When do most federal contracts expire?
Most federal contracts expire in Q3 2026: 46,889 contracts worth $175.4 billion reach end of performance in that single quarter, the most of any quarter in the coming year.
Source: The Federal Contract Recompete Index, BidSparq
Data as of: August 17, 2026 (refreshed weekly)
Sample: 122,587 expiring federal contracts, grouped by quarter
License: free to cite with attribution to BidSparq
Essential statistics
- Q3 2026 is the peak quarter: 46,889 expiring contracts worth $175.4 billion.
- The federal fiscal year ends September 30, so awards made at fiscal year end tend to expire at fiscal year end too.
- 122,587 contracts expire in total over the next 12 months, worth $595.8 billion.
What this means
The clustering is structural. Agencies obligate a disproportionate share of their budget in the final quarter of the fiscal year, and multi-year periods of performance keep that rhythm on every renewal. For contractors, that means recompete pipelines are seasonal: the quarters before the September peak are when capture work matters most.
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