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What is the SAM.gov exclusions list?

Reviewed against the source · HHS Office of Inspector General, SAM.gov

The SAM.gov exclusions list is the U.S. government's record of parties excluded from federal contracting and federal financial assistance, and it is separate from the LEIE. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR 9.404) states that the General Services Administration operates the System for Award Management (SAM), which contains exclusion records. SAM.gov is the government's central registry for organizations and people doing business with the federal government, and its exclusions cover contracting and financial assistance — grants, cooperative agreements, loans — across every federal agency, not just health care.

Who ends up on the SAM exclusions list?

We measured this ourselves; it is not an official statistic. In the SAM extract CFExclusion holds, about 79% of active exclusion records are individuals, not organizations, and leading excluding agencies include HHS, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Office of Personnel Management, and the Department of Justice. That measurement describes our loaded extract as of the date shown on each result, not SAM as it stands today.

What identifiers are unique to SAM exclusion records?

SAM-excluded organizations carry a 12-character Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) (FAR 9.404 lists the UEI among the fields of an exclusion record) and, less commonly, a 5-character CAGE code. Our characterisation: both are registry-assigned and unique, so a match on either is as strong a signal as a personal NPI match.

Sources

Where this page says “our characterisation,” “our reasoning,” or “we measured,” the statement is CFExclusion's own rather than a government source's. CFExclusion is a private service and is not affiliated with HHS, OIG, CMS, or SAM.gov.

Check a name

Looking for a specific name? Search the HHS-OIG LEIE, SAM.gov exclusions, and Medicaid exclusion lists from 41 states — free, with no signup for your first 3 searches a day.

Adding a state or NPI lets us confirm a match with more confidence.

A $25 report turns that search into a dated, signed record: proof this name was checked against all 43 sources — HHS-OIG LEIE, SAM.gov, and 41 state Medicaid lists — on a specific date, clear or not. See a sample report →

A single check is a snapshot: HHS-OIG replaces the LEIE around the middle of every month, so a result from last month no longer reflects who's on the list today. OIG's own guidance recommends screening your full workforce and vendors on that same monthly cycle — a best practice it states plainly, not a legal mandate. What OIG's guidance actually says about monthly screening → · See the monthly screening service →

For new federal enforcement actions and court records every day, see CourtPulse (courtpls.com).

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