If you want to learn how to get government landscaping contracts, you should know that grounds maintenance is one of the most accessible and most repeatable ways into federal contracting. The government owns an enormous amount of land — military installations, 150-plus national cemeteries, federal courthouses, national parks, VA campuses — and every acre of it has to be mowed, edged, trimmed, cleaned, and cleared of snow, on a recurring schedule, year after year. Most of that work is set aside for small businesses, and a lot of it is set aside specifically for veterans.
I run Procura Federal, and before that I worked inside a small defense contractor. Landscaping is a lane I point new contractors toward constantly, because the barrier to entry is low — you already own the equipment — and the contracts are typically IDIQs with a base year plus four option years. Win one and you have five years of predictable revenue. Here’s exactly how to get government landscaping contracts.
Who actually buys landscaping and grounds maintenance?
Federal grounds work is spread across dozens of agencies. These are the buyers a small landscaping company should watch:
| Buyer | What they buy | Where it posts |
|---|---|---|
| VA — National Cemetery Administration | Grounds maintenance at national cemeteries: mowing, headstone trimming & cleaning, irrigation, snow removal, ceremony support | SAM.gov (frequently SDVOSB set-aside) |
| DoD (Army, Air Force, Navy) | Base grounds, athletic fields, training areas, readiness-center upkeep | SAM.gov |
| GSA — Public Buildings Service | Grounds around federal buildings and courthouses | SAM.gov / GSA |
| National Park Service / Interior | Landscaping, trail and grounds upkeep, vegetation management | SAM.gov |
| USDA / Forest Service | Grounds, planting, vegetation and fuels management | SAM.gov |
| State & local (DOT, schools, parks) | Roadside mowing, campus and park grounds, snow removal | State/local procurement portals |
One correction, because outdated guides still get this wrong: federal opportunities are no longer on FBO.gov. FedBizOpps was retired. Everything now posts on SAM.gov.
What NAICS code and size standard apply to federal landscaping?
Almost all federal grounds-maintenance contracts are coded NAICS 561730 (Landscaping Services). The SBA small-business size standard for that code is currently about $9.5 million in average annual receipts over your last five fiscal years (an August 2025 proposed rule would raise it to $13 million — confirm the current figure on SBA.gov before you rely on it). Almost every small landscaping company is comfortably under that ceiling, which means you qualify for set-asides where you’re not bidding against national facilities firms.
| NAICS | Industry | Small-business size standard |
|---|---|---|
| 561730 | Landscaping Services (the main one) | ~$9.5M receipts |
| 561790 | Other Services to Buildings & Dwellings | ~$9.0M receipts |
| 561210 | Facilities Support Services (when grounds is bundled into base operations) | Much larger receipts standard |
Watch which code the contracting officer assigned. If grounds maintenance is bundled into a broader base-operations contract under 561210, you may be competing against much larger firms — that’s your cue to look for teaming or subcontracting rather than a prime bid.
Step 1: Register your business (the free part)
You can’t receive a federal dollar until you’re registered, and none of this costs money — ignore anyone charging to “register you in SAM.”
- Unique Entity ID (UEI) — free through SAM.gov; it replaced the DUNS number.
- SAM.gov registration — free and foundational. It’s the step that delays first-timers most, usually from a name/TIN mismatch with IRS records. (Full walkthrough: registering on SAM.gov.) You need this before you can even think about how to get government landscaping contracts.
- Insurance & equipment readiness — general liability at the levels the solicitation specifies, plus proof you can field the crew and equipment for the site.
Step 2: Get certified for the set-asides that dominate grounds work
This is where landscaping gets interesting. A huge share of federal grounds work is set aside for socioeconomic categories, and one in particular dominates: SDVOSB. The VA’s National Cemetery Administration routinely reserves grounds-maintenance contracts for Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses — recent RFQs at Cypress Hill National Cemetery in Brooklyn and Beaufort National Cemetery were both SDVOSB set-asides under NAICS 561730. The Army does the same at its readiness centers. If you are a service disabled veteran – thank you for your service – and get your SDVOSB certification! This is a huge leg up on how to get government landscaping contracts.
- SDVOSB / VOSB — the highest-leverage certification for grounds work, especially at the VA, which must apply the “Rule of Two” (if two qualified veteran-owned firms are likely to bid at a fair price, it sets the contract aside). Certify through SBA’s VetCert program.
- 8(a) — the socially/economically disadvantaged program; strong for minority-owned landscaping firms.
- HUBZone — powerful if your business sits in a qualified zone.
- WOSB / EDWOSB — woman-owned; 561730 is a qualifying NAICS.
Your capability statement is where your certifications, NAICS codes, equipment, and past performance come together on one page — and it’s the exact input you’ll want when you start qualifying opportunities at speed. If you don’t have one, start with our guide to capability statements.
Step 3: Find the right opportunities on SAM.gov
SAM.gov’s Contract Opportunities search is free and open to anyone — no account needed to browse. Filter by NAICS 561730, by set-aside type (small business, SDVOSB, 8(a), HUBZone, WOSB), and by place of performance so you only see grounds work within a drivable radius. Set up a saved search so new solicitations come to you. SDVOSB firms should also check GSA eBuy.
What federal grounds-maintenance contracts actually require
Federal landscaping is more prescriptive than commercial work. Take a real National Cemetery Administration RFQ: the scope covers turf mowing across the whole cemetery, trimming around tens of thousands of individual headstones, edging, pre-Memorial Day headstone cleaning with a specified biological solution, fall and spring cleanup, irrigation-system upkeep, snow removal, and flag raising and lowering — all to NCA “national shrine” standards, coordinated around active burial services. Army grounds RFPs come with a Performance Work Statement, facility maps with exact square footage, firm-fixed pricing, and even AT/OPSEC training requirements for your crew, with invoices requiring photographic proof of completed work.
The takeaway: the real requirements live in the attachments — the PWS, the maps, the wage determination — not the one-paragraph summary. Bid off the summary alone and you’ll misprice the job.
The Service Contract Act: the number that decides your profit
Here’s the one that catches new grounds contractors. Federal service contracts over $2,500 fall under the Service Contract Act, which requires you to pay your crew the locally prevailing wage plus fringe benefits set by a Department of Labor wage determination attached to the solicitation. That determination — not your normal payroll — sets your true labor cost. Miss it and your bid is either non-compliant or unprofitable, and you won’t find out until it’s too late. On the VA cemetery example above, the applicable wage determination was a separate attachment spelling out hourly rates and health-and-welfare benefits by county.
The hard part isn’t finding contracts — it’s qualifying them fast
Once you’re registered and certified, finding grounds-maintenance solicitations is easy. SAM.gov is free and full of them. The real bottleneck is reading and qualifying each one fast enough to bid the profitable ones and skip the traps — and the details that decide profitability (the wage determination, the acreage and headstone counts, the site-visit requirement, the evaluation weighting) are buried across a dozen attachments per solicitation.
That’s the exact problem we built Procura Federal to solve. Procura reads every SAM.gov solicitation including the attachments — the PWS, the maps, the Service Contract Act wage determinations — scores each opportunity against your capability statement, and flags the compliance requirements, so you spend your time bidding the contracts you can actually win and price correctly. At $399/month, it’s a fraction of a single estimator’s salary and a rounding error next to the legacy market-intelligence platforms. See pricing. (Chasing work in another trade? We’ve also covered how to get government contracts for trucking.)
Frequently asked questions
What NAICS code is used for federal landscaping contracts?
NAICS 561730, Landscaping Services, covers most federal grounds-maintenance and landscaping work. When grounds is bundled into a larger base-operations contract, it may instead be coded under Facilities Support Services (561210).
What’s the small-business size standard for landscaping?
Currently about $9.5 million in average annual receipts over your last five fiscal years for NAICS 561730 (a proposed rule would raise it to $13 million). Confirm the current figure on SBA.gov and check the code assigned to the specific solicitation.
Do I need a certification to win government landscaping contracts?
Not to bid full-and-open small-business set-asides. But certifications dramatically expand your access — SDVOSB especially, since the VA’s National Cemetery Administration reserves large volumes of grounds work for service-disabled veterans. 8(a), HUBZone, and WOSB open additional set-asides.
Where are federal grounds-maintenance contracts posted?
SAM.gov is the central hub — filter by NAICS 561730, set-aside type, and place of performance. SDVOSB firms should also watch GSA eBuy. FBO.gov no longer exists; it was replaced by SAM.gov.
Can a small landscaping company really win federal contracts?
Yes — this is one of the most small-business-friendly categories in all of federal contracting. Many grounds contracts are sized for a single crew, set aside for small or veteran-owned firms, and structured as multi-year IDIQs. Start with one local cemetery, base, or federal building and build past performance from there.
Stop drowning in solicitations. Start winning grounds contracts.
Book a 20-minute demo and we’ll show you Procura scoring live federal landscaping and grounds-maintenance opportunities against your business — wage determinations, site specs, and all.
