What is a DUNS number?
A DUNS number is a nine-digit business identifier assigned by Dun & Bradstreet. It has been used in commercial credit and historical government-award records. For U.S. federal awards, SAM.gov replaced DUNS with the government-owned Unique Entity ID in April 2022, so read DUNS as legacy or proprietary context.
Full name: Dun & Bradstreet Data Universal Numbering System Number
Short explanation
The D-U-N-S Number is Dun & Bradstreet's proprietary business identifier. It historically appeared in many vendor, grant, and federal-award workflows, but the U.S. government moved SAM.gov and related systems to the government-owned Unique Entity ID on April 4, 2022. In a public-record entity graph, DUNS should be treated carefully: it can explain older records, but it is not the current public spine for SAM.gov identity.
Related use case: Federal contractor entity lookup
How it’s used
- Legacy award context: older federal award and registration records may reference DUNS because it preceded the SAM.gov Unique Entity ID transition.
- Commercial credit context: Dun & Bradstreet uses DUNS to identify business credit files and business locations in its proprietary data products.
- Fonteum treats DUNS as restricted legacy context and does not use it as the public identity spine for current federal contractor records.
Frequently asked questions
- How many digits are in a DUNS number?
- A DUNS number has nine digits.
- Does SAM.gov still use DUNS as the main identifier?
- No. SAM.gov and GSA systems switched to the Unique Entity ID as the authoritative government entity identifier on April 4, 2022.
- Why does DUNS still appear in older data?
- DUNS was used before the UEI transition, so older award, grant, and vendor records may still carry historical DUNS references.
Explore in Fonteum
How Fonteum sources, resolves, and publishes data tied to this term.