The first time you win a federal contract, you also start a permanent file. Once the work is far enough along, the contracting officer writes you up in CPARS, the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System. That write-up follows you. The next contracting officer who is deciding whether to award you work pulls your CPARS record and reads how the last one went.
This is the part of past performance that the "how do I get my first contract" advice skips. Getting the contract is the start. The rating you earn on it is the asset. We covered the chicken-and-egg problem of landing work with no track record in breaking the catch-22 of government contracts without past performance. This is the sibling question: once you have a contract, how do you turn it into a record that wins you the next three.
What CPARS is and why it follows youCPARS is the government-wide system where agencies record how you performed on a contract. It is required by FAR Subpart 42.15. Evaluations are prepared at least once a year while the work is ongoing and again when the contract is complete, so a multi-year contract can generate several reports.
Not every contract gets a CPARS report. The default trigger is the simplified acquisition threshold, which sits at $350,000 as of October 1, 2025. Construction has its own line at $900,000. Some agencies hold class deviations that push the reporting threshold up to $1 million for services and IT with non-small businesses, so the exact cutoff depends on the buying agency. If your contract clears the relevant threshold, expect a CPARS report.
Here is why it matters more than almost anything else you do as a new contractor. Past performance is an evaluation factor in most competitive solicitations, sometimes weighted as heavily as price. When you bid, the evaluators look you up in CPARS and in the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS/FAPIIS, which pulls from CPARS). A strong record is the difference between being a credible bidder and being the unknown they pass on.
The five ratings, and where "good enough" actually sitsCPARS uses a five-level scale on each evaluated area (things like quality, schedule, cost control, management, and small-business subcontracting):
- Exceptional. Performance clearly exceeded requirements, with effective corrective action on any minor problems.
- Very Good. Performance met requirements and exceeded some, to the government's benefit.
- Satisfactory. Performance met the contract requirements. This is the baseline, and a clean Satisfactory is a perfectly good rating, not a near-miss.
- Marginal. Performance did not meet some requirements, and recovery was slow or incomplete.
- Unsatisfactory. Performance did not meet requirements and the contractor's corrective actions were ineffective.
Two things worth internalizing. First, Satisfactory means you did the job you were paid to do. Plenty of new contractors panic at the word, but a record of clean Satisfactory ratings reads as reliable. Second, ratings above Satisfactory have to be justified with specific narrative. You do not float up to Very Good by being pleasant. You get there by giving the contracting officer documented reasons to write it.
How to earn a strong first ratingThe contracting officer writes the rating, but you shape it. The contractors who get Very Good and Exceptional on a first contract tend to do the same handful of things.
Read the PWS like it's the rubric, because it is. Your performance work statement or statement of work lists exactly what you are graded on. Map every requirement to a deliverable and a date. The rating areas track back to those requirements.
Communicate before there is a problem, not after. A missed deadline you flagged two weeks early with a recovery plan reads completely differently from one the CO discovers on the due date. COs reward predictability. Surprises tank ratings faster than the underlying issue would.
Hit schedule, and document that you hit it. On-time delivery is the single most visible signal. When you deliver early or solve something the contract did not strictly require, that is the raw material for an above-Satisfactory narrative.
Make the CO's job easy. Clean invoices, responsive points of contact, no surprises in close-out. A contracting officer who never had to chase you tends to write that.
Document your own performance from day oneDo not wait for the evaluation to remember what you did. Keep a running performance file from the kickoff meeting:
- Every deliverable, the due date, and the date you actually delivered.
- Emails where the CO or COR praised your work or confirmed a milestone.
- Any time you absorbed a scope change, solved a problem, or saved the government money.
- Metrics: uptime, defect rates, response times, whatever your contract measures.
This file does two jobs. It gives the contracting officer evidence to write a stronger narrative, and it is your foundation if you ever need to comment on or challenge a rating you think is wrong.
When you have no prime CPARS yetCPARS reports are written on prime contracts. If you have only been a subcontractor, or you have only commercial clients, you have no prime CPARS record yet. That does not mean you have no past performance.
Most solicitations let you submit past performance from three sources: prime federal contracts, subcontracts, and commercial work. A subcontract where you did meaningful work on a federal project counts, especially if the prime will provide a reference. Ask your prime for a reference letter at close-out, while the work is fresh and the relationship is warm. Commercial contracts of similar scope and complexity also count; evaluators care that you have done work like the work they are buying. A federal CO grading you is not the only proof that counts.
This is why subcontracting is the most reliable on-ramp. You deliver under a prime, you build a documented history, and you walk into your first prime competition with relevant past performance already in hand. For where to find those opportunities and primes, see how to find federal contract opportunities.
Disputing or commenting on an unfair ratingYou are not a passive recipient of whatever the CO writes. When an evaluation is ready, the government notifies you, and under FAR 42.1503 you get up to 14 calendar days to review it and submit comments, a rebuttal, or additional information directly in CPARS. Use the window. It is short, and it does not extend itself.
A few rules of engagement:
- Comment even when the rating is fine. A short, professional note confirming the rating and thanking the team shows future evaluators you engage seriously. Silence is a missed signal.
- When you disagree, bring documents, not feelings. "We delivered all 12 milestones on or ahead of schedule, see attached acceptance emails" beats "this rating is unfair." Your day-one performance file is what makes this possible.
- Know what the comment window does and does not do. Your comments are recorded alongside the rating, and the evaluation goes to a reviewing official one level above the CO who can consider your input. You may not get the score changed, but your rebuttal becomes part of the permanent record that future evaluators read. A documented disagreement is far better than an unanswered bad rating sitting there alone.
Missing the 14-day window means the rating posts without your side of the story. Calendar it the moment you are notified.
The compounding effectHere is the part that should change how you treat your first contract. Past performance compounds. One clean Satisfactory makes you a credible bidder. Three or four strong ratings across related work make you the safe choice, the contractor evaluators reach for when they want to avoid risk. Once you have a run of Very Good and Exceptional ratings in a NAICS code, you start winning on past performance before price even enters the conversation.
That is why the first contract is worth treating as if your next ten depend on it, because they partly do. A new contractor who delivers cleanly and documents it for three years has built something a competitor cannot buy and cannot fake.
Before you chase that first award, find out whether your business actually has the pieces in place to deliver and get rated well. Our government readiness tool walks you through where you stand and what to fix first, so your first CPARS report is one you want following you.
