If you searched for the GSA Excluded Parties List, you found the right page. The system is now called the SAM Exclusion List and lives on SAM.gov, but the underlying data is the same — and the search habit hasn't caught up. Here's what changed in 2012, why the old name still surfaces in training materials and procurement workflows, and how to use the current list effectively.
From EPLS to SAM in 2012
The Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) was the federal government's exclusion database for decades. Operated by the General Services Administration, it tracked contractors and individuals barred from receiving federal contracts, grants, or other federal financial assistance. The list was free, public, and accessible at epls.gov.
In July 2012, GSA consolidated EPLS into the System for Award Management. Eight legacy procurement systems — EPLS, CCR (Central Contractor Registration), ORCA (Online Representations and Certifications Application), FedReg, and others — were merged into a single platform now operated under the SAM.gov umbrella. The exclusion list moved with it.
What changed: the URL, the user interface, and the workflow for federal officials submitting new exclusion records. What did not change: the data itself, the legal authority behind exclusions (FAR 9.4 and related regulations), or the federal agencies that produce the records. An exclusion entered in EPLS in 2009 is still in the database today — it migrated forward unchanged.
Why the old terminology persists
GSA officially retired "Excluded Parties List System" as a brand more than a decade ago. The name still shows up regularly in:
- Federal contracting training curricula written before 2012 and never updated
- Government contracting consultants' websites and white papers
- Internal compliance procedures at prime contractors that haven't been refreshed
- Acquisition regulations and contract clauses that still reference EPLS by name
- Search engine queries from compliance officers who learned the term before SAM consolidation
Practitioners who learned the term in 2010 still type it into search engines in 2026. The terminology shifted; the workflow they are trying to do has not.
SAM exclusions is the EPLS database
When a contracting officer cites EPLS, when a federal grants administrator references the Excluded Parties List, when a compliance training module mentions epls.gov — they all point to the same thing as SAM Exclusions today. The legal authority is the same. The records are the same. The agencies that produce records are the same.
If your internal compliance procedures still say "EPLS," you do not need to rewrite them to remain compliant. The procedure works. You just verify against sam.gov/search/?index=exc instead of the legacy URL. Updating the language to "SAM Exclusion List" is a documentation hygiene improvement, not an operational requirement.
Accessing the current list
The exclusion list is publicly searchable at SAM.gov:
- Direct search URL: sam.gov/search/?index=exc
- Search by entity name, individual name, UEI, or DUNS (legacy identifier still supported)
- No login required for read access
- Results return classification, excluding agency, action date, and termination date if specified
For bulk download, SAM.gov provides public-extract files updated daily. Federal contractors processing exclusion checks at scale typically integrate the bulk extract into vendor management or screening platforms rather than running manual lookups.
What the database contains
As of March 2026, the SAM Exclusion List contains 167,681 records. The composition is heavily skewed toward individuals rather than firms:
- Individuals: 132,516 records (79%)
- Special Entity Designations: 25,579 records
- Firms: 8,259 records
- Vessels: 1,327 records
Special Entity Designation covers OFAC sanctions targets and similar regulatory designations that are not traditional debarments. For a federal contractor doing subcontractor screening, the Firm count of 8,259 is usually the most operationally relevant subset.
Three federal agencies produce most of the volume:
- Department of Health and Human Services: 69,397 records
- Office of Foreign Assets Control: 41,664 records
- Office of Personnel Management: 40,482 records
HHS volume reflects healthcare-program exclusions — Medicare and Medicaid provider exclusions are a high-volume category. OFAC reflects sanctions designations that get cross-listed in SAM. OPM reflects security-clearance and federal employment debarments. The remaining records distribute across DOJ, HUD, EPA, and dozens of other federal agencies.
Key fields in each record: classification, name (firm or individual), excluding agency, exclusion program (the legal authority), exclusion start date, and termination date if the action has a defined end. UEI is present when the excluded party is or was a federal contractor with a SAM registration.
What an exclusion means in practice
A federal contractor or individual on the SAM Exclusion List cannot receive new federal contracts, grants, cooperative agreements, or other federal financial assistance for the duration of the exclusion. Contracting officers running a name check or UEI check at SAM.gov before award are required by FAR 9.405 to verify the entity is not excluded. The same check applies, indirectly, to subcontractors at all tiers when the prime contract includes flow-down requirements under FAR 52.209-6.
Exclusions are not all equal. The exclusion-program field on each record indicates which legal authority drives the action. Common categories include procurement-fraud-related debarments (typically 3-year actions), HHS healthcare-program exclusions (often longer, some permanent), OFAC sanctions designations (no fixed term, tied to the underlying sanctions program), and suspension actions during pending investigations (shorter-term, often 12 to 18 months).
For a prime contractor doing pre-award subcontractor screening, Firm-classification and Special Entity Designation records that match SAM-registered contractors are the operationally relevant subset. Individual exclusions matter when the individual is a registered owner, officer, or principal of a contracting entity. Vessel exclusions matter only for maritime-related federal awards.
Geographic patterns in matched clusters
Federal contractor exclusions are distributed across all 51 jurisdictions, but cluster-level matches concentrate in a small number of states.
Across the database, 128 federal contractor address clusters contain at least one confirmed exclusion match. Two states tie for the lead at 19 matched clusters each — Virginia and California. Texas follows with 12. Florida contains 10 matched clusters. New York and Maryland each contain 9. Pennsylvania holds 6.
These counts reflect both the size of each state's federal contractor base and the geographic distribution of exclusion-list entities. Virginia's matches concentrate around the National Capital Region's federal contractor footprint. California's distribute more broadly across the Bay Area, Los Angeles County, and San Diego — reflecting the state's larger and more dispersed contractor base.
For a compliance team doing subcontractor address screening, this distribution matters. The data layer can flag whether a vendor's address sits in a cluster that contains an exclusion match. The pattern does not prove the vendor is the excluded entity. It indicates the cluster warrants closer review.
Where to start
If you need to check a specific entity against the current exclusion list, see How to check the SAM exclusion list: a step-by-step guide for federal contractors. For deeper context on what exclusions mean for supply chain compliance, see Understanding the SAM exclusion list: what debarment means for your supply chain.
The full per-state breakdown of exclusion-matched address clusters is available in CDA's State Risk Landscape Reports. The Missouri report is available free as a sample — a way to see the methodology applied to real data before deciding whether the analysis fits your workflow.