How to look up a business's UEI
How a public lookup finds a UEI, what the number means, and what an empty result does not prove.
Updated
A UEI is the twelve-character code SAM.gov issues for an entity, and it is public. You can look one up with a legal name, or look a business up with a UEI, on Firmenza's free health check, and the check reads public data only. When nothing comes up, that is not found or opted out of public display, not proof the business has no identifier.
How do I look up a UEI?
Firmenza's free health check takes a legal name or a UEI. A name search looks for the public record under that name; a UEI search is exact, because the code belongs to one entity.
What you are looking at, when a record is public, is a public identifier: twelve characters, letters and digits only. It is not a taxpayer number, and a public lookup never asks you for one.
What does a UEI mean when I find one?
It identifies the entity in federal systems. One business has one, and it stays the same year after year. It is not the same thing as a full registration for awards: an entity can have a Unique Entity ID without a registration.
The public record, when there is one, can also show status and the expiration date. The health-report guide lists what that reading includes and what it leaves out. Taxpayer details and banking details are not in the public tier, and this lookup does not ask for them.
What does it mean when nothing comes up?
Nothing coming up means not found or opted out of public display. The business may have no public record, it may have opted out of public search, or its Unique Entity ID may not be issued yet because SAM.gov is still validating the entity.
None of those is a finding you can tell apart from the outside. Do not treat an empty search as proof about the business. Check the legal name, including the suffix, or search by the UEI if you have it. The guide on that wording is the longer version.
What can a public lookup not show?
The public tier is public. Looking up a name or a UEI reads what the entity has published, the same information anybody can search for. It does not open anyone's account, and it does not show a record the entity has kept out of public display.
If the business is yours and the public check is empty, sign in to sam.gov and look at your own entity. Your own view does not depend on the public tier.
Free help also exists: APEX Accelerators (DoD-funded, free) and the Federal Service Desk will help you at no charge. We built Firmenza to be useful alongside them.
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Check your own record
The free health check reads the public SAM.gov record and tells you what it says — status, expiration date, and what is worth a second look.