DoD FY2026 Q4 Contract Spending: $175.6B Is Still Not in the Data, and June Just Filled In to $43.19B
Pulled Oct 3, 2026. DoD July-September 2025 was $178.36B. The same three months of FY2026 show $2.74B. The gap versus last year is $175.6B. Through June, this year is ahead of last year ($370.9B vs $313.4B). The hole is the reporting lag, not a spending cut.
Short answer: About $175.6B of Department of Defense contract spending for July through September 2026 is not in USASpending yet. Those three months last year were $178.36B. What has posted for this year's quarter is $2.74B.
About $175.6B of Department of Defense contract spending for July, August, and September 2026 is not in the public file.
Last year those three months were $178.36B. This year they show $2.74B.
That gap is not a budget cut. USASpending publishes DoD contract data on about a 90-day lag. On Sep 13, when we last wrote this up, June was $17.65B and still partial, and July through September were zero. As of Oct 3, June is $43.19B and July has started at $2.65B. August is $22M. September is $74M. The quarter is arriving. It is not here.
Set an alert before the rows land · September's civilian close, $55.26B · The one new FY27 award so far
Month by month
DoD contract obligations, award types A through D. Fiscal months labeled as calendar months. Source: USASpending spending_over_time, pulled Oct 3, 2026.
| Month | FY2026 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|
| October | $13.05B | $29.01B |
| November | $28.08B | $32.46B |
| December | $48.87B | $41.72B |
| January | $35.82B | $29.74B |
| February | $27.09B | $30.00B |
| March | $72.52B | $36.88B |
| April | $52.35B | $37.60B |
| May | $49.94B | $36.17B |
| June | $43.19B | $39.84B |
| July | $2.65B | $43.20B |
| August | $22M | $42.82B |
| September | $74M | $92.35B |
Read the table from the bottom. July last year was $43.20B and this July is $2.65B, about 6% of last year's month. August and September have barely started. September last year, by itself, was $92.35B.
Read it from the top and the story flips. Through June, FY2026 DoD obligations are $370.9B. Through June of FY2025 they were $313.4B. This year is ahead of last year in the months that have actually been published. March alone was $72.52B, almost double March 2025.
A September chart that puts DoD at $74M is describing the inbox, not the department.
What a defense seller does this week
The companies that won the July, August, and September work already know. Everyone else finds out when the row posts, which on this lag is December through January.
$175.6B is last year's quarter minus what has posted of this year's quarter. It is the size of the hole in the file. It is not a forecast that this quarter will print at $178B. It could come in higher or lower. You will not know which until the lag clears.
The first 72 hours of FY2027
Oct 1-3, all agencies, obligated $2.10B. The Department of Veterans Affairs was $1.98B of it, 94%.
Almost all of that is modifications on contracts already held. The largest are AT&T at $153.0M (mod P00114) and Lumen at $77.6M (mod P00094), both on VA enterprise network orders, and Thundercat Technology at $137.1M. The AT&T and Lumen descriptions cite EO 14398. That is a clause modification on a contract the vendor already holds, not new network scope.
The one sizable new contract in the opening days is a definitive award, mod 0: General Dynamics IT, $60.5M, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, enterprise cloud modernization, NAICS 541519, PIID 1333BJ27C00280001. If you sell civilian IT, that is the FY27 award worth opening. The VA telecom mods are not.
Caveats
Related: September closed at $55.26B · 10 of 12 year-end checks were modifications · Set a DoD alert
Related Guides
More from the Federal Spending Trends FY2026 series