current as of Oct 1, 2025): an SDVOSB sole-source award will not exceed $8.5 million for manufacturing NAICS codes or $5 million for any other NAICS code (FAR 19.1406). These figures are inflation-adjusted periodically — re-verify before relying on them.
• The goals: the government targets at least 5% of federal contracting dollars to SDVOSBs each year (raised from 3% by the NDAA for FY2024), and the VA sets higher goals — at least 15% of its contract dollars to SDVOSBs and 17% to VOSBs (in place since FY2019). These are annual goals, not a guaranteed pool reserved for any one firm.

The sub-threshold "sweet spot"

Smaller buys are friendlier to new firms. As of October 1, 2025 (current thresholds, FAR 2.101): the micro-purchase threshold is $15,000 and the simplified acquisition threshold (SAT) is $350,000. Most purchases between those two figures are reserved for small business when the Rule of Two is met — a strong place for a newly certified SDVOSB to compete. (Some older sources still cite $10,000/$250,000; those are out of date.)

Research tools — find the opportunities

• SAM.gov Contract Opportunities — filter by Set-Aside Type (including SDVOSB), NAICS, agency, and place of performance. Save searches and turn on email alerts. Watch the "Sources Sought" and "Special Notice" types to catch market research before a solicitation is finalized.
• Respond to Sources Sought / RFIs. When an agency posts a Sources Sought notice it's doing market research and hasn't committed to a set-aside yet. SDVOSBs that respond showing capability help the contracting officer form a "reasonable expectation" of two-or-more SDVOSB offers — which mandates a set-aside at the VA and enables one elsewhere. It's the highest-leverage, lowest-cost move for a small firm.
• USAspending.gov & FPDS — incumbent and agency analysis. Search by NAICS, agency, or recipient to learn which agencies buy what you sell, who holds the work now, what they were paid, and when the contract expires. That tells you where real money flows and which recompetes are coming.
• Agency OSDBUs. Every agency has an Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization whose job is to help small/SDVOSB firms win that agency's work. Identify which agencies buy your NAICS (via USAspending), then contact their OSDBU to get on the radar and learn upcoming requirements.
• Subcontracting is the on-ramp. If you can't win a prime contract yet, win work under a large prime — primes on contracts above the subcontracting-plan floor (raised to $900,000 effective Oct 1, 2025) must include separate SDVOSB subcontracting goals (FAR Subpart 19.7). Free APEX Accelerators counseling is the most reliable place to find subcontracting help; SBA's SubNet lets you browse existing listings.

Your capability statement & past performance

A one-page capability statement is your core marketing asset for OSDBUs and prime contractors. It should fit on a single page and include: core competencies, what makes you different, relevant past performance (a handful of similar-scope jobs with metrics), your socioeconomic status, and key identifiers (UEI, CAGE, NAICS). Federal buyers check CPARS ratings to gauge risk, so build a track record. For a brand-new firm with no federal past performance, the realistic play is to build past performance through subcontracting first, then go after prime awards. The one-page convention is industry practice, not a regulation.

NAICS codes describe what your business does, and each one carries an SBA size standard (a maximum number of employees or annual receipts) that determines whether you count as "small." Choosing them deliberately is part of your strategy:

• For SBA eligibility, the SBA looks at the primary NAICS code in your SAM.gov profile and whether you're small under it.
• For a specific contract, the contracting officer assigns one NAICS code per solicitation — the single industry that best describes the principal purpose of the buy — and you must be small under that code to qualify for that set-aside (FAR 19.102). The size standard in effect on the solicitation's issue date applies.
• Strategy: pick a primary NAICS where you're clearly small and competitive, and target solicitations whose assigned NAICS matches it.
• Check your size with SBA's free Size Standards Tool and the full table at 13 CFR 121.201 — see SBA Size Standards. Don't hard-code a dollar size standard; they're reviewed and adjusted periodically, so confirm with the live tool.

The rest of this guide is organized around five phases — getting started, ramping up, first dollar, profit, and growth. Every free program below is mapped to the phase where it actually helps, so you can skip what isn't for you yet. One rule holds across all five: everything federal on this list costs $0. Any site charging for "registration" or "certification" is a third party, not the government.

Phase 1 — Getting Started (idea, plan, entity)

Start with Boots to Business, SBA's free two-day intro course, delivered on military installations through TAP. Separated years ago? You're not too late: B2B Reboot brings the same free curriculum to veterans of all eras, in communities and online, year-round, hosted by Veterans Business Outreach Centers. Graduates can continue with the free online follow-on, B2B: Revenue Readiness, delivered through Mississippi State University.

For free one-on-one help with the plan itself, you have three doors — a VBOC counselor, a SCORE mentor, or an SBDC advisor — covered in depth in section 06. Beyond SBA's network: IVMF's Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans (EBV), run by a consortium of universities including Syracuse, Texas A&M, UCLA, and others, is a three-phase program for post-9/11 veterans, Guard and Reserve members, and service members within 180 days of separation — entirely free, including travel and lodging. And Warrior Rising's Warrior Academy offers free self-paced modules you can start tonight.

Phase 2 — Ramping Up (licenses, registrations, positioning)

Two registrations matter now, and both are free: SAM.gov — section 09 walks it step by step — and SBA VetCert at veterans.certify.sba.gov. VetCert applications flow through the MySBA Certifications portal at certifications.sba.gov using your SAM.gov login; renewals launched November 1, 2025. On speed: SBA announced on November 11, 2025 that it had cleared a backlog of more than 2,700 applications and that average processing had fallen to about 12 days, down from a roughly 80-day peak. That is SBA's own figure, last verified July 2026 — times vary. For structured training at this stage, Warrior Rising's Warrior University is a free eight-week accelerator, and DAV Patriot Boot Camp runs free three-day events around the country (its June 2026 event ran in Salt Lake City).

Phase 3 — First Dollar (first customers, first revenue)

Your fastest first federal dollar is usually a subcontract, not a prime bid. Three free places to find primes: SBA SubNet, SBA's directory of prime contractors with subcontracting plans, and the VA Prime Contractor Directory, which lists named points of contact. In parallel, set up saved searches in SAM.gov Contract Opportunities filtered to your NAICS codes plus the SDVOSB set-aside codes — it's $0, and no paid tool is required to see everything the government posts. Complete your DSBS profile so contracting officers can find you (section 09, step 7). If you need a small non-dilutive boost, Warrior Rising's Business Shower pitch events award grants of up to $20,000 — competitive, pitch-based, and never guaranteed.

Phase 4 — Profit (repeatable revenue, first institutional money)

This is where debt starts to make sense. SBA microloans run up to $50,000 (the average is about $13,000), with rates generally 8–13% and terms up to 7 years; startups are eligible, and the nonprofit intermediaries that make them bundle in mentoring. CDFIs — Treasury-certified mission lenders — work with credit-thin borrowers; per the CDFI Fund's 2023 reporting, they have made more than $38.2 billion in business and microenterprise loans to nearly 585,000 businesses since 2010. For FY2026, the upfront guaranty fee on SBA Express loans is $0 for businesses owned and controlled by a veteran or a veteran's spouse, up to the $500,000 Express maximum — a statutory waiver per SBA Information Notice 5000-872051; check the current fiscal year's notice before relying on it. And if an essential employee is called to active Guard or Reserve duty for 30 days or more, MREIDL working-capital loans go up to $2 million at 4% interest or less.

Phase 5 — Growth (scale, contracts, working capital)

With revenue and past performance, the contracting preferences in section 08 become real: SDVOSB set-asides government-wide under FAR 19.14, and the VA's Vets First priority — SDVOSB first, VOSB second — which is mandatory under the VA Rule of Two per the Supreme Court's Kingdomware decision. For growth-stage peers and structured support, look at IVMF's CEOcircle and Veteran EDGE. This is also the first phase where our own products become relevant: Jon Lynch Financial Group — Veteran-Owned (SDVOSB) — offers revenue-based financing and a partner-lender catalog, and it belongs here and only here.

Revenue-based financing is a purchase of future receivables — not a loan. Current business revenue is required to qualify.

If that describes your business, you can get a quick quote (revenue-stage businesses only) or see the financing products. If you're pre-revenue, the free programs above are the honest place to start.

Four networks will sit down with you one-on-one, all four are free, all four are findable by ZIP code, and none of them upsell.

Everything in this section is funded by SBA or run by volunteers. If someone quotes you a price for "SBA counseling," walk away.

SBA district offices — the front door

SBA keeps district offices in every state and territory, and they are the local front door to the entire ecosystem: counseling, training, lender-match guidance, federal contracting orientation, B2B Reboot schedules, and warm referrals to SCORE, an SBDC, a VBOC, or a Women's Business Center when one of those fits better.

VBOCs — the veteran-specific channel

Thirty-one organizations operate under SBA cooperative agreements covering the U.S., D.C., and the territories (older material still says 28 — that figure is stale). They provide free one-on-one counseling and mentorship, business plan development, concept assessment, monthly financial statement reviews, and low- or no-cost training on topics like franchising, international trade, and accounting. They also host Boots to Business and B2B Reboot.

SCORE — a mentor for the life of your business

SCORE pairs you with a volunteer mentor — many of them veterans — for free, ongoing one-on-one mentoring, and it stays free for the life of your business. No catch: SCORE is an SBA resource partner. Mentors help you write and pressure-test a business plan, work out how to fund it, or evaluate buying an existing business or franchise. The dedicated veteran hub also carries the Veterans Small Business Resource Guide and free webinars.

SBDCs — the numbers-and-paperwork desk

Nearly 1,000 Small Business Development Centers, hosted by universities and state agencies and congressionally funded through SBA, provide no-cost individualized advising: business plans, financial packaging and lending assistance, market research, procurement help, and export support. Advising is free; some training courses carry a small fee.

There are two roads into ownership — starting from zero, or buying something that already runs — and the funding menu is genuinely different at zero revenue than it is with revenue. Here is each menu, without the fluff.

There is no general veteran business grant from the VA or SBA. SBA's own grants page says it "does not provide grants for starting and expanding a business." Real veteran grants are small, competitive, nonprofit-run, and usually earned through a training pipeline.

At zero revenue (starting)

Most founders start with personal savings. It's the most common source, and the honest caveats are undercapitalization and the temptation to drain retirement accounts. Beyond savings:

• SBA microloans — up to $50,000 through nonprofit intermediary lenders; startups are explicitly eligible. Funds can cover working capital, inventory, supplies, and equipment — not real estate and not refinancing existing debt.
• CDFIs — Treasury-certified mission lenders built for credit-thin borrowers. Per the CDFI Fund's 2023 reporting, more than $38.2 billion in business and microenterprise loans to nearly 585,000 businesses since 2010.
• Equipment financing and SBA 504 — for asset-heavy starts like trucking and construction, where the equipment itself secures the loan.
• SBA Express — for FY2026 the upfront guaranty fee is $0 for businesses owned and controlled by a veteran or a veteran's spouse, up to the $500,000 Express maximum (SBA Information Notice 5000-872051). That waiver applies to Express loans — not to standard 7(a) fees.
• Competitive micro-grants — Warrior Rising's Business Showers award non-dilutive grants of up to $20,000 (competitive, pitch-based, amounts vary by event); DAV Patriot Boot Camp pitch competitions award thousands of dollars in non-dilutive funding, with amounts varying by event. Neither is guaranteed to anyone.
• ROBS (Rollovers as Business Start-ups) — exists, but sits under a dedicated IRS compliance project that found high failure rates and plan-disqualification risk. If you go anywhere near it, use specialized professionals — never DIY.

What does not fit at zero revenue: revenue-based financing and merchant cash advances. Both are purchases of future receivables — with no sales history, there is nothing to purchase. Pre-revenue founders should not apply; come back when monthly revenue is real.

Buying an existing business (often more financeable than starting)

SBA 7(a) loans go up to $5 million through partner lenders, and eligible uses explicitly include changes of ownership. SBA guarantees 85% of loans up to $150,000 and 75% above that — which is why banks will lend to buyers they would otherwise decline. Underwriting runs on the target's historical cash flow: expect to produce about three years of the seller's tax returns and financials, a business valuation, and your own credit, experience, and down payment. The revenue history does the work a startup's projections cannot.

Under SOP 50 10 8 (effective June 1, 2025), plan for a 10% minimum equity injection of total project costs for startups and full changes of ownership. A seller note counts toward that injection only on full standby — SBA Form 155, no payments for the life of the loan — and only up to half the required amount, so plan on 10–20% down in practice. Seller financing is standard in small-business sales: it bridges valuation gaps and signals the seller's confidence. Sellers rarely carry the whole price, and standby means the seller waits behind the bank.

Scam radar

• Registration-fee scams. SAM.gov registration, your UEI, your CAGE code, and VetCert are all $0. GSA warns about imposter firms charging $300–$3,000 and phishing that mimics SAM.gov — legitimate messages come only from .gov addresses.
• Fake veteran grant lists. Stale listicles still promote dead programs — the StreetShares Foundation award, once on every list, no longer exists, and its old domain now serves spam, which is why we name it without linking it. SBA is blunt: it "does not provide grants for starting and expanding a business." If a site promises easy veteran grants or charges a fee to apply, close the tab.
• Predatory merchant cash advances. In February 2024 the FTC obtained a $20.3 million judgment against MCA operator Jonathan Braun (RCG Advances), alongside permanent industry bans; the documented abuses included underfunding, hidden fees, undisclosed personal guarantees, and unauthorized withdrawals. The contrast to demand from any funder is plain-English disclosure: always know the total payback amount and the factor rate before you sign.

Plenty of pages tell veterans which industries "love" them. This one separates three things that usually get blurred together: what the data shows, what the law actually provides, and what is merely our read on skill fit — labeled as such.

What Census actually shows

Per the Census Bureau's Annual Business Survey (the 2022 survey, covering 2021 activity), veterans owned 304,823 employer firms — 5.2% of all U.S. employer businesses — with $922.2 billion in receipts. The largest single veteran sector is Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services, with Construction and Administrative and Support Services also near the top. Transportation and warehousing has a real veteran presence, but it is not the top veteran sector.

Trucking and logistics — the corrected claim

There is no DOT program reserving trucking or freight work exclusively for veteran-owned businesses. If you read that claim somewhere, it is wrong. Here is what actually exists.

• FMCSA Military Skills Test Waiver. Veterans with two years of qualifying military heavy-vehicle experience can skip the CDL skills test in every state — more than 40,000 service members and veterans have used it. The written knowledge test still applies (some states also offer an Even Exchange knowledge-test program). This is an individual licensing benefit, not a business preference.
• SDVOSB set-asides on specific solicitations. Any agency — including DOT and DoD — can set aside freight and hauling solicitations for SBA-certified SDVOSBs under FAR 19.14. That narrows the competition on individual solicitations posted to SAM.gov; it is not a standing carve-out.
• DOT OSDBU's SBTRC network. A nationwide network of regional Small Business Transportation Resource Centers provides free counseling and procurement technical assistance, explicitly including veteran-owned firms, plus a Bonding Education Program.
• SDDC carrier approval. Hauling DoD freight requires approval by the Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, and it is open to any qualifying company — a separate on-ramp worth knowing about, not a veteran carve-out.

One program to skip: the DOT DBE (Disadvantaged Business Enterprise) program. Veteran status has never been a presumed-disadvantaged category there, and the October 2025 interim final rule removed group presumptions entirely. Don't spend your time on it.

Federal preferences that are real money

• FAR Subpart 19.14 — SDVOSB set-aside and sole-source authority, government-wide.
• The 5% goal. The FY2024 NDAA (§863, amending 15 U.S.C. 644(g)) raised the government-wide SDVOSB prime contracting goal from 3% to 5%. Per SBA's FY25 scorecard, SDVOSBs won $32.5 billion in prime contracts in FY25 — treat that as SBA's number, not settled fact, since independent analyses dispute roughly $6 billion of the counted awards.
• Certification is the gate. Only SBA-certified SDVOSBs count toward the goals and can win set-aside and sole-source awards; self-certification has ended (see section 01 for the dates).
• VA Vets First (38 U.S.C. 8127). At the VA, SDVOSB-then-VOSB priority is mandatory under the VA Rule of Two per Kingdomware (2016). The VA is the natural first-target agency for a certified firm.
• GSA. FAR 8.405-5 lets ordering agencies set aside Schedule orders and BPAs for SDVOSBs at their discretion, and the VETS 2 GWAC is an entire IT vehicle set aside for SDVOSB technology firms — confirm its current ordering-period status on gsa.gov before building a strategy around it.

State layers (goals and perks, not quotas)

• New York — a 6% SDVOB participation goal on state contracts, administered by OGS, with its own separate state certification.
• California — a not-less-than-3% DVBE participation goal per department; DVBE certification requires a service-connected rating of 10% or more.
• Florida — an equal-bid tie-breaker only, under Fla. Stat. 295.187. If you're here in our home state, know that it helps only when bids tie — plan accordingly.
• Texas — new 100% veteran-owned businesses get a five-year franchise-tax exemption and a formation-fee waiver, made permanent by SB 524 (2025). It's a tax benefit, not a procurement preference.

All of these are participation goals or perks — none of them is a quota, and no state work is set apart for veterans automatically. Each state also requires its own certification, separate from SBA VetCert.

Franchising and other fits

VetFran, run by the International Franchise Association, lists hundreds of participating brands offering veteran incentives — commonly 10–15% off the initial franchise fee, up to full waivers in some cases. Discounts vary by brand, so verify the current offer for any brand you're considering at franchise.org.

Editorial — why this fits. The following is our skill-mapping, not a cited fact: a logistics MOS maps naturally to freight operations; security clearances and shift discipline map to security services; and if you thrived on SOPs, franchising hands you a proven operating manual on day one.

Section 02 covers what SAM.gov is; this is the full workflow, in order, from empty inbox to active registration and your first saved search.

Registration, renewal, your UEI, and your CAGE code are always $0. GSA warns about imposter firms charging $300–$3,000 for "help" and phishing that mimics SAM.gov — legitimate messages come only from .gov addresses.

1. Create a Login.gov account. Set it up with two-factor authentication on a monitored business email. This account is the master key to your federal identity, reused across SAM.gov and other federal systems.
2. Gather your documents before you start. You need your IRS EIN letter (CP-575), your exact legal business name and physical address matching IRS records to the character — a missing comma in 'LLC' can trigger rejection — your state registration documents, and bank details for electronic payments. Work from the official entity checklist on the sam.gov entity registration page.
3. Start your entity registration at SAM.gov. Your Unique Entity ID (UEI) is assigned automatically and free during validation — there is no separate application and no third party involved.
4. Let the CAGE code come to you. The CAGE code is assigned automatically by the Defense Logistics Agency during the registration flow. Follow-up questions from DLA are normal, not a red flag. Never pay anyone to get you a CAGE code.
5. Choose your NAICS codes. Pick one primary code that matches your actual main revenue activity — not an aspirational one — plus secondaries; most contractors list roughly 3–10. Each code carries an SBA size standard that mechanically decides small-business and set-aside eligibility per solicitation.
6. Complete assertions, reps and certs, and banking, then submit. IRS TIN match, entity validation, and CAGE assignment run sequentially. A clean submission often activates in about two weeks; mismatches can push it past a month. There is no official turnaround guarantee, so register well before you need to bid.
7. Complete your SBA small-business profile. Fill it out so you appear in Dynamic Small Business Search (DSBS) — capabilities narrative, keywords, past performance. Contracting officers and prime contractors search DSBS, and a thin profile means invisible. Refresh it at every renewal.
8. Apply for VetCert — free. Apply at $0 through the MySBA Certifications portal (certifications.sba.gov, using your SAM.gov login). You must be small under your NAICS size standard and at least 51% veteran-owned and controlled; SDVOSB additionally requires a VA-documented service-connected disability rating — the rules set no minimum percentage. Certification lasts three years. SBA reported average processing of about 12 days after clearing its backlog in November 2025 (last verified July 2026; times vary).
9. Find work. Save searches in SAM.gov Contract Opportunities — the free official listing of federal opportunities over $25,000 — filtered to your NAICS codes plus SDVOSB and small-business set-asides. Pursue subcontracting first through SBA SubNet, SBA's directory of prime contractors with subcontracting plans, and the VA Prime Contractor Directory.
10. Calendar the renewal. Your registration expires every 365 days. Renewal is free but manual, and it re-validates your information — start 60–90 days early. A lapse blocks bidding, new awards, and even payment on active contracts.