EconDefense
USC-01 / Acquisition, transition and contract finance

Reserve contracts and orders for eligible small businesses and use program-specific sole-source routes

Use small-business set-asides and multiple-award contract reservations, and work through the distinct 8(a), women-owned, HUBZone, and service-disabled-veteran pathways when each program’s conditions are met. Require applicable small-business subcontracting plans and participation clauses.

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Authority / instrument · USC-01

Small-business contracting

Acquisition, transition and contract finance

Statute & instrument
Authority holder

Head of the procuring agency or authorized contracting officer; SBA holds the eligibility and other functions assigned to it

What this does not authorize / hard limit

Does not give DoD the SBA’s loan, certification, or business-development powers.

Recorded executor

Authorized component contracting, agreements, or personnel office; assignment is illustrative

Continue to actor →

Recorded executing role; this record-specific route is not an additional institutional office.

Legal basisSources linkedLegal sources and instrument limits are recorded.
RequirementsGates recordedRead the requirements for this instrument; applicability depends on the proposed action.
Public fundingRules recordedLawfully available procurement or service funds; the cited preference and reservation provisions are not appropriations. Office budget figures are separate institutional context, not an allocation to this instrument.
Assigned rolesRoles recordedPublic sources describe institutional authority. The instrument identifies approval and execution roles; a specific signature remains transaction-dependent.
EngagementProgram unverifiedAdded in the October 5 statutory review; no current implementing program, intake or individual delegation verified.

Public evidence describes the institution and instrument; it is not approval of an individual transaction.

At a glance

Possible toolUSC-01 · Contracts & purchases

Authority holder: Head of the procuring agency or authorized contracting officer; SBA holds the eligibility and other functions assigned to it

Contracts & purchases

Mechanism tags describe the source text; they do not expand the authority.

Availability and verification

Express statutory pathway identified in the USC scrub. Current implementation, public intake, appropriations, available balances, and transaction-specific delegations were not independently verified.

Requirements and limits

Eligibility & prerequisites

  • Apply the particular route’s eligibility, certification, competition, price, threshold, and subcontracting requirements; these are not interchangeable exceptions.
  • 8(a) awards require the SBA arrangement and eligible participant contemplated by §637(a). Women-owned, HUBZone, and service-disabled-veteran routes have their own statutory criteria.
  • Section 644(r) separately permits partial multiple-award set-asides, order set-asides, and reserved awards; §637(d) governs required subcontracting clauses and plans.

Limits & exclusions

  • Does not give DoD the SBA’s loan, certification, or business-development powers.
  • A government-wide goal is not an entitlement to a contract, and no general sole-source authority follows merely from being a small business.

Funding conditions

  • Lawfully available procurement or service funds; the cited preference and reservation provisions are not appropriations.

Read the funding and execution guide

Who contributes what

Need & planning

  • Relevant DoD mission or program sponsor

Resources

  • Sponsoring component budget owner and comptroller; available funding not verified

Approval

  • Head of the procuring agency or authorized contracting officer; SBA holds the eligibility and other functions assigned to it; transaction-specific delegation must be confirmed
    Office profile

Execution

  • Authorized component contracting, agreements, or personnel office; assignment is illustrative

Partners & review

  • Program counsel, fiscal officials, and eligible external counterpart as applicable

Office links are editorial matches to the original role text, not verified delegations. Composite labels and unmatched actors are preserved.

Coordination pathway

Mission sponsor → relevant program or personnel lead → counsel and fiscal review → official holding the required authority → eligible counterpart. Named functions are routing guidance, not verified individual delegations.

Actor and execution-role sources

October 5 statutory review

Added in the October 5 statutory coverage review. The cited legal mechanism and its conditions were examined; a current implementing program, intake, funding balance and individual delegation were not verified.

Section coverage and review findings

Legal basis

  • 10 U.S.C. §3203(b)-(c)Official GovInfo 2024 baseline; read alongside the enacted amendments identified in this record.
  • 15 U.S.C. §644(a), (j), (r)Official GovInfo 2024 baseline; read alongside the enacted amendments identified in this record.
  • 15 U.S.C. §637(a), (d), (m)Official GovInfo 2024 baseline; read alongside the enacted amendments identified in this record.
  • 15 U.S.C. §657aOfficial GovInfo 2024 baseline; read alongside the enacted amendments identified in this record.
  • 15 U.S.C. §657fOfficial GovInfo 2024 baseline; read alongside the enacted amendments identified in this record.

What this research establishes

Legal basisSources linkedLegal sources and instrument limits are recorded.
RequirementsGates recordedRead the requirements for this instrument; applicability depends on the proposed action.
Public fundingRules recordedLawfully available procurement or service funds; the cited preference and reservation provisions are not appropriations. Office budget figures are separate institutional context, not an allocation to this instrument.
Assigned rolesRoles recordedPublic sources describe institutional authority. The instrument identifies approval and execution roles; a specific signature remains transaction-dependent.
EngagementProgram unverifiedAdded in the October 5 statutory review; no current implementing program, intake or individual delegation verified.

Confidence: High on the cited statutory text and express conditions; operational availability is unverified.

Currentness: Reviewed 2026-10-05 against official GovInfo 2024 Code text and a targeted P.L. 119-60 enacted-amendment search. OLRC direct pages were intermittently under maintenance. This is not an exhaustive certification of legislation after that baseline, funding, implementation, or individual delegation.

Review scope: Record reviewed 2026-10-05. Publication is not legal-currentness certification.

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