What federal cleaning and grounds contracts are worth in VA, MD, DC, DE and PA

It's hard to decide whether federal work is worth chasing without knowing what the contracts look like. So we looked at every competed federal janitorial, grounds, waste and pest control award in Virginia, Maryland, DC, Delaware and Pennsylvania over the last two years. There were 232 of them.

The short version is that most of these contracts are small, almost all of them go to small businesses, and the competition varies a lot by trade.

Most contracts are small

The median contract was worth about $28,000 a year. Nearly three in four were under $100,000 a year, and only 10 topped $1 million. These are jobs a small crew can take on: cleaning an Army Reserve center or a national cemetery's buildings, or tree work along a park's trails.

Competed awards worth at least $25,000 in total, October 2024 to October 2026. Yearly value is the award's total potential value, options included, divided by its length in years. 187 of the 232 had a usable length.

Most run for five years, a base year plus options, so a $30,000-a-year job is worth around $150,000 over its life.

Small businesses win nearly all of them

Small businesses won 221 of the 232 awards, or 95%. That's mostly because the work is set aside: 189 of the awards (81%) were open only to small firms or to a certified group within them. Of those, 156 were open to any small business. The rest went to veteran-owned, woman-owned, 8(a) and HUBZone firms.

When a contracting officer expects offers from at least two capable small businesses, the work generally has to be set aside for small businesses. In these trades that's usually the case. If you're small, you're mostly competing against firms like yours, not against national companies.

Competition depends on the trade

Janitorial bids drew the most competition, with a median of 14 offers. Grounds work drew 6 and waste 8. Pest control drew just 2, and 5 of the 21 pest control awards had only one bidder. Across all four trades, 21 awards had a single offer.

Fourteen bidders on a cleaning contract means the price has to be sharp. Two on a pest control contract means a well-prepared offer has a real chance. If you do more than one kind of work, it's worth looking at the less crowded trades first.

Most are bought with quotes, not long proposals

201 of the 232 awards (87%) were bought with simplified procedures, where the agency asks for quotes rather than full proposals. The paperwork is lighter, the turnaround is faster and price usually matters a lot. Our guide on how to read a government contract bid shows what to look for in one.

Who's buying, and where

The Army bought the most (73 awards), followed by the National Park Service (43). After them came NOAA (14), the Forest Service (11) and Veterans Affairs (10). By state, Virginia had 78 awards, Pennsylvania 64, DC 42, Maryland 36 and Delaware 12.

The Park Service work is a good example of what's out there. Much of it is hazard tree removal, invasive plant control and leaf and debris clearing at parks and battlefields, often as projects lasting a year or less. It suits a local tree or landscaping company well.

Some work never opens up

Not every contract is competed. Of 130 janitorial awards in our five states, 76 weren't openly competed, and 30 of those went to AbilityOne nonprofits. AbilityOne is a federal program that employs people who are blind or have significant disabilities. Once a job is on its procurement list, the agency has to buy it from that program. Before you put time into a cleaning bid, check whether the work has been on the list.

What this means for you

If you've assumed federal contracts are too big for your company, the data says otherwise. Most are sized for small firms, most are reserved for them, and in several trades only a handful of companies bid.

To see the awards near you, search USAspending.gov by your NAICS code and county. Look at what each contract sold for and how many offers it drew. Our guide on contracts coming up for re-bid walks through the search. To price the next one, start with the wage determination.

How we counted: awards come from USAspending.gov, with place of performance in VA, MD, DC, DE or PA and a first award date between October 6, 2024 and October 6, 2026. We included janitorial (561720), landscaping (561730), waste collection (562111) and pest control (561710) services worth at least $25,000 in total. We left out sole-source awards, AbilityOne awards and orders under single-award contracts, which continue an earlier competition. Treat these figures as a guide, not an exact count.