{
  "id": "USC-01",
  "category": "Small-business contracting",
  "capability": "Reserve contracts and orders for eligible small businesses and use program-specific sole-source routes",
  "summary": "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.",
  "legal_basis": [
    {
      "citation": "10 U.S.C. §3203(b)-(c)",
      "url": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title10/html/USCODE-2024-title10-subtitleA-partV-subpartB-chap221-sec3203.htm",
      "kind": "statute",
      "note": "Official GovInfo 2024 baseline; read alongside the enacted amendments identified in this record."
    },
    {
      "citation": "15 U.S.C. §644(a), (j), (r)",
      "url": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title15/html/USCODE-2024-title15-chap14A-sec644.htm",
      "kind": "statute",
      "note": "Official GovInfo 2024 baseline; read alongside the enacted amendments identified in this record."
    },
    {
      "citation": "15 U.S.C. §637(a), (d), (m)",
      "url": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title15/html/USCODE-2024-title15-chap14A-sec637.htm",
      "kind": "statute",
      "note": "Official GovInfo 2024 baseline; read alongside the enacted amendments identified in this record."
    },
    {
      "citation": "15 U.S.C. §657a",
      "url": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title15/html/USCODE-2024-title15-chap14A-sec657a.htm",
      "kind": "statute",
      "note": "Official GovInfo 2024 baseline; read alongside the enacted amendments identified in this record."
    },
    {
      "citation": "15 U.S.C. §657f",
      "url": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title15/html/USCODE-2024-title15-chap14A-sec657f.htm",
      "kind": "statute",
      "note": "Official GovInfo 2024 baseline; read alongside the enacted amendments identified in this record."
    }
  ],
  "authority_holder": "Head of the procuring agency or authorized contracting officer; SBA holds the eligibility and other functions assigned to it",
  "actor_chain": {
    "planner": [
      "Relevant DoD mission or program sponsor"
    ],
    "resource_owner": [
      "Sponsoring component budget owner and comptroller; available funding not verified"
    ],
    "approver": [
      "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"
    ],
    "executor": [
      "Authorized component contracting, agreements, or personnel office; assignment is illustrative"
    ],
    "partners": [
      "Program counsel, fiscal officials, and eligible external counterpart as applicable"
    ]
  },
  "actor_sources": [
    {
      "title": "Exclusion of particular source or restriction of solicitation to small business concerns; Awards or contracts; Additional powers; HUBZone program; Procurement program for small business concerns owned and controlled by service-disabled veterans — statutory holder and execution conditions",
      "url": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title10/html/USCODE-2024-title10-subtitleA-partV-subpartB-chap221-sec3203.htm"
    }
  ],
  "requirements": [
    "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": [
    "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": [
    "Lawfully available procurement or service funds; the cited preference and reservation provisions are not appropriations."
  ],
  "coordination_path": "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.",
  "availability": "Express statutory pathway identified in the USC scrub. Current implementation, public intake, appropriations, available balances, and transaction-specific delegations were not independently 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.",
  "family": "Acquisition, transition and contract finance",
  "supplement": "usc-review-2026-10-05",
  "last_reviewed": "2026-10-05",
  "implementation_caution": "Statutory-source review only. A current implementing program, open intake, available funds and individual delegation were not verified.",
  "usc_review_notes": [
    "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."
  ],
  "mechanisms": [
    "Contracts & purchases"
  ],
  "goal_ids": [
    "prototype-to-use"
  ],
  "office_links": [
    {
      "office_id": "counsel-award-officials",
      "role": "approver",
      "label": "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"
    }
  ],
  "family_slug": "acquisition-transition-and-contract-finance",
  "instrument_groups": [
    "Contracts & purchases"
  ],
  "executor_route": {
    "id": "execution-usc-01",
    "name": "Authorized component contracting, agreements, or personnel office; assignment is illustrative",
    "label": "Authorized component contracting, agreements, or personnel office; assignment is illustrative",
    "url": "/offices/execution/usc-01/",
    "basis": "Recorded executing role; this record-specific route is not an additional institutional office."
  },
  "program_context": [],
  "program_research": null,
  "checks": [
    {
      "key": "legal",
      "label": "Legal basis",
      "state": "Sources linked",
      "detail": "Legal sources and instrument limits are recorded."
    },
    {
      "key": "eligibility",
      "label": "Requirements",
      "state": "Gates recorded",
      "detail": "Read the requirements for this instrument; applicability depends on the proposed action."
    },
    {
      "key": "funds",
      "label": "Public funding",
      "state": "Rules recorded",
      "detail": "Lawfully 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.",
      "url": "/capabilities/usc-01/#funding"
    },
    {
      "key": "delegation",
      "label": "Assigned roles",
      "state": "Roles recorded",
      "detail": "Public sources describe institutional authority. The instrument identifies approval and execution roles; a specific signature remains transaction-dependent.",
      "url": "/capabilities/usc-01/#roles"
    },
    {
      "key": "execution",
      "label": "Engagement",
      "state": "Program unverified",
      "detail": "Added in the October 5 statutory review; no current implementing program, intake or individual delegation verified.",
      "url": "/sources/usc/"
    }
  ],
  "hard_limit": "Does not give DoD the SBA’s loan, certification, or business-development powers."
}