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Federal contracting · lookup

UEI lookup

What the Unique Entity ID is, how to look one up at SAM.gov, and how to pull a contractor's exclusion and award record by UEI. The canonical lookup surface is the federal-contractor directory.
A UEI (Unique Entity ID) is the 12-character alphanumeric identifier SAM.gov assigns to every registered federal entity — it replaced the DUNS number in April 2022. To look one up, search SAM.gov by entity name; to pull a contractor's exclusion and award record by UEI, use Fonteum's federal-contractor directory.

The UEI (Unique Entity ID) is the 12-character alphanumeric identifier SAM.gov assigns to every entity registered to do business with the federal government. It became the primary federal entity identifier in April 2022, when the government retired the proprietary DUNS number. One entity has one UEI, which is why it is the spine this silo uses to join a contractor's exclusion records to its awards.

How to look up a UEI

  1. Search SAM.gov by entity name. Open sam.gov and search the entity by legal business name; the registration shows the 12-character UEI alongside the CAGE code and registration status. SAM.gov is the system that assigns and is the record for the UEI.
  2. Pull the entity's federal record by UEI. Enter the UEI in Fonteum's federal-contractor directory to read that entity's SAM.gov exclusion records and USASpending awards on file, as dated facts.

Look up an entity's federal record

Federal contractor records — exclusions & awards by entity →

The canonical place to look an entity up by its UEI: one record per entity, stating the SAM.gov exclusion records and USASpending awards on file as dated facts. For programmatic checks, the procurement screening API resolves the same facts by UEI or CAGE.

Reviewed by the Fonteum Government Contracts Desk

This page explains the Unique Entity ID as published by SAM.gov (retrieved 2026-06-20) and routes to the canonical federal-contractor directory. It names no entity and makes no determination about any party. Confirm a specific registration at sam.gov. Published 2026-06-20. Part of Fonteum (fonteum.com).