Bureau of Overseas Building Operations

The Department of State Bureau of Overseas Building Operations acquires real property, facilities, construction, and related services to support U.S. diplomatic operations worldwide. A sub-agency of the State Department, OBO manages federal-contract awards and grants to maintain, construct, renovate, and outfit embassies, consulates, and residential facilities across overseas locations.

OBO's contract footprint is substantial and granular. Since 2000, the bureau has issued 93,710 federal contract awards totaling $56.36 billion in combined potential value, with $41.71 billion obligated to date. Recent activity spans 4,301 awards in 2023, 3,960 in 2024, 3,715 in 2025, 2,648 in 2026, and 3 year-to-date in 2027. The most recent recorded award date is 2027-06-14.

Contract competition is highly fragmented. Over the last five years, the top five primes by award count account for 34 percent of recent awards but represent a diverse set of awardees: the largest tranche of awards went to miscellaneous foreign awardees (3,024 awards), followed by a second tier of miscellaneous foreign awardees (1,956 awards), a third tier (746 awards), a fourth tier (514 awards), and Knoll, Inc. (353 awards). By combined potential value, the concentration is negligible at 1 percent—the top five by value are again dominated by miscellaneous foreign awardees and include Allsteel LLC, Knoll, Inc., and Fluid Solutions LLC. The portfolio reflects 6,869 distinct prime contractors over its history, indicating a long tail of small and episodic vendors typical of overseas construction and facilities work.

Set-asides are minimal: 96 percent of awards carry no set-aside designation. Small business awards (2 percent of the portfolio) are distributed across total small business (2 percent), 8(a) sole source (1 percent), and smaller shares of other SBA categories; no single set-aside category exceeds 1 percent of awards.

Grant activity is negligible. OBO has issued only 25 grants since 2017, obligating $3.2 million in total federal dollars. All grants are Project Grants awarded to a single recipient category—miscellaneous foreign awardees—with 23 awards ($3.1 million) in the last award cycle (2022) and no recorded grant activity since September 2022.

No recent contract opportunities or grant opportunities are recorded in the current source data.