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What is an IDIQ contract?

Indefinite-Delivery, Indefinite-Quantity contract

An IDIQ is a contract that fixes the terms and prices for work whose exact quantity and timing are unknown, obliges the government to order at least a stated minimum, and delivers the actual work through task or delivery orders placed against it.

Also written as: indefinite delivery indefinite quantity, IDIQ meaning, ID/IQ contract.

FAR 16.504 sets the shape. The contract must require the government to order, and the contractor to furnish, at least a stated minimum quantity of supplies or services, and it must specify the total minimum and maximum quantity the government will acquire. The minimum is what makes it a contract rather than a promise; the maximum is the ceiling, and it is frequently enormous relative to what is actually ordered.

Winning the IDIQ is not winning the work. It is winning the right to be asked. On a multiple-award IDIQ the government must give each awardee a fair opportunity to be considered for each order, and FAR 16.504 requires the solicitation to state the procedures and selection criteria for doing so.

The consequence for a small firm is a timing problem. Large agencies increasingly buy through long-lived vehicles, so the competition that matters happened years before the work appears. If a five-year IDIQ covering your trade was awarded last year and you are not on it, the orders under it are not available to you at any price — which is why award history is worth watching for vehicles about to be recompeted.

What this means when you bid

Track when the vehicles in your trade are recompeted. Missing an IDIQ award locks you out of every order under it for the life of the contract.

IDIQ compared with the terms it gets confused with

IDIQ vs BPA

An IDIQ is a contract with a guaranteed minimum the government must order; a BPA is a simplified charge-account arrangement for anticipated repetitive needs, and establishing one does not by itself commit the government to buy.

What BPAmeans →

IDIQ vs GWAC

A GWAC is an IDIQ-shaped vehicle for information technology that one agency establishes for governmentwide use; an ordinary IDIQ serves the agency that awarded it.

What GWACmeans →

Where this definition comes from

Federal contracting is one of the few fields where the authoritative answer is free, public and one click away. These are the sources this page is built from — go and read them.

This page explains a term in plain English and cites the authority it comes from. It is not legal advice, and the regulation governs where this page and the regulation differ.

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IDIQ— common questions

What is an IDIQ contract?
An IDIQ is a contract that fixes the terms and prices for work whose exact quantity and timing are unknown, obliges the government to order at least a stated minimum, and delivers the actual work through task or delivery orders placed against it.
What is the difference between IDIQ and BPA?
An IDIQ is a contract with a guaranteed minimum the government must order; a BPA is a simplified charge-account arrangement for anticipated repetitive needs, and establishing one does not by itself commit the government to buy.
What is the difference between IDIQ and GWAC?
A GWAC is an IDIQ-shaped vehicle for information technology that one agency establishes for governmentwide use; an ordinary IDIQ serves the agency that awarded it.
Why does an IDIQ contract matter when you are bidding?
Track when the vehicles in your trade are recompeted. Missing an IDIQ award locks you out of every order under it for the life of the contract.

Related terms

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