FAPIIS, after the SAM.gov migration.

The Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System was created by Section 872 of the FY2009 NDAA as the federal government's integrity-data layer for procurement: the single repository contracting officers must consult before any award above the simplified acquisition threshold under FAR 9.104-6. It exists to make a contracting officer's responsibility determination defensible.

The records that surface in a FAPIIS / R/Q lookup fall into a defined set:

Contract terminations

Default and cause terminations on federal contracts. The most common record type by volume.

Defective pricing determinations

Findings of deficient cost or pricing data, typically from DCAA-audited primes.

Administrative agreements

Settlements between a contractor and an agency, often in lieu of suspension or debarment proceedings.

Criminal proceedings

Federal or state criminal proceedings connected to a federal award.

Civil proceedings

Civil proceedings resulting in a finding of fault and liability of $5,000 or more, connected to a federal award.

Administrative proceedings

Resulting in disposition of $5,000 or more, including suspension and debarment.

Non-responsibility determinations

Prior agency determinations that the contractor was not responsible.

Past-performance evaluations

CPARS-style narratives. These remain non-public even after migration.

Per the GAO's 2024 review, contract terminations make up the overwhelming majority of records you will encounter on a typical lookup. The other categories matter when they appear, but most R/Q reads are termination reads.

The single most useful fact this page can tell you: FAPIIS.gov no longer exists as a standalone portal. GSA completed the integration into SAM.gov on December 12, 2022. The standalone fapiis.gov URL now redirects to sam.gov/fapiis. The records were not deleted, restructured, or renamed at the data layer. They were rebranded.

The new canonical term is Responsibility/Qualification (R/Q) records. R/Q is administered alongside Entity Registration and Exclusions inside the unified SAM.gov experience. Per the Department of Energy's PF 2023-11 transition memo: "The look and feel of the records have changed but the core data and core functions have not changed."

The pre-2022 anonymous public FAPIIS search no longer exists. R/Q lookups require authentication through login.gov.

Step 1

Go to sam.gov and sign in via login.gov. R/Q access requires authentication; this is a key change from the old FAPIIS public-search experience.

Step 2

Use the main SAM.gov search. Enter the entity's UEI (preferred, survives renames and acquisitions) or CAGE code.

Step 3

Results display with type tags. Entity records and R/Q records appear together; R/Q records are explicitly labeled.

Step 4

Open the R/Q record to see the underlying integrity-data history.

Step 5

For bulk analysis (e.g., diligence across a sub portfolio), use the SAM.gov Data Bank to download Responsibility/Qualification data extracts. These were the FAPIIS data files pre-migration.

Anchor every lookup to UEI rather than legal name. Names mutate through M&A and DBAs; UEI is the canonical identifier post-April 2022. See UEI vs CAGE explained for the broader identifier landscape.

The reporting obligation lives at FAR 52.209-9, prescribed by FAR 9.104-7(c). The clause text is direct: contractors with covered awards must update their FAPIIS / R/Q record "on a semi-annual basis, throughout the life of the contract."

Trigger threshold

Receiving more than $10 million in aggregate federal contract value. Not a per-contract test, aggregate across the contractor's federal portfolio.

What to report

Criminal, civil, and administrative proceedings connected to a federal award, with the $5,000 finding-of-fault threshold for civil and admin matters.

Cadence

Semi-annual update for the life of the contract. Not one-time at award.

Mirror on the grant side

Parallel reporting rules for federal grants live at 2 CFR Part 200 Appendix XII.

GAO-24-106911 documented that the system is materially under-reported in practice: hundreds of unreported terminations and administrative agreements over a five-year sample, with DOD accounting for the largest share of missed entries. The implication for diligence: R/Q is a floor, not a ceiling. A clean record is a positive signal but never a complete picture.

The public-access mechanics matter because they determine when a contracting officer or sub-vetting prime can actually see a new record. All three rules live at FAR 9.105-2, not at FAR 9.104-6 where the responsibility-review obligation sits.

14 calendar days

Newly submitted information sits in a non-public segment for 14 calendar days before automatic public posting. The clock runs from submission, not from the underlying triggering event. Calendar days, not business days.

7-day contractor dispute

Within 7 calendar days of being notified of a posting, the contractor may assert that information is FOIA-exempt. The agency must remove the posting within 7 calendar days of that assertion.

6-year contractor comment retention

Contractors may post a written comment alongside any record. The comment persists for 6 years. Useful for contextualising terminations that have been remediated or clarified.

Past-performance carveout

Past-performance evaluations remain non-public even after the 14-day window. The public R/Q view never includes CPARS-style narratives. CPARS access is gated separately for federal personnel and contracting officials.

Both contracting officers and primes vetting subs make the same error: treating any negative R/Q entry as a dispositive signal. FAR 9.104-6(c)explicitly directs reviewers to "apply sound judgment in determining the weight and relevance" of the data. Context is the work.

• A termination for default on a 2017 IT contract for a now-divested business unit is materially different from a 2024 termination on the same NAICS the offeror is bidding on now. Recency, scope match, and corporate continuity all matter.
• An administrative agreement with the Interagency Suspension and Debarment Committee (ISDC) typically signals that the contractor self-corrected and is operating under a compliance regime. Frequently a positive signal, not negative.
• A criminal proceeding record may be at the indictment stage, not conviction. Read disposition fields. An unresolved indictment is a flag for present-responsibility analysis but not a final fact.
• Defective pricing findings cluster around DCAA-audited primes. Their absence on a non-audited sub does not imply clean pricing; it implies the sub has not been audited at scale.
• The contractor's 6-year comment is signal too. Read it. Comments that reframe a termination with documented remediation are different from comments that argue the agency was wrong.

• Searching for "FAPIIS" expecting a separate portal. It does not exist anymore. fapiis.gov redirects to sam.gov/fapiis as of December 2022.
• Treating a clean R/Q record as a green light. Per GAO-24-106911, the database is materially under-reported. R/Q is a necessary but insufficient check. Pair with the SAM exclusions read, the DOL Wage and Hour search, and court-records work.
• Stopping at the prime.Subcontractors above the $10 million aggregate threshold have their own R/Q records. Primes vetting subs should pull each tier-1 sub's record, not just rely on the prime's.
• Confusing CPARS narratives with public R/Q view. Past-performance evaluations are not public, even after the 14-day window. If you are looking for CPARS, you need separate gated access.
• Conflating FAR sections. The 14-day and 7-day rules live at FAR 9.105-2. The responsibility-review obligation lives at FAR 9.104-6. The reporting clause is FAR 52.209-9. Different sections, different jobs.

Where DiligenceDesk fits: the orchestrator pulls SAM.gov R/Q signals alongside exclusions, the ITA Consolidated Screening List, USAspending performance context, and the rest of the source matrix in the verdict ladder. The under-reporting gap GAO documented is exactly why diligence cannot stop at any single source.