A SAM.gov renewal checklist: what to have ready before you renew
The list to work through before a SAM.gov renewal: the records to have at hand, the people and details to confirm, what has changed since last year, and what is answered again every year.
Updated
Before renewing, have your formation documents, the taxpayer details the IRS holds, current banking details, your points of contact and your NAICS codes at hand, and note what changed since last year. The representations and certifications are asked again, and each must be true of the business today.
Your first order is free if you send it by November 30. Sign up by then and Pro is free too. See what is included
Which records should be at hand?
A renewal reads the same record back, so the records are the ones it was built from.
- Your formation documents. The legal name and the physical address have to match them character for character, suffix and punctuation included.
- The taxpayer name, address and identification number the IRS holds for you, as on your most recent tax return, and the most recent year the business filed with the IRS.
- The banking details the government pays into, if they have changed.
- Your fiscal year end, month and day.
Never put a tax ID or a bank number in a message, a chat or an email.
Which people should you confirm?
- Your Entity Administrator, the person inside your business who can update and renew the registration, is still with the business. If they have left, tell us who replaced them, early: naming a new one takes a notarized letter, which the Entity Administrator Appointment Letter explains.
- Your points of contact are still the right people, and they read the mailbox you gave. They receive the correspondence that keeps a registration alive, and their names and addresses are part of the public record. Points of contact in SAM.gov says what each one is for.
What has changed since last year?
Most of a record is the same as last year. The useful part of a renewal is the handful of things that are not, so note them before anything else.
- A move or a new legal name. The fix is at the source: the record with your state is updated first, so the document SAM.gov is shown is the current one.
- A sale, a merger or a change of owner. Novation or a name change explains when one changes a federal contract, and what SAM.gov's record carries.
- New work. Your NAICS codes should still describe what you sell.
- Anything about size, ownership or affiliation. Nobody can read that answer off a public record, and the card just below this guide names free places to ask.
What is answered again every year?
The representations and certifications. Each one is a statement your business makes about itself to the United States Government, under penalty of law, so each has to be true of the business as it is today, not as it was last year. This page suggests no answer to any of them, and the representations and certifications at renewal explains what they are.
What else is worth a look?
If your business has a profile in SBA's Small Business Search, check that it is still current. SBA runs that search, not SAM.gov or Firmenza, and its earlier name was the Dynamic Small Business Search (DSBS).
The expiration date on your record, and when to start before it, are in the guide on your registration year.
Where does the list go?
If Firmenza watches your registration, your dashboard shows this list as a short checklist called Get ready to renew, from 75 days before the expiration date. You tick each item. Nothing is typed in, and no number is asked for.
You give your answers in Firmenza's worksheet, on the copilot page. We complete your renewal from your answers. A Firmenza specialist reviews your application. How a SAM.gov renewal works goes through the rest.
Sources
The Firmenza pages this guide names
Read next
From the blog
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.