Who pays the subcontractors: reading subaward reports

What has to be reported

The requirement comes from the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act and reaches contractors through FAR clause 52.204-10. A prime contractor has to report each first-tier subcontract at or above a dollar threshold by the end of the month after the month in which it was awarded. The threshold was $30,000 until October 1, 2025. It is $40,000 now.

First tier means a subcontract awarded directly by the prime to perform the prime contract. What that subcontractor passes down to its own suppliers is not reported. A contractor whose gross income in the previous tax year was under $300,000 is exempt, and the clause does not require classified information to be disclosed.

Reports were filed in a system called FSRS until March 2025, when the function moved into SAM.gov. The reported subawards are published on USASpending, linked to the prime award.

What a report contains

One row per subcontract: the subcontractor's name and UEI, the amount, the date, a description of the work in the prime's own words, the place of performance and the prime contract it belongs to. Through the prime contract you reach the buying office, the code and everything else the prime has won.

That last link is what makes the reports useful. A subaward on its own says two companies did business. Joined to the prime award it says which office's money it was, under which contract, and when that contract ends.

Four ways to read them

1. By code and place. Filter to the kind of work you do and the states you can serve. The primes at the top of that list are buying your kind of work from somebody.
2. By prime. Open one prime and list its subcontractors. Many names mean a prime that spreads work. The same two or three every year mean settled relationships.
3. By subcontractor. Look up a competitor. The primes that hire it are primes that buy what you both sell.
4. Against the prime contract. Check the end date. A prime whose contract is coming up for recompete is putting a team together now.

A second field worth knowing

The award record itself says whether a prime contract carries a small business subcontracting plan. A plan is required on most contracts expected to exceed $900,000, or $2 million for construction, when the prime is not itself a small business and the work has subcontracting possibilities. Both figures were raised on October 1, 2025.

A prime with a plan has goals to meet and reports against them. If your company is a small business, that field marks the primes with a reason to take your call. If it is not, the field tells you which of your own bids will need a plan and which competitors are already running one.

What the reports leave out

• Everything under the threshold. A subcontract below it is not reported at all.
• Everything below the first tier. The supplier to the supplier is invisible.
• Whatever was not filed. The reports are the prime's own. Some primes file late and some write thin descriptions. Coverage is uneven, and an empty list does not prove a prime keeps the work in house.
• Payments. A row is the value of a subcontract as the prime reported it, not a record of money received.

So read the reports as a map of who works with whom. They are not a ledger.

What to do on Monday

1. List the primes that reported subcontracts in your code and state in the last three years.
2. For each, note how many subcontractors it used and whether its prime contracts carry a subcontracting plan.
3. Register on the prime's supplier page. If you are a small business, ask for its small business liaison.
4. Approach with specifics: the contract, the work you do, and the kind of subcontract you saw reported.

Subawards in LastAwarded holds the reported subawards, filtered by prime, subcontractor, code, agency, state, amount and date, and links each to its prime award. Who to team with ranks the primes that have reported subawards in your codes over the last three years.