Roughly $2 billion in federal contracts come up for recompete every business day. Most of them are won by the incumbent — not because the incumbent is better, but because nobody else started working the opportunity 18 months in advance. That's the gap. That's also where the money is.
A recompete is one of the most predictable, highest-win-probability opportunities in federal contracting — if you find it early enough to actually compete. This is the playbook: what a recompete is, when to start, where to find them, and the four plays that unseat an incumbent.
What a recompete is (and why it matters)
Almost every federal contract has a base period plus option years — typically a 5-year total ceiling. When the option years run out, the agency has to compete the work again. That's a recompete.
Three things make recompetes uniquely attractive:
- You know the work is real. The agency is buying it again because they need it. No risk that the program gets cancelled.
- You know roughly what it's worth. The previous contract value is public on USASpending. You can price your bid against actual data, not guesses.
- You know who's vulnerable. Past performance on the existing contract is also public. If the incumbent has mixed reviews, the agency might genuinely want a change.
Compare that to chasing brand-new opportunities, where you're guessing at budget, requirements, and competition. Recompetes are the highest-information opportunities in the federal market.
The 18-month rule
Here's the timing that separates contractors who win recompetes from contractors who chase them:
- 18 months out: Identify the recompete on USASpending. Start studying the incumbent's performance, the agency's priorities, and what's changed since the last award.
- 12 months out: Introduce yourself to the program office. Not as a vendor pitching — as a credible firm offering to provide market input. Get on their radar.
- 9 months out: Watch for the sources sought notice. Respond to it with substance. This is the agency's last chance to shape the requirement before it goes to RFP.
- 6 months out: The RFP drops. By now, you should know more about the requirement than half the bidders. Your proposal writes itself.
- 30 days out: If this is the first time you're seeing the opportunity, the incumbent already won. Move on.
How to find recompetes
There's no "recompetes" tab on any government website. You have to construct the view yourself from three sources.
1. USASpending expiration dates
USASpending.gov publishes the end date for every active contract. Filter by NAICS codes you serve, by agencies you target, and by period-of-performance end dates 12-18 months out. What comes back is a list of contracts the agency will likely need to recompete. Not a guarantee — sometimes the work gets folded into a larger vehicle or cancelled — but the strongest signal you'll get.
2. Agency forecast cross-reference
When a recompete is real, it usually shows up on the agency's procurement forecast. If you see an expiring contract on USASpending and a matching forecast entry, that's a high-confidence recompete. If you see the expiring contract but no forecast, dig deeper — the work might be moving to a different vehicle.
3. Sources sought tracking
Sources sought notices are the agency saying "we're thinking about buying this — who's out there?" They almost always precede a recompete by 6-9 months. Track them by NAICS in SAM.gov, and pay extra attention when one matches a contract you already identified as expiring. That pairing is your signal to move.
The 4 plays to win a recompete
Knowing the recompete is coming gets you to the starting line. These four plays are how you actually displace an incumbent.
Play 1: Capture the incumbent's risk
Every incumbent has weaknesses — late deliveries, scope creep, turnover, cost overruns. Some of this is in public CPARs (past performance reports). Some of it you learn from talking to people at the agency. Your proposal should quietly address the things the incumbent has been struggling with, without naming them.
Play 2: Build the agency relationship now
Federal buyers don't award contracts to vendors they've never heard of, no matter how good the proposal. Twelve months out, you should be introducing yourself, attending industry days, asking smart questions about the upcoming requirement. By RFP time, your name should be familiar.
Play 3: Stack relevant past performance
Past performance is the single biggest section of most federal evaluations. If you don't have the exact past performance needed, the 12-18 month runway is your chance to build it — through teaming, subcontracting, or smaller related contracts. Showing up at RFP time without the past performance is showing up to lose.
Play 4: Apply pricing pressure
Incumbents often bid recompetes at or above their current rates. That's the easiest part of the bid to attack. Use USASpending data to see what the agency's been paying, model your own cost basis, and price competitively without going below your break-even. Agencies under budget pressure notice meaningful savings.
Be careful here, though — pricing pressure works as one signal among several. If you bid 30% under the incumbent and your past performance is weaker, the agency will read it as desperation, not value. The pricing play works best when it's paired with comparable or stronger past performance and a credible technical approach. Then the price difference reads as efficiency.
The recompetes most people miss
Two specific patterns are worth calling out, because they're where the cleanest recompete wins tend to hide:
- Bridge contracts. When an agency runs out of time and extends an incumbent for 6-12 months on a sole-source basis, that's a flashing signal. The original contract probably had problems. The agency couldn't get the recompete out on time, which usually means they're overworked and under-staffed on the procurement side. That's a buyer who'll genuinely consider an alternative — if you show up credibly.
- Vehicle migrations. Sometimes a recompete doesn't come back as the same contract — it gets folded into a new IDIQ or moved to a different vehicle (GSA, OASIS+, a new agency-wide BPA). If you're only watching the original contract, you miss the work entirely. Track the program, not just the contract number.
A real recompete timeline (illustrative)
Here's how a 5-year IT services contract typically plays out from your side of the table:
- Year 1 of incumbent contract: Contract is awarded. Most competitors forget it exists.
- Year 3: Smart competitors flag the contract in their pipeline. They start showing up at agency industry days.
- Year 4, Q1: Sources sought notice drops. The serious competition is already responding with detailed capability statements.
- Year 4, Q3: Draft RFP. Industry comments shape the final scope. Late entrants discover the opportunity here and have ~6 months to catch up.
- Year 5, Q1: Final RFP. Bids are due in 45-60 days. Winners are decided by who did the work in years 3 and 4.
- Year 5, Q3: Award. New 5-year clock starts.
Notice that the actual proposal phase is the last 60 days. The previous 24 months of positioning is what decides who wins.
How I track recompetes for you
Doing this manually for every agency and NAICS code you care about is a part-time job. Pulling expiration dates from USASpending, cross-referencing forecasts, watching for sources sought notices, tracking which contracts get amendments versus recompetes — it adds up.
So I do it. Every day I'm looking at the contracts in your NAICS codes that are 12-18 months from expiration, matching them against agency forecasts and sources sought notices, and flagging the high-confidence recompetes in your weekly briefing. You see them while there's still time to position — not 30 days before the close date when it's already over.