Updated April 2026 · USAspending.gov data
Federal Spending Trend Reports
The federal government obligated $529.6B across 2,005 contractors in FY2024. The top 5 absorb roughly 12% of that total, and the top 10 absorb about 19%. These reports surface where the largest movements are happening: which contractors are growing fastest, which categories are shifting, and where concentration is rising or falling.
What's Driving Federal Spending Trends
Three structural patterns dominate the recent trend data. First, defense contracting remains the single largest line in the federal budget; USAspending.gov obligation totals are routinely topped by Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman in some order. Second, IT and professional services have grown rapidly as civilian agencies modernize legacy systems and lean on cybersecurity and cloud contractors. Third, healthcare services contractors — primarily Medicare Advantage administrators and TRICARE plans — have moved into the top tier as enrollment has scaled.
Trend reports also surface concentration changes. Defense concentration has been roughly stable; civilian-agency concentration has risen as a small set of professional-services firms (Booz Allen, Leidos, SAIC, Accenture Federal) have captured an increasing share of contract dollars. The DOGE program has introduced a new offsetting trend: terminations and pauses have removed obligations from civilian agencies in particular.
Browse All Trend Reports
Largest Federal Contractors
Companies receiving the most federal contract dollars
Agencies Spending the Most
Federal agencies with the highest contract obligations
How These Trends Are Computed
Each trend report is generated from the same underlying record set: USAspending.gov award files reconciled to SAM.gov Unique Entity IDs and grouped by PSC category, agency, and fiscal year. Year-over-year deltas are computed at the contractor and category level. Because federal agencies sometimes restate prior-year obligations, every refresh recomputes the historical baseline rather than appending to a fixed series.
Reports do not attempt to predict contractor risk, future awards, or the likelihood of a contract being terminated. The dataset only supports descriptive analysis — what has been obligated, by whom, to whom — and that is what we publish. Read the full methodology.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a federal spending trend?
A trend report is a data-driven look at how federal contracting has shifted over time — which contractors are growing fastest, which agencies are reallocating across categories, and where the concentration of awards is moving. Reports are recomputed each time USAspending.gov publishes a refresh and rely entirely on public obligation data, not estimates.
How concentrated is federal contracting?
Federal contracting is heavily concentrated. The top 5 contractors account for roughly 11.9% of total obligations on this site, and the top 10 account for about 19.2%. That concentration is most pronounced in defense, where five prime contractors absorb the majority of Department of Defense spending. Trend reports surface when concentration is rising or falling within a category.
Which industries are growing in federal spending?
Other Services is the largest current category at $305.0B in obligations, followed by IT & Software at $37.4B. Federal IT modernization, cybersecurity, and healthcare services have all grown rapidly over the past several years; commodity goods and routine services have grown more slowly. Trend reports compare each category's year-over-year delta.
How often are these trend reports updated?
Trend reports are refreshed each time the underlying USAspending.gov dataset is refreshed. Federal agencies publish award updates daily, but the reports here recompute on a regular cadence to keep deltas comparable. The current dataset was last refreshed April 2026, covering FY2024.
Where does the underlying data come from?
Every figure in a trend report is a direct read of the USAspending.gov API at api.usaspending.gov, the official federal spending database. Industry categories are derived from Product and Service Codes (PSCs) maintained by the Federal Procurement Data System; recipient identities are reconciled to SAM.gov-registered Unique Entity IDs. All data is U.S. government public domain.
Source: U.S. federal government, USAspending.gov, SAM.gov, and the Federal Procurement Data System. Data is public domain. Cite as: "TaxDollarData trend report, FY2024. Data: USAspending.gov."
Last updated 2026-04-09 · covering 2,005 contractors and $529.6B in obligations.