If your company holds a federal contract with a small business subcontracting plan under FAR 52.219-9, you owe the government two reports. The Individual Subcontract Report tracks one contract. The Summary Subcontracting Report rolls everything up. The SSR is the one the SBA reads when it scores your agency, so it carries weight far beyond your own file.
One thing first. The system most people still call "eSRS" no longer lives at esrs.gov. The Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System was decommissioned on February 20, 2026, and all subcontracting reporting moved into SAM.gov. The report is the same SSR it always was, the FAR clause is unchanged, and contracting officers still call it the eSRS report out of habit. You just file it in a different place now.
Here's how the SSR works, who has to file it, the period it covers, and why it matters more than the ISR.
What the SSR actually isThe SSR is the annual summary of your subcontracting plan performance. It reports total subcontract dollars you awarded over the year and how those dollars broke out across the small business categories: small business overall, small disadvantaged business, women-owned small business, HUBZone small business, veteran-owned small business, and service-disabled veteran-owned small business.
It is a summary, not a contract-by-contract ledger. Where the ISR drills into a single contract, the SSR aggregates. The data you enter is what the SBA pulls into the government-wide small business procurement scorecard, the annual report card that grades each agency against its goals.
The authority lives in FAR Subpart 19.7, the Small Business Subcontracting Program, and the reporting mechanics sit in the clause itself, FAR 52.219-9. If that clause is in your contract, the SSR obligation comes with it.
Who has to fileYou file an SSR if you are an other-than-small (large) business prime with a subcontracting plan, or a large subcontractor that was required to adopt its own plan. Small business primes do not carry FAR 52.219-9 subcontracting plans, so the SSR requirement does not reach them.
The trigger is the subcontracting plan, and the plan trigger is dollar value. As of October 1, 2025, the threshold under FAR 19.702 rose to $900,000 for most contracts and $2 million for construction, up from the long-standing $750,000 and $1.5 million. If your award crosses that line and offers subcontracting opportunities, you have a plan, and a plan means an SSR.
Two SSR flavors exist, and which one you file changes the picture:
- Individual subcontracting plan SSR. You report your performance to the specific agency that issued the contract. One SSR per agency you hold individual plans with.
- Commercial subcontracting plan SSR. If you operate under a company-wide commercial plan, you file a single SSR covering all your federal subcontracting for the year, and it reports across the whole government rather than to one agency.
If you don't know which plan type you're on, check the plan attached to your contract. The contracting officer who negotiated it can confirm.
The reporting period and the deadlineThis is where the SSR and the ISR part ways, so be precise about it.
The SSR is annual and tracks the federal fiscal year. For individual subcontracting plans, the SSR is due by October 30 and covers the twelve-month period ending September 30. For commercial plans, the report is due within thirty days after the end of the government's fiscal year, which lands in the same late-October window.
Compare that to the ISR, which is semi-annual. The ISR covers the periods ending March 31 and September 30, and is due thirty days after each period closes. An ISR is also required for each contract within thirty days of contract completion. So in a normal year you file two ISRs per covered contract and one SSR that sums the year.
Miss the SSR and it doesn't just sit quietly. The report feeds your past-performance record on subcontracting, and a pattern of late or missing reports is exactly what a contracting officer flags when evaluating good-faith effort under FAR 52.219-9.
ISR versus SSR, the short version| ISR | SSR | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | One contract | All contracts, summarized |
| Frequency | Semi-annual | Annual |
| Periods | Ending Mar 31 and Sep 30 | Year ending Sep 30 |
| Due | 30 days after each period | Oct 30 |
| Reports to | The contract's agency | The agency (individual plan) or government-wide (commercial plan) |
| Feeds the SBA scorecard | Indirectly | Directly |
The mental model: the ISR proves you're tracking each contract against its own goals. The SSR proves what you actually delivered across the year, and it's the number the SBA counts.
Filing it in SAM.gov, step by stepThe forms carried over from the old eSRS, so if you've filed before, the fields will look familiar.
- Sign in to SAM.gov with your Login.gov credentials and confirm you have the subcontracting reporting role tied to your entity. If you only ever did registrations, you may need that role added by your entity administrator.
- Find your reports queue. SAM.gov surfaces the SSR and ISR filings for the contracts and plans associated with your entity. Select the right reporting period (the fiscal year ending September 30).
- Enter goals and actuals. For each small business category, report the dollars you planned and the dollars you actually awarded. Be ready to explain shortfalls. The remarks field is not optional padding; reviewers read it.
- Reconcile against your ISRs. Your SSR totals should be consistent with the ISRs you filed during the year. Large gaps draw questions.
- Submit and route for acceptance. The report goes to the agency for review. Watch for a rejection back to draft; a returned report still on your desk after the deadline counts as late.
A 2026 note worth flagging: NAICS and PSC codes are no longer required on the ISR or SSR forms in SAM.gov, and the data-entry forms now include an AI-assisted "validate remarks" check on your goals, actuals, and narrative. Treat that check as a courtesy, not a clearance. The contracting officer's review still governs.
Why the SSR is the report that mattersYour SSR numbers don't stay in your file. They aggregate up into the agency's totals, and the SBA grades every agency each year against the statutory government-wide goals: 23% of prime dollars to small business, with subgoals of 5% to small disadvantaged business, 5% to women-owned small business, 5% to service-disabled veteran-owned small business, and 3% to HUBZone firms. The SDVOSB goal moved from 3% to 5% under the FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 118-31). Subcontracting performance, the data you report on the SSR, is part of how those grades get built.
That's the real reason a procurement or compliance lead should care about getting the SSR right. Weak numbers are a documented compliance exposure, and they roll into a public scorecard your agency customers watch.
Two changes since 2024 affect how your dollars actually count, and both reward checking certification before you award:
- SDVOSB credit now requires SBA certification. The FY2024 NDAA ended self-certification for service-disabled veteran-owned firms. Awards to a self-certified SDVOSB no longer count toward the SDVOSB goal at the prime or subcontract level. To claim SDVOSB credit on your SSR, the subcontractor has to be certified through the SBA's VetCert program. WOSB and EDWOSB credit likewise depends on formal certification.
- SDB is still self-represented. Small disadvantaged business status remains a self-certification made in the firm's SAM.gov representations, distinct from the SBA's 8(a) program. You can count SDB subcontract dollars on the strength of that representation, but verify the firm's SAM.gov status rather than taking a logo at face value.
On the policy backdrop: the 2025 rescission of Executive Order 11246 ended the affirmative-action obligations that ran through OFCCP and hit voluntary corporate inclusion programs. It did not touch the statutory small business subcontracting program. FAR 52.219-9, the goals, and the SSR obligation are all still in force. If you hold a covered contract, you still file.
Where buyers find the suppliers to hit the numbersFiling the SSR is the back end. The front end is finding certified small and diverse subcontractors before the year closes, so the numbers you report are numbers you're proud of.
Search our supplier directory to find certified diverse and small suppliers by capability, NAICS, and certification, so you can build subcontract pipeline that actually counts toward your plan goals. When you need to confirm a firm's certification is real and current, our certifying-bodies directory maps the bodies that issue MBE, WBE, SDVOSB, and related certifications and links to their verification tools. And if you're weighing where federal subcontracting dollars come from in the first place, our breakdown of the cheapest paths into federal contracts covers the set-aside and subcontracting lanes worth sourcing against.
The SSR is the scorecard. Your supplier pipeline is the game. Build the pipeline early and the report writes itself.
