How to Register in SAM.gov: A 2026 Step-by-Step Walkthrough
Registration is free. Anyone charging you a fee to do it is selling you paperwork you can do yourself in an afternoon. What they are actually selling is the annoyance of entity validation, which is real, but not several hundred dollars real.
Plan on about 45 minutes of typing and one to three weeks of waiting. The waiting is the entity validation queue, and almost every delay traces back to one thing, which is a mismatch between your legal name and address in SAM and what your state has on file.
Before you start, get these on the desk
Your legal business name exactly as filed with the state. Your physical address, not a PO box. Your EIN letter from the IRS. Your bank routing and account number for electronic payment. Your incorporation date and state.
Pull the actual documents. Do not type these from memory. A single character difference between your Articles of Incorporation and your SAM entry is the most common reason a registration sits for a month.
Step 1: Create a Login.gov account
SAM.gov authentication runs through Login.gov now. Use a business email that will outlive the person creating the account. Set up two-factor with a phone number the company controls, not a personal cell that leaves when someone quits.
Step 2: Request your UEI and pass entity validation
The UEI replaced the DUNS number. You get it as part of registration, and it is issued after your entity is validated.
Validation compares your legal name and physical address against public records. If it fails, SAM will ask you to upload documentation. Send the Articles of Incorporation or the state business registration, not a utility bill, and make sure the name on it is character-for-character what you entered.
If your business moved, or you changed your name, and the state record was never updated, fix the state record first. SAM validates against them, not the other way around.
Step 3: Choose NAICS codes deliberately
You can list many. Most contractors list too many, on the theory that more codes means more opportunities.
It does not work that way. Your NAICS selections drive your size standard, your set-aside eligibility, and how agencies find you in market research. Pick the codes that describe work you can actually perform and staff. A primary code you have no past performance in is a liability during evaluation, not an advantage.
Step 4: Financial information
Enter the bank account that will receive payment, and note that this feeds the Invoice Processing Platform later. Get it right the first time, because changing it mid-contract is a paperwork exercise nobody enjoys.
Step 5: Representations and certifications
This is the long section, and it is a legal filing. You are certifying size status, ownership, past performance integrity, and a long list of FAR provisions.
Read them. Do not click through. False certification here is not a clerical problem, it is a False Claims Act problem. If you are unsure whether you qualify as a small business under a given NAICS, check the SBA size standard for that specific code before you certify.
Step 6: Submit and watch the status
Your registration moves through submitted, then processing, then active. Expect one to three weeks. You will not get a phone call if something is wrong, so check the status weekly and read the notices.
After you are active
Set a calendar reminder for 11 months out. Registration expires annually and it lapses silently. An expired registration makes you ineligible for award, and contractors find out at the worst possible moment, which is after a contracting officer has already selected them.
While you wait for validation, do the useful work. Write your capability statement. Pull the last three years of awards in your NAICS codes to see who is winning and at what price. Register in the agency-specific portals that matter for your market.
Once you are active, the next problem is volume. SAM posts thousands of notices and almost none of them are yours. BidStrike filters against your registered NAICS, set-asides, and past performance, then scores what is left so you spend your time on the handful worth bidding. Take a look.