TAB_H_QUestions_Answers_SBK80014R0003_Guidance_on_DUNS_and_SAMS_registration.pdf

INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO OBTAIN DUNS AND REGISTER TO SAM

All businesses wanting to do contracts with the US Federal government must obtain, free of charge, a “D-U-N-S Number”. A DUNS number is a unique nine digit identification number for each physical location of your business.

Below are instructions for getting DUNS numbers (http://www.dnb.com/get-a-duns-number.html), NCAGE codes, and registering in the U.S. Government System for Award Management (SAM). Vendors located at the United States of America can ignore the instructions about NCAGE since they will receive CAGE codes automatically as a result of the SAM registration process.

The U.S. Government public website at http://www.fsd.gov, will take you to the main Federal Service Desk, where you would be able to find Questions and answers, and additional information, such as a full User Guide, Quick Start Guides, Helpful Hints, and Webinars are available on the HELP tab.

Foreign vendors (vendors located outside of the United States of America) should pay attention especially to the slides on registering and renewing SAM registrations on the following public site www.sam.gov under the tab “HELP”. The slides on how to register in SAM include information on how to get an NATO CAGE (NCAGE) code. Note the 5th slide which talks about BINCS. Once the vendor receives an NCAGE code, the vendor should click on the link to BINCS, where they can run a search of BINCS to see if their NCAGE code is in the system. It is important for the NCAGE code to be there since SAM validates NCAGE codes entered into it by checking them against BINCS. If the NCAGE code is not in BINCS or if there is a problem with the information in it, that page also has a link where vendors can contact the people that run BINCS for assistance. Foreign Vendors shall obtain their Dun & Bradstreet (DUNS) number on the following internet site: https://mycredit.dnb.com/get-a-duns-number/

When looking at the slides on how foreign vendors should register in SAM, please also note slide 22.

The information provided to Dun and Bradstreet for the DUNS number must exactly match (including spelling, capitalization, punctuation and spacing) the information provided to NATO for the NCAGE code.

The DUNS number, name and address information will be fed into SAM from the DUNS database.

Foreign vendors that need to get registered in SAM:

The vendors shall ask for their DUNS numbers and NCAGE codes at the same time. Vendors do not have to have a DUNS number to get a CAGE code, nor do they have to have a CAGE code to get a DUNS number. Also, the information provided to the Dun and Bradstreet for the DUNS number must be exactly the same (including capitalization, spelling, punctuation, abbreviations, spacing, etc.) as the information given to NATO for the NCAGE code. Applying for both at the same time makes it much easier to ensure that the information provided to both systems is identical.

Once the vendor obtains both the DUNS number and the NCAGE code, and once the NCAGE code is entered in BINCS, they can then register in SAM. Remember, for example, that when SAM asks for a Tax ID number, they want an American Tax ID number. If the vendor does not have one, or has a tax ID number from another country, then the vendor should leave the Tax ID field blank. This also goes for other data requested by SAM. For example, if the Philippines uses American format ABA bank routing numbers and account numbers, then these should be entered into SAM. If the Philippines uses some other format not used in the U.S., the vendor should leave these fields blank. Also, references in SAM to small businesses only apply to U.S. small businesses. Businesses based outside the U.S. are always considered Other Than Small (or, just Large).