Every federal buy carries an industry code. Unless another paragraph of the same rule requires otherwise, contracting officers assign one NAICS code and corresponding size standard to all solicitations, contracts, and task and delivery orders 1.
The code follows what the buy is mainly for. The contracting officer classifies the product or service in the one industry that best describes the principal purpose of what is being acquired 2. When a buy mixes things, it is usually classified by the component that accounts for the greatest percentage of contract value 3.
Size follows the code
Whether you are small is answered code by code. The FAR defines a small business concern as one, including its affiliates, that is independently owned and operated, not dominant in its field, and small under SBA's size standards, including the size standard that corresponds to the NAICS code assigned to the contract 4.
SBA states each size standard either as a number of employees or as annual receipts in millions of dollars, and the figure is the maximum allowed for a concern and its affiliates to be considered small 5.
Worked example. Contractor E writes software and also resells hardware. It lists two NAICS codes in SAM. Before bidding a software-support solicitation, it checks its employee count and receipts, with its affiliate's, against the size standard for the code on that solicitation, not against the code it uses for hardware.
Product and service codes on a notice
A SAM.gov notice also carries a classification code. When you open a bid from a notice, Bids2Bank stores that code as the bid's product service code (PSC) 6, and it accepts a PSC only as four letters or digits 7.
Bids2Bank uses your codes when it scores a notice. NAICS fit carries 20 of the 100 points in its qualification score 8.
A code you list that shares the notice's first four digits earns partial credit 9.
On a set-aside, Bids2Bank also checks whether your SAM record marks you small under the notice's NAICS code 10.
Search SAM.gov notices by NAICS and PSC →
Indented paragraphs are invented worked examples. Tool links open Bids2Bank and need a free account.