What is the difference between SAM.gov and Grants.gov?

SAM.gov and Grants.gov cover different types of federal awards.

SAM.gov (System for Award Management) is the portal for federal contracts — agreements where a federal agency buys goods or services from your organization in exchange for payment. It replaced FedBizOpps for opportunity discovery and CCR for vendor registration. Every federal contractor must have an active SAM.gov entity registration.

Grants.gov is the portal for federal grants — financial assistance where a federal agency gives your organization funds to carry out a public-purpose activity (research, education, community services). Grant recipients are typically non-profits, universities, tribal governments, and state and local agencies, though for-profit companies can also receive grants in specific programs.

Registration overlap: both systems tie to a single Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) which SAM.gov assigns. If your organization already has a SAM.gov entity registration, you can use the same UEI when registering on Grants.gov. If your first federal award will be a grant, you still register on SAM.gov first to obtain the UEI, then register on Grants.gov.

Which one you use depends on the money flow. Contract = you provide something the government uses (deliverables, services, products) → SAM.gov. Grant = you carry out a purpose the government wants to fund (public benefit) → Grants.gov. Some federal programs use "cooperative agreements" which have grant-like registration through Grants.gov but contract-like performance oversight.