Federal Construction Awards: California

Overview

This profile records the federal prime construction contracts awarded for performance in California — every contract of types A through D (definitive contracts, purchase orders, delivery orders, and BPA calls) coded to a construction NAICS (236 buildings, 237 heavy and civil engineering, 238 specialty trades) with a base obligation date between September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026. Dollar figures are the obligation to date on each award as published by USAspending at the time of the pull, not the ceiling value and not spending within the window. The measure is therefore "awards made in the window and what they have obligated so far"; it is not total federal construction spending in the state, which also includes obligations on awards made earlier. Sub-awards, grants, and state or local contracts are outside scope. This is a public-data profile: it describes where federal construction dollars were awarded, and makes no claim about labor availability, hiring conditions, or the workforce a project will require.

Awards with a base obligation date in the window; dollars are obligations to date as of 2026-09-29. Alaska and Hawaii are not in the Lab's warehouse coverage and are excluded from the national figure. — Sources: USAspending

Ten largest agencies by dollars. Agency is the awarding agency as recorded by USAspending. — Sources: USAspending

Segment from the award's primary NAICS code. — Sources: USAspending

Federal fiscal year begins October 1. The first and last quarters shown are partial where the window boundary falls inside them. — Sources: USAspending

Recipient names as registered with the federal government (case normalized for display); each award is a public record on USAspending.gov. — Sources: USAspending

What the record shows

California received 4,272 new federal construction awards in the window, carrying $12.61 billion obligated to date — 13.9% of the $90.72 billion national total across 38,650 awards, ranking 2 of 49 states. The Department of Defense is the largest awarding agency by dollars ($5.24 billion, 42%), followed by the Department of Homeland Security ($4.72 billion). By segment, construction of buildings leads at 66% of dollars. Award size is skewed: the median award is $85,428, while the ten largest awards carry 46% of the state's total; the single largest is $1.23 billion to Fisher Sand & Gravel CO from the Department of Homeland Security. These are observed award records; nothing here measures how hard the work will be to staff.

Method and limitations

Source: USAspending.gov, spending_by_award search API, pulled 2026-09-29 with date_type new_awards_only over the window 2024-09-29 to 2026-09-29; filters: award types A, B, C, D; NAICS 236xxx, 237xxx, 238xxx (31 six-digit codes); place of performance in California. Every page of results was retrieved (no result cap), and the rows are archived in the Lab's governed warehouse (workforce_intel.federal_construction_awards, source USASPENDING_FULL). Limitations: obligation-to-date values change as agencies modify awards, so figures are as of the pull date; place of performance is the primary location USAspending records and may differ from where work is physically performed for multi-site contracts; agency attribution follows the awarding (not funding) agency; recipient names are as registered in SAM. Fiscal quarters follow the federal fiscal year. This profile asserts where awards were made and their obligated value only — not workforce availability, not hiring conditions, not project outcomes.

@techreport{WILRB20263FCASTCA,
  title       = {Federal Construction Awards: California: Prime construction contracts awarded for performance in California, September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026},
  author      = {AlphaHire Workforce Intelligence Lab},
  institution = {AlphaHire Workforce Intelligence Lab},
  type        = {WIL Federal Construction Awards},
  number      = {WIL-RB-2026.3-FCA-ST-CA},
  year        = {2026},
  note        = {Version 1.0; methodology WIL-FCA-1.0},
  url         = {https://wilinstitute.org/library/p/federal-construction-awards-california},
}

TY  - RPRT
AU  - AlphaHire Workforce Intelligence Lab
TI  - Federal Construction Awards: California: Prime construction contracts awarded for performance in California, September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026
PY  - 2026
PB  - AlphaHire Workforce Intelligence Lab
M1  - WIL-RB-2026.3-FCA-ST-CA
ET  - Version 1.0
UR  - https://wilinstitute.org/library/p/federal-construction-awards-california
AB  - A public-record profile of federal prime construction contracts (NAICS 236, 237, and 238; contract types A–D) awarded for performance in California in the two-year window September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026, drawn from USAspending. 4,272 new awards carrying $12.61 billion obligated to date, ranking California 2 of 49 states by dollars. The Department of Defense accounts for 42% of dollars; construction of buildings is the largest NAICS segment at 66%. The ten largest awards carry 46% of the state's total. This is an observed record of awards, not a forecast of spending or a measure of workforce demand.
ER  -