Federal Exclusion Registry — Identifier Coverage
SAM Exclusions With No Contracting ID: 72% Are Name-Only
Of the 323,930 active records in the SAM.gov source snapshot (2026-06-18), recomputed 2026-07-14, 233,094 — 72% — carry neither a Unique Entity ID (UEI) nor a CAGE code, the two identifiers the federal award system runs on. Only 28% (90,836 records) are machine-matchable on a contracting key. The list is name-only because it is mostly individuals: 89.5% of excluded individuals carry no contracting ID, against 7.2% of excluded firms. These are counts of which identifier fields each record carries; no party is named and no determination is made about any person or entity.
Denominator note: the active registry has 323,930 rows at the audit cutoff, and the identifier-link layer covers all 323,930. No active row is excluded from the identifier percentages.
Key findings
of active federal exclusions with a current identifier link — 233,094 of 323,930 — carry neither a Unique Entity ID (UEI) nor a CAGE code. The source snapshot is 2026-06-18; active status and link coverage were recomputed 2026-07-14.
is the share that is machine-matchable: 90,836 records carry a contracting key (90,820 a UEI, 16 a CAGE code only). An automated screen keyed on UEI/CAGE can match barely more than a quarter of the list.
of the 258,362 excluded individuals are name-only (231,266 records). A person barred from federal programs almost never carries a contracting ID — which is what makes the list name-only.
firms are the mirror image of individuals: only 7.2% of the 16,232 excluded firms are name-only (92.8% carry a UEI), against 89.5% of individuals.
of the largest single excluder's records are name-only: HHS issued 137,372 exclusions and 95.5% of them carry no contracting key. OFAC is the inverse — only 16.2% of its 73,853 records are name-only.
At a glance
How the list identifies the parties on it
The federal contracting system is keyed on two identifiers: the 12-character Unique Entity ID (UEI) that every registered entity holds in SAM.gov, and the older CAGE code. An exclusion that carries one of these can be matched to an award record by a machine. An exclusion that carries neither can be matched only by name. The split below is stark.
| Match status | Records | Share of list |
|---|---|---|
| Name-only (no UEI, no CAGE) | 233,094 | 72% |
| Carries a UEI | 90,820 | 28% |
| Carries a CAGE code only | 16 | 0% |
| Machine-matchable (UEI or CAGE) | 90,836 | 28% |
Why the list is name-only: it is mostly individuals
The name-only share is not random — it tracks what kind of party is being excluded. Individuals, who make up the large majority of the registry, almost never register for a contracting ID; firms almost always have one. Special Entity Designations (largely OFAC-style entity listings) and vessels carry identifiers at much higher rates.
| Classification | Records | Name-only | Machine-matchable | Name-only share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Individual | 258,362 | 231,266 | 27,096 | 89.5% |
| Special Entity Designation | 46,855 | 11 | 46,844 | 0% |
| Firm | 16,232 | 1,162 | 15,070 | 7.2% |
| Vessel | 2,481 | 655 | 1,826 | 26.4% |
Name-only by excluding agency
The same mechanism shows up agency by agency. The two largest excluders by volume — HHS (healthcare program integrity) and OPM (federal-benefit programs) — exclude mostly people, and their records are overwhelmingly name-only. OFAC, which designates entities and vessels, is the exception: most of its records carry a UEI. Counts are the top ten excluding agencies by volume.
| Excluding agency | Records | Name-only | Machine-matchable | Name-only share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HHS | 137,372 | 131,205 | 6,167 | 95.5% |
| OPM | 80,948 | 68,327 | 12,621 | 84.4% |
| OFAC | 73,853 | 11,958 | 61,895 | 16.2% |
| DOJ | 6,435 | 4,331 | 2,104 | 67.3% |
| HUD | 4,463 | 3,491 | 972 | 78.2% |
| EPA | 4,372 | 2,878 | 1,494 | 65.8% |
| No agency recorded | 4,334 | 3,404 | 930 | 78.5% |
| USN | 1,724 | 1,183 | 541 | 68.6% |
| ICE | 1,644 | 900 | 744 | 54.7% |
| DLA | 1,229 | 616 | 613 | 50.1% |
What this means for screening
An automated check that matches recipients to the exclusion list on UEI or CAGE alone can match 28% of active exclusions. The other 72% — 233,094 records — can be caught only by matching on the excluded party's name. That is exactly the hard part of exclusion monitoring: name matching has to contend with aliases, middle names, transliterations, and common names, and it is where false negatives and false positives both live. The structure of the public list, not any single record, is what makes name matching unavoidable.
For an exclusion- and sanction-list monitoring workflow that matches a roster against the live federal lists on both keys and names, see exclusion & sanction-list monitoring. To inspect a single entity's exclusion and award record by UEI, use the federal contractor records directory.
What this counts — and what it does not
- Identifier fields, not enforceability. A name-only count says the published record carries no UEI or CAGE code. It does not say the exclusion is unenforceable — the legal duty not to award stands regardless — only that it cannot be matched on a stable key.
- Active slice only. Every count is the active SAM.gov exclusion set as of the 2026-06-18 snapshot. Terminated exclusions age off and are not counted.
- Match status is set by the ingest. A record is classified by which identifier fields the published SAM.gov extract carries; a party that holds a UEI in SAM but whose exclusion record omits it would read as name-only here, matching what an award-system check would actually see.
- No party named. Every figure is an aggregate count by match status, classification, or agency. This study names no excluded person, firm, entity, or vessel, and makes no determination about any of them.
Methodology
The study aggregates the current slice of two source tables in the fonteum-platform warehouse: public.procurement_exclusion_links (one row per active SAM.gov exclusion, carrying the deterministic match_status the ingest assigns from the UEI/CAGE fields, snapshot 2026-06-18) and public.sam_exclusions (the classification attribute), joined on the exclusion record key. The headline split groups match_status into name-only (held_name_only) versus machine-matchable (confirmed_uei or confirmed_cage); the classification and agency tables re-group the same rows. Every published figure is re-derivable from the SQL below, whose expected-result comments match the committed JSON snapshot exactly.
The SAM.gov exclusion extract refreshes regularly and each snapshot is content-hashed; the identifier fields are taken verbatim from the published list. Agency codes are shown exactly as SAM.gov publishes them; records with no excluding-agency code are grouped as “No agency recorded.”
Reproduce it
Re-derive every figure on this page from the published artifacts:
- Reproducible SQL — the exact GROUP BY queries, with expected-result comments.
- Download JSON · Download CSV — the committed identifier-coverage snapshot.
Re-check the source snapshot
Figures use the named source snapshot and published SQL; no deterministic fact-to-signature link is asserted. The SAM.gov exclusion pull is content-hashed and chained; you can re-hash the published bytes against the attestation yourself.
Re-check a snapshot → — when a supplied snapshot id has an attestation, re-hash those bytes and compare that stored digest.
How to cite this
Fonteum (2026). SAM Exclusions With No Contracting ID: 72% Are Name-Only. Derived from SAM.gov Exclusions (source snapshot 2026-06-18; recomputed 2026-07-14). https://fonteum.com/gov/research/federal-exclusion-list-name-only-2026
Canonical URL: https://fonteum.com/gov/research/federal-exclusion-list-name-only-2026 · License: U.S. Government Works (public domain; 17 U.S.C. §105)
Act on the list, and related evidence
- Sanctions & exclusion-list monitoring — screen a roster against the live lists →
- Federal contractor records — exclusions & awards by entity →
- The SAM exclusion list — what it is & how to check it →
- Federal Suspension & Debarment Scorecard — the registry, ranked by agency →
- The Leakage Report — contracts awarded during an active exclusion →
- The State of Federal Contractor Integrity 2026 — annual roundup →
- The US + EU Sanctions Universe — composition & growth →
- Federal records questions, answered →
- Government records evidence — all studies →
Limitations
- This is a count of active exclusion records on the date of the snapshot, not a historical time series. Terminated exclusions are not in the current slice and are not counted.
- “Name-only” describes the identifier fields a published record carries, not the real-world existence of a UEI for that party. It mirrors what an award-system check keyed on UEI/CAGE would see in the published exclusion record.
- Classification and agency labels are taken from the source as-is; the agency table shows the ten highest-volume excluders, not every agency.
- A match-status count is an administrative fact about the published list on the date queried, not a judgment about any party. Confirm any specific party's current status at the official source.
Sources
One primary government source: the SAM.gov Exclusions list, the U.S. federal exclusion and debarment registry published by the General Services Administration (U.S. Government Works, public domain).
Source: SAM.gov exclusion extract, pulled 2026-06-18. Confirm current status at SAM.gov →
Frequently asked questions
What share of federal exclusions have no UEI or CAGE code?
Against the 2026-06-18 SAM.gov source extract, recomputed for active status on 2026-07-14, 233,094 of the 323,930 active records (72%) carry neither a Unique Entity ID (UEI) nor a CAGE code. Only 90,836 (28%) carry a machine-matchable key. The current identifier-link layer covers all 323,930 active registry rows; none is omitted from the denominator.
Why are so many exclusions name-only?
Because the list is dominated by individuals, who do not register for contracting identifiers. 89.5% of the 258,362 excluded individuals are name-only, against just 7.2% of the 16,232 excluded firms. The pattern follows the excluding agency too: the largest excluders by volume — HHS (healthcare program integrity) and OPM (federal-benefit programs) — exclude mostly people and are 95.5% and 84.4% name-only respectively, while OFAC, which designates entities and vessels, is only 16.2% name-only.
Does a name-only exclusion mean it cannot be enforced?
No — and this study makes no such claim. The legal duty not to award to an excluded party stands regardless of which identifiers the record carries. What a name-only record changes is the mechanics: an award system cannot match it on a stable key (UEI or CAGE) and must fall back to matching by name, which is harder to automate and more error-prone because of aliases, transliterations, and common names. This is an aggregate observation about the structure of the published list, not a finding about any specific exclusion or award.
Does this study identify any excluded person or company?
No. Every figure is an aggregate count — by match status, classification, and excluding agency. No excluded individual, firm, entity, or vessel is named anywhere on this page or in its downloads. A name-only count reports how many records lack a UEI/CAGE field; it is not a list of names. To check whether a specific party is currently excluded, search the official SAM.gov exclusion list linked below; status changes over time, so always confirm at the source.
How can I reproduce these numbers?
Every figure is re-derivable in Postgres from the published SQL (linked on this page) against public.procurement_exclusion_links joined to public.sam_exclusions. The expected-result comments match the committed JSON snapshot. No deterministic figure-to-signature link is asserted.