Methodology

Where the data comes from

Federal agencies report their contract actions to the Federal Procurement Data System, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury publishes them, with other federal spending data, on USAspending.gov. This site reads USAspending's free public API. Every article states the date the data was retrieved.

Source: USAspending.gov, U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Federal spending data is a U.S. Government work. We publish analysis, totals and facts about individual public awards. We do not republish the dataset itself.

What is counted

• Contract obligations. An obligation is the amount an agency legally commits when it signs a contract or changes one. Obligations are not payments (outlays), and they are not an agency's total spending, which also includes salaries, grants, loans and benefits.
• Prime contracts only. USAspending award types A to D: definitive contracts, purchase orders, delivery and task orders, and blanket purchase agreement calls. Grants, loans and subcontracts are not counted. Contract vehicles themselves (indefinite-delivery contracts) are not counted; the orders placed under them are.
• Transactions, by date. Each amount is counted in the quarter of the transaction's action date, so a change to an old contract counts when it is made. De-obligations (negative changes) are included, so quarterly figures are net amounts.
• The awarding agency. An amount is credited to the agency that awarded the contract. Sometimes another agency pays for it.
• Complete quarters only. Federal fiscal years run from 1 October to 30 September and are named after the year in which they end. Only quarters that had ended before the data was retrieved are used.

Which agencies

Articles cover the agencies named in them, chosen because they award the most through contracts. They are not the whole federal government. Agencies keep correcting their reports, so a later retrieval of the same quarters can differ slightly.

Companies and personal data

• Articles so far compare agencies and name no contractors.
• Contact details are never published.
• Some federal contractors are individuals or sole proprietors. Individuals are never named, and a person reviews a contractor's records before any article names it.

How articles are checked

Before an article is published:

• every number in it is recomputed from the data, and it is held back if the data has changed since it was written;
• the text is checked for contact details;
• the data source's licence terms are checked, and the source is credited;
• a person reads and approves it.

If an article turns out to be wrong, it is corrected with a visible note, or retracted with the reason shown at the same address.