As of April 4, 2022, SAM.gov has replaced the DUNS number with the Unique Entity ID (UEI) as their primary means of entity identification for Federal awards government-wide. This change has been made to streamline the entity identification and validation process and to no longer rely on a third-party website to issue the identifying number.
This new identifier will be recognized by all systems that are part of the lifecycle of federal awards and managed by the Integrated Award Environment (IAE). This includes SAM.gov, eSRS, FSRS, FPDS, FAPIIS, CPARS, and all other GSA systems.
For the history of the UEI and the reasons why this change is being made, check out our blog from 2020.
What this means for your organization:
Entities with Active SAM Registrations
If your organization is currently registered in SAM.gov with an active registration, you should have already been assigned a UEI. According to the Federal Service Desk (FSD) at FSD.gov, "Entity Administrators don't need to take any action until your renewal date unless your entity name or address has changed."
So, you shouldn't have to take any action at this time, but at USFCR, we have seen the process for renewals severely delayed. As such, we would advise you to renew as early as possible.
Inactive Registrations or Renewals
You must validate your entity information in SAM.gov when renewing your registration or changing your legal business name or address. US Federal Contractor Registration (USFCR) can help you renew your registration and get your UEI issued.
Delays have been seen during this transition. According to a recent update from the FSD, "Entity Validation Ticket Processing Delays Due to extremely high demand, entity legal business name and address validation tickets are taking longer than expected to process."
There has been no estimated timeline for the delays, just that the tickets are being addressed in the order they were received.
First Time Registrants
A Unique Entity ID will be issued to you as part of your registration process in SAM.gov. You will not have to navigate to the Duns & Bradstreet website to be issued your entity identifier.
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