Registering as a Contractor with the Government

The United States government annually awards $1 trillion in contracts, and 23 percent — that is, $230 billion — of this total goes to small businesses. In light of this huge volume of potential business,

you would think that a lot of small business owners would be scrambling to secure one of these highly lucrative government contracts, but surprisingly only 1 percent of small businesses pursues them. The reason more companies don’t participate in the bidding for government contracts is because they are unfamiliar with the process. The first step to securing one of these contracts is to register as a contractor.

The Central Contractor Registry (CCR) is the main government database for registering contractors. Because contractors authorize their own data, they assume responsibility for the accuracy of their information. The CCR makes the data available to the various government agencies that contract work. This helps level the advantage between large corporations and small business in that small businesses will not have to register with each government agency in order to bid on contracts.