The federal government is one of the largest freight customers in the country. It relocates service members and their household goods, hauls construction aggregate to project sites, moves supplies between depots, and ships everything from office furniture to disaster-relief pallets. Most of that work does not go to national carriers. It goes to small and mid-size trucking companies, often through set-asides and subcontracts that never reach the open market.
If you own a fleet, an owner-operator authority, or a small freight brokerage, you are closer to this revenue than you think. Here is how the path actually works.
Start with your NAICS codesEvery federal solicitation is tagged with a North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code. That code controls which size standard applies and, in practice, which companies a contracting officer expects to bid.
For trucking, the codes live in the 484 family (Truck Transportation):
- 484110 — General Freight Trucking, Local
- 484121 / 484122 — General Freight Trucking, Long-Distance (truckload and less-than-truckload)
- 484210 — Used Household and Office Goods Moving
- 484220 — Specialized Freight (except Used Goods) Trucking, Local
- 484230 — Specialized Freight (except Used Goods) Trucking, Long-Distance
Pick the codes that match what your trucks actually do, then list all the relevant ones in your registration. A carrier that runs both local hauling and household-goods moves should claim both. Contracting officers search by NAICS, so missing the right code means missing the bid.
Know the size standardFederal small-business programs are size-gated. For most of the 484 truck transportation codes, the SBA size standard is $33.5 million in average annual receipts (the receipts-based standard SBA set in its 2022 revision). If your three-year average revenue sits under that number, you qualify as a small business for those codes, which opens the door to set-asides.
This is generous. A trucking company doing $20 million a year is still "small" in the government's eyes, which means you compete against other small carriers rather than the national giants. Check the current standard for your exact subcode before you rely on it, because a few 484 subcodes carry different thresholds.
Register in SAM.govYou cannot win a federal dollar until you are registered in the System for Award Management (SAM.gov). It is free, it is the database every contracting officer searches, and your registration is where you certify your size and your NAICS codes. Budget a couple of weeks for a first-time registration, since you will need your EIN, your banking details for electronic payment, and a Unique Entity ID.
Once you are in, SAM.gov (and the contract-opportunities side of it) is also where active solicitations are posted. Filter by your NAICS codes and you will see what agencies are buying right now.
The set-asides that apply to carriersTrucking work flows through the same socioeconomic set-aside programs as the rest of federal contracting. There is no order of precedence among them, so a contracting officer can reserve a freight contract for any one of these:
- 8(a) — a nine-year program for firms at least 51% owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals
- WOSB / EDWOSB — women-owned and economically disadvantaged women-owned small businesses
- SDVOSB — service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (a strong fit, given how many carriers are founded by veterans)
- HUBZone — firms based in, and employing people from, historically underutilized business zones
A certification does not win the contract for you, but it changes which pool you compete in. A women-owned local hauler bidding a WOSB set-aside for 484220 work is competing against a much smaller field than the open market. If you think you might qualify for one of these, our certification guides walk through the eligibility tests and the documents each program demands. When you are ready to actually file, CertifyAll captures your business information once and handles the applications across the programs you qualify for.
Where most carriers actually start: subcontractingHere is the part new contractors miss. You do not have to win a prime contract to start hauling federal freight. Large prime contractors that hold transportation, logistics, or base-operations contracts are often required to subcontract a share of the work, and many of them have small-business subcontracting plans they must report against.
That requirement has teeth. On set-aside service contracts above $250,000, the prime cannot pay more than 50% of the government's payment to subcontractors that are not similarly situated small businesses. Translation: primes need qualified small carriers to keep the work in compliance. If you are a certified small or diverse trucking firm, you are exactly who they need to call.
Subcontracting is also how you build past performance. A prime relationship gives you documented, dated federal work you can cite the next time you bid as a prime yourself. Most carriers run two or three subcontracts before they win their first prime award. You can search active prime contracts and the agencies behind them with our subcontract finder to see who is already holding transportation work you could plug into.
Build a capability statement before you call anyoneContracting officers and prime contractors both ask for the same one-page document: a capability statement. For a carrier, it should state your fleet size and equipment types, your operating authority and DOT/MC numbers, your NAICS codes, your certifications, your service area, and any past performance. Keep it concrete. "32-truck fleet, reefer and dry van, FMCSA-authorized, operating across the Southeast" beats a paragraph of adjectives.
Our capability statement builder produces a federal-ready version in the format buyers expect, so you are not formatting a Word doc the night before a deadline.
A realistic first yearA grounded plan looks like this. Register in SAM.gov and lock in your NAICS codes. Get certified for any set-aside you qualify for. Build the capability statement. Then spend your energy on subcontracting: identify the primes holding transportation contracts with your target agencies, send them your one-pager, and ask to be added to their small-business subcontracting pipeline. Bid the small prime set-asides that match your codes as they appear.
The carriers who win are not the ones with the biggest fleets. They are the ones who registered correctly, certified into a smaller competition pool, and made themselves easy for a prime to say yes to.
When you are ready to find the primes already moving federal freight in your lane, start with the subcontract finder and pull the list for your NAICS codes.
