How to Look Up a Federal Contract Number (PIID) and See If You Can Beat the Incumbent
A PIID is not a filing number. It is the incumbent, the dollars, the offer count, and the clock. We decode the 13-character string, then run two live awards: ICE 70CMSW26C00000012 ($16,700,640, 1 offer, locked) and VA 36C10B21N10150057 ($713,794,281, 8 offers, ends Jan 23 2027).
Paste 70CMSW26C00000012.
You do not get a PDF. You get Compliant Technologies LLC, $16,700,640, one offer, not competed, and a clock that ends Feb 27, 2027.
Paste 36C10B21N10150057.
You get Booz Allen Hamilton Inc, $713,794,281, full and open competition, eight offers, and a clock that ends Jan 23, 2027.
Same lookup. Opposite verdict. That is what a PIID is for.
SAM.gov will hand you a solicitation file. USASpending will hand you a spending page. Neither page answers the only question that matters once you have the number: can you beat the incumbent, and how long do you have.
Run 36C10B21N10150057 live · Run the ICE PIID · Booz Allen company file
Decode the string before you search it
Since FY2017, FAR 4.1603 puts a federal contract number (the PIID, Procurement Instrument Identifier) in a fixed shape. Thirteen characters on a clean example. Some VA and GSA task orders run longer because they keep a program serial.
Take the ICE award:
| Segment | 70CMSW26C00000012 | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Office (1-6) | 70CMSW | ICE Mission Support Washington |
| Fiscal year (7-8) | 26 | Number assigned in FY2026 |
| Instrument (9) | C | Definitive contract |
| Serial | 00000012 | Twelfth contract that office issued that year |
Instrument letters you will actually see:
| Letter | Vehicle | What it implies |
|---|---|---|
| C | Definitive contract | One award, one statement of work. No parent to ride. |
| D | IDIQ / indefinite delivery | There is a family of task orders underneath. |
| F | Task or delivery order | There is a parent IDIQ above this row. Look it up next. |
| P | Purchase order | Usually smaller, often commercial. |
| A | BPA | A catalog, not a single job. |
The VA example breaks the neat 13-character story on purpose. 36C10B21N10150057 is a task order. The parent is on the award record: VA11816D1015. The D in the parent is the IDIQ. If you only search the task order, you miss the vehicle everyone else will bid.
Office prefixes you can read without a decoder ring: W Army, N Navy, F Air Force, 47 GSA, 70 DHS, 36 VA, 75 HHS.
Worked example 1: the locked PIID
Pulled from USASpending award `CONT_AWD_70CMSW26C00000012_7012_-NONE-_-NONE-` on Sep 9, 2026.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| PIID | 70CMSW26C00000012 |
| Recipient | COMPLIANT TECHNOLOGIES LLC |
| UEI | FULMK571MMK5 |
| Obligated | $16,700,640 |
| Signed | 2026-08-26 |
| Period of performance | 2026-08-28 to 2027-02-27 |
| Agency | DHS / ICE, Mission Support Washington |
| Extent competed | Not competed |
| Offers received | 1 |
| Authority | FAR 6.302-1 only one source |
| NAICS | 423850 |
| PSC | 8470 Armor, Personal |
Keyword shock gloves still returns zero awards. The description says conductive energy and de-escalation devices. Full award table is in the ICE shock-gloves deep dive.
So what: you do not protest onto this PIID with a cheaper glove. The field that decides that is offers received = 1, not the newspaper headline. You do put the UEI and the Feb 27, 2027 end date on alerts. The bid-able money sits next to the glove, not on it.
Worked example 2: the beatable PIID
Pulled from USASpending award `CONT_AWD_36C10B21N10150057_3600_VA11816D1015_3600` on Sep 9, 2026.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| PIID | 36C10B21N10150057 |
| Parent IDIQ | VA11816D1015 |
| Recipient | BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON INC |
| UEI | KHK6E1JW9C15 |
| Obligated | $713,794,281 |
| Signed | 2021-09-29 |
| Period of performance | 2021-09-30 to 2027-01-23 |
| Agency | Department of Veterans Affairs |
| Extent competed | Full and open competition |
| Offers received | 8 |
| Set-aside | None |
| NAICS | 541512 Computer systems design services |
| PSC | DA01 IT / application development support |
| Description | Shippable products, operations support, and security compliance for the Health Services Portfolio |
From Sep 9, 2026 to Jan 23, 2027 is 136 days. That is already inside the 180-day capture window.
Eight offers on a full-and-open task order means the market already showed up. The incumbent is large. The incumbent is not alone. That is the opposite of FAR 6.302-1.
Same prime, second VA clock, if you want the pattern and not a one-off: 36C10B22N10070023, Booz Allen, $859,669,886, EHRM PMO IO support, 3 offers, ends Jan 15, 2027, parent VA11816D1007.
USASpending award · Search the PIID
The five fields that decide the verdict
Once the award page loads, ignore the prose and read these in order:
That is the incumbent teardown in one screen. The pWin verdict is the next layer: performance, protests, and price band on top of these five fields.
The five-minute workflow
You have a rumor and a number. Or just a number.
The older lookup-by-number guide is the map of USASpending vs FPDS vs SAM. This page is the verdict those three sites will not write.
Bottom line
A PIID is a sentence. Office, year, vehicle, serial. The award record finishes the sentence with a name, a dollar amount, an offer count, and a date.
70CMSW26C00000012 says: Kentucky LLC, $16.7M, one offer, sole source, six-month clock. Do not bid the glove.
36C10B21N10150057 says: Booz Allen, $713.8M, eight offers, full and open, Jan 23, 2027. That is a capture plan.
Paste yours. Search is free. No card. Then score the incumbent or watch the UEI.
Primary sources: USASpending.gov awards `CONT_AWD_70CMSW26C00000012_7012_-NONE-_-NONE-` and `CONT_AWD_36C10B21N10150057_3600_VA11816D1015_3600` (pulled Sep 9, 2026); USASpending award `CONT_AWD_36C10B22N10070023_3600_VA11816D1007_3600` for the second VA clock; FAR 4.1603 PIID format.
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