Free tool
Small Business Set-Aside Eligibility Checker
Answer a few quick questions and Sam will show you whether you're a small business and which federal set-aside contracts you can bid — 8(a), HUBZone, WOSB, and more — in plain English, with the exact next step for each. No login, instant results.
What is a set-aside?
The federal government reserves a share of its contracts for small businesses — and within that, for specific groups like women-, veteran-, and disadvantaged-owned firms. Those reserved opportunities are called set-asides. Qualifying means you compete in a much smaller pool, often against firms your own size. This checker tells you which programs are worth pursuing; it does not certify you.
- How do I qualify as a small business for federal contracts?
- The foundation. If your average annual receipts are at or below the SBA size standard for your NAICS code, you're a small business — no separate certification needed, just self-certify in SAM.gov.
- What is the 8(a) set-aside?
- A 9-year business development program for firms at least 51% owned by socially and economically disadvantaged US citizens. Opens sole-source and competitive set-asides.
- Check your 8(a) eligibility →
- What is the HUBZone set-aside?
- For firms whose principal office and at least 35% of employees are in a Historically Underutilized Business Zone. Adds a price-evaluation preference on top of set-asides.
- Check your HUBZone eligibility →
- What is the WOSB / EDWOSB set-aside?
- Women-Owned Small Business — at least 51% owned and controlled by women. EDWOSB adds an economic-disadvantage test and unlocks more set-aside NAICS codes.
- Check your WOSB / EDWOSB eligibility →
- What is the SDVOSB / VOSB set-aside?
- Veteran- and service-disabled-veteran-owned small businesses (at least 51% owned and controlled). Now certified governmentwide through SBA VetCert.
Check your eligibility
Your answers stay in your browser — nothing is submitted until you ask to see matching bids.
Common questions
- Can I hold more than one set-aside certification at the same time?
- Yes. The programs aren't mutually exclusive — one firm can hold WOSB, HUBZone, and 8(a) at the same time as long as it separately meets each program's own eligibility rules. Every certification you hold widens the pool of contracts you can bid on, so it's usually worth pursuing every program you genuinely qualify for. One thing to understand: any given contract is set aside under just one program at a time, and there's no order of precedence among the 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, and WOSB programs (FAR 19.203) — the contracting officer decides which set-aside a particular solicitation uses, and you bid as that type, not as all of your certifications stacked together. Holding several certifications simply means more solicitations are open to you. Each program keeps its own distinct eligibility requirements, but SBA's free MySBA Certifications portal (certifications.sba.gov) now lets you apply for several certifications in one place at the same time, which cuts down the paperwork. As always, SBA certification is free — you never need to pay a third-party firm to certify you.
- Can I still self-certify as an SDVOSB or VOSB in 2026?
- No — self-certification no longer qualifies you for veteran set-aside or sole-source contracts. SBA ended self-certification for service-disabled-veteran-owned and veteran-owned small businesses: certification through SBA's VetCert program has been required for veteran set-aside and sole-source contracts since the program moved to SBA in January 2023, and the last remaining use of self-certification — counting toward agencies' small-business goals and subcontracting goals — ended on December 22, 2024. To bid veteran set-asides or have those awards count toward an agency's small-business goals, you now have to hold an active certification through SBA's Veteran Small Business Certification (VetCert) program. If you self-certified in the past, that status alone no longer counts. Applying is free — SBA states it does not charge anything to apply, so anyone charging you a fee to "certify" you as a veteran-owned business is selling help with a process you can complete yourself at no cost. (bidgovcontracts.com is an independent service and is not affiliated with the SBA.)
Official sources
Everything above is checkable. These are the government pages it rests on.
- FAR Part 19 — Small Business Programs — the rules that govern set-asides, sole-source thresholds and the rule of two
- SBA Table of Size Standards — the size standard per NAICS code that gates every small-business set-aside
- SBA Certification portal — where 8(a), HUBZone, WOSB and SDVOSB certifications are actually applied for, free
Go deeper
The terms behind this tool
Each one is defined in plain English with the FAR or SBA section it comes from, so you can check the rule rather than take our word for it.
- Government contracting glossary 50 terms a solicitation assumes you already know, each with the FAR or SBA citation it comes from.
- NAICS codes for government contracting All 1,012 six-digit 2022 industries, by sector, with the size standard to check.
- The free government bid list Open solicitations by state — no login, nothing blurred, each page listing the rows closing soonest.