§DoD FY2026 small-business prime-contract obligation share
Framing and exact resolver: the target is the USAspending API v2 registered-query snapshot for Department of Defense FY2026 prime-contract obligations, not the SBA eligible-dollar scorecard. The numerator is recipient_type_names=[small_business]; the denominator is the same A/B/C/D DoD prime-contract query without recipient type restriction. The registered target sets the bounded snapshot resolutionDate to 2026-10-22; the official USAspending submission-period endpoint currently shows published periods only through FY2026 fiscal month 9, so the exact FY2026 year-end period was not yet visible there during this run.
Opened USAspending API endpoint index and endpoint documentation for /api/v2/search/spending_over_time/ and /api/v2/references/submission_periods/.↳ Fetched endpoint facts: /api/v2/search/spending_over_time/ is listed as POST and returns transaction aggregated amounts for Spending Over Time; /api/v2/references/submission_periods/ returned FY2026 fiscal month 9 with period_start_date 2026-06-01, period_end_date 2026-06-30, submission_due_date 2026-07-31, certification_due_date 2026-08-15, and submission_reveal_date 2026-07-31T01:20:01.167456Z.Opened GSA FY2025 FPDS report required by Section 15(h)(3)(A)(ii) of the Small Business Act and extracted the Department of Defense rows.↳ Fetched FY2025 DoD all-prime dollars: Small Business Concerns in aggregate = $103,824,203,209.59 from 2,365,483 contracts; Other Than Small Business Concerns in aggregate without exclusions = $420,887,508,061.02 from 57,454,020 contracts; computed small-business share = 103.82420320959 / (103.82420320959 + 420.88750806102) * 100 = 19.79 percent.Opened GSA FY2024 FPDS report required by Section 15(h)(3)(A)(ii) of the Small Business Act and extracted the Department of Defense rows.↳ Fetched FY2024 DoD all-prime dollars: Small Business Concerns in aggregate = $99,891,645,499.74 from 2,233,536 contracts; Other Than Small Business Concerns in aggregate without exclusions = $380,230,594,309.65 from 87,148,396 contracts; computed small-business share = 99.89164549974 / (99.89164549974 + 380.23059430965) * 100 = 20.81 percent.Opened the DoD Office of Industrial Base Growth goals and performance page for small-business prime-contract history and current goals context.↳ Fetched DoD historical prime-contract small-business performance points: FY2020 Total Awards $165.2B, SB Awards $55.1B, share 33.4 percent; FY2019 Total Awards $161.5B, SB Awards $62.3B, share 38.6 percent; FY2018 Total Awards $124.5B, SB Awards $41.7B, share 33.5 percent. Fetched DoD prime-contracting goal row: FY2023 goal 22.43 percent, FY2024 goal 22.43 percent, FY2025 goal 23.17 percent.Base rate/reference class: the best exact-variant recent base rate is the GSA all-prime FPDS Department of Defense ratio, because it uses all prime procurements without the SBA goaling exclusions and is closer to the USAspending denominator than the SBA eligible-dollar scorecard. The two fetched exact-variant observations average 20.30 percent, with FY2025 at 19.79 percent and FY2024 at 20.81 percent.
Prior/update/interval: persistence prior = average of fetched exact-variant all-prime FY2024 and FY2025 shares = (20.81 + 19.79) / 2 = 20.30 percent; quantitative historical sample = GSA FPDS all-prime FY2024-FY2025 only, while the older DoD performance points are non-comparable regime checks and are not used in the prior or volatility estimate; adjustment components = -0.3 percentage point for FY2025 downward momentum and large non-small defense obligation growth, +0.2 percentage point for DoD small-business goal pressure and program continuity, net -0.1; point = 20.30 - 0.10 = 20.20 percent. For the exact-variant fetched successive change, sigma = 1.02 percentage points as a one-change persistence error proxy, not a multi-year standard deviation; 1.28*sigma = 1.31 percentage points. I widen to a 1.60 percentage point half-width because the USAspending registered-query recipient-type filter may not exactly match the GSA FPDS report classification, giving 20.2 - 1.6 = 18.6 and 20.2 + 1.6 = 21.8.
Level and momentum: the FY2025 all-prime DoD share fell about 1.02 percentage points from FY2024 even though small-business dollars increased by about $3.93B, because the other-than-small denominator increased by about $40.66B. That argues for a point below the two-year average but not a break far below 20 percent.
Policy and mechanism: upside risk is a stronger FY2026 small-business set-aside mix or slower growth in major-prime obligations, which could move the registered USAspending share toward or above 21.8 percent. Downside risk is a surge in large weapons, IT, construction, or services obligations to non-small primes, which would land below the interval. Outside the interval would require either a larger denominator-mix shock than FY2025 or a material query-classification mismatch between USAspending recipient_type_names and FPDS small-business status.
Review disposition: accepted the reviewer warning by recasting sigma as a one-change persistence error proxy plus query-classification uncertainty, and by stating that older DoD performance points are non-comparable regime checks not used quantitatively. Also accepted the clarification that resolution uses the registered bounded-window FY2026 snapshot ending 2026-10-22 rather than later revisions.