How to win government cleaning contracts: SAM.gov, state portals and your first RFP

SAM.gov (the System for Award Management) is the official registration and opportunity site of the US federal government. Any company that wants a federal prime contract must have an active SAM.gov registration. Many state and local agencies also ask for it, or at least for the identifier it produces.

Registration costs nothing on SAM.gov itself. Be careful with outside companies that email you offering to register you for a fee. They are not the government, and you can do the work yourself in a few hours spread over a few days.

• Create a Login.gov account for the person who will manage the registration
• Request a Unique Entity ID (UEI), which replaced the old DUNS number for federal work
• Complete the entity registration: legal name, physical address, banking for electronic payment, taxpayer information and points of contact
• Answer the representations and certifications, including your small business status for each NAICS code you list
• Renew every year, because an expired registration makes you ineligible for award

Your legal business name and address must match your IRS records exactly. A mismatch in a single character is the most common reason registrations stall. Validation can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks, so register before you find the bid you want, not after.

Step 2: Get your UEI and list the right NAICS code

The UEI is a 12-character identifier assigned by SAM.gov. It follows your company into every federal proposal, subcontract report and past performance record. Put it on your capability statement and keep it handy for state vendor registrations.

The NAICS code for janitorial work is 561720, Janitorial Services. It covers building interior cleaning, floor care, window cleaning inside buildings and similar services. List it as your primary code. If you also do carpet cleaning, landscaping or pest control, you can add related codes, but agencies search by 561720 when they want janitorial contractors.

The Small Business Administration sets a size standard for each NAICS code. For 561720 it is measured in average annual receipts, and the threshold is high enough that most independent cleaning companies qualify as small. Check the current figure on the SBA size standards table before you certify, because the SBA adjusts these numbers from time to time.

Federal agencies reserve a share of contracts for small businesses. When a contract is set aside, only companies that qualify under the stated program can bid. For a small janitorial company, set-asides are often the realistic entry point, because you are not competing against national facility service firms.

Many janitorial solicitations also fall under AbilityOne, a federal program that reserves certain services for nonprofit agencies employing people who are blind or have significant disabilities. If a building is on the AbilityOne procurement list, it will not be open for competitive bidding. Do not spend time chasing those.

Watch the limitations on subcontracting rule. On a small business set-aside for services, the prime contractor generally must perform at least half of the contract cost with its own employees. You cannot win a set-aside and hand the whole building to someone else. If you want to work under a larger prime instead, read our guide to janitorial subcontracting.

Federal work is only part of the public market. Cities, counties, school districts, public universities, housing authorities and transit agencies buy far more cleaning services in total, and most of them post bids on their own systems.

Every state runs a central procurement portal for state agencies. Many counties and larger cities run their own. School districts often post on the district website or through a regional purchasing cooperative. Some agencies use commercial bid-notification services that require a separate vendor account.

• Search your state name plus "vendor registration" or "procurement portal" and register with the central state system first
• Register separately with your county, the largest cities in your service area and the school districts you can reach
• Select the commodity or service codes for janitorial and custodial services in each system, because those codes decide which notices you receive
• Ask about certification programs for small, minority-owned, woman-owned or disadvantaged businesses, since many states and cities run their own versions
• Keep a simple spreadsheet of every portal, your login and the renewal date

Local bids are often smaller than federal ones and easier to win: one library branch, a police substation, a community center. They are the best way to build public-sector past performance. The Growth plan on Janitorial collects city, county, school district and federal janitorial RFPs matched to your service area and NAICS 561720, so you are not checking a dozen portals every morning. You can read more on our page about government cleaning contracts.

A government solicitation can run from ten pages to several hundred. Federal solicitations follow a standard layout, and most state and local ones borrow from it. Read it in this order:

• Instructions to offerors: format, page limits, font size, what goes in each volume, how to submit and the exact deadline with time zone
• Evaluation criteria: whether the award goes to the lowest price, the best value or the lowest price that is technically acceptable
• Scope of work or performance work statement: buildings, square footage, cleaning tasks and frequencies, hours of access, security rules
• Pricing schedule: the line items you must price and how the agency will total them
• Contract clauses: insurance, bonding, wage requirements, invoicing, termination
• Attachments: floor plans, building lists, wage determinations, past performance forms

Build a compliance matrix before you write a word. List every "shall" and "must" from the instructions and the scope in a table, and mark where your proposal answers each one. Evaluators work from a checklist. If they cannot find the answer, you lose the points, even if your company does the task every night.

The three evaluation methods you will see most

Federal service contracts above a low dollar threshold are covered by the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act. For janitorial work this matters more than any other clause, because it sets the minimum wage and fringe benefits you must pay every worker on the contract.

Each covered solicitation includes a wage determination issued by the Department of Labor for the county where the work is done. It lists minimum hourly rates by occupation, such as janitor, floor finisher or window cleaner, plus a health and welfare rate per hour, vacation and paid holidays. Wage determinations are published on SAM.gov.

• Find the occupation codes that match your crew and use the rate listed, not your normal pay rate
• Add the health and welfare amount for every hour paid, up to the cap stated in the determination
• Include paid vacation and the listed holidays in your labor cost, not only productive hours
• Check whether the contract replaces an incumbent with a collective bargaining agreement, because those wages can carry over
• Add payroll taxes, workers' compensation and general liability on top of the wage and fringe

Underpricing the wage determination is the fastest way to lose money on a public contract. You are required to pay the listed rates whatever you bid. Many state and local governments have their own prevailing wage or living wage rules for service contracts as well, so read the local contract terms before you reuse a federal pricing sheet.

A worked labor calculation for a small federal building

Use the actual rates from the wage determination in your solicitation. The janitorial bid calculator runs this math from square footage, facility type, frequency and local labor cost, and the Pro plan lets you set your own wage rates per area.

Public buyers protect themselves with insurance requirements and, on many state and local contracts, with bonds. Find these requirements in the first read, because some take weeks to arrange.

• General liability, often 1,000,000 USD per occurrence and 2,000,000 USD aggregate, sometimes more for large sites
• Workers' compensation at statutory limits, plus employer's liability
• Commercial auto if your staff drive company vehicles to the site
• Janitorial or fidelity bond covering employee theft, common in office and school contracts
• Bid bond, often a small percentage of the bid price, submitted with the proposal on some local bids
• Performance bond, guaranteeing that you complete the contract, required by some agencies after award

Talk to an insurance broker who works with contractors before you bid. Ask how long a bid bond takes to issue and what financial statements the surety needs. A company without a bonding relationship can miss a bid it would have won simply because the bond did not arrive in time.

Government pricing forms are not the place for creativity. Federal solicitations use contract line items, often one per building or per task, and separate prices for the base year and each option year. Local bids often use a bid form with a monthly price, an annual price and unit prices for extra work.

• Price every line, and never leave a blank, because a blank can make the bid nonresponsive
• Escalate option years for expected wage increases, since new wage determinations raise your floor
• Price periodic work separately when asked: floor stripping and refinishing, carpet extraction, high dusting, window cleaning
• Price unit rates for additional services the agency may order, such as event cleanup or emergency response
• Check the arithmetic, because agencies can reject bids where totals and unit prices do not match

If you want a clean structure for the narrative side of your submission, our commercial cleaning proposal template covers scope, schedule and pricing tables in a format evaluators find easy to score.

Step 9: Attend the site walk and use the questions deadline

Many janitorial solicitations include a site visit or pre-bid conference. Go, even if it is optional. You will see the actual floor types, the condition of restrooms, the storage space for supplies and the security process your crew will face. You will also see who else is bidding.

Take measurements, count restroom fixtures and note the floor finishes. Photograph what you are allowed to photograph. Written square footage in a solicitation is often out of date, and a building with far more hard floor than the documents suggest changes your price.

Every solicitation sets a deadline for questions. Use it. Ask about anything that affects price: unclear frequencies, missing square footage, whether supplies like paper and liners are included, whether the incumbent's staff are expected to be retained. Answers are published to all bidders as an amendment, and you must acknowledge every amendment in your submission.

Submit at least a day early. Portals slow down on deadline day and late proposals are almost never accepted. Keep the confirmation email or receipt.

• Sign and acknowledge every amendment
• Include your UEI, business size and certifications exactly as they appear in SAM.gov
• Attach proof of insurance or a letter from your agent if requested
• Keep a copy of the full submission for your records and for the next similar bid

If you lose, request a debriefing on federal contracts, or ask for the bid tabulation on local ones. You will see the winning price and often how your technical approach scored. That information is the most valuable pricing data you will get all year. For a deeper walk through pricing strategy, see how to bid janitorial contracts.

• Letting the SAM.gov registration expire between bids
• Pricing labor at your normal rate instead of the wage determination
• Missing an amendment acknowledgment
• Submitting a narrative proposal when the solicitation asked for a completed form only
• Bidding a building too far from your existing routes, so supervision and callbacks cost more than the margin
• Ignoring past performance forms, which some agencies weigh heavily
• Chasing large federal contracts before winning smaller local ones

Start small, win a local contract, perform well and ask the agency for a written reference. Then move up to larger solicitations with that record behind you.