HUBZone Certification
Our HUBZone Certification Specialists are waiting on-hand to take care of your Registration with the Federal Government, and ensure your HUBZone Small Business receives every benefit it’s due
What is a HUBZone?
In 1998, congress enacted HUBZone Empowerment as a part of the Small Business Reauthorization Act to assist businesses operating in historically underutilized business zones (or HUBZones).
These are metropolitan and rural areas in the U.S. where income, poverty rates, and unemployment levels have remained disproportionately low. To drive business activity and stimulate the economy of those regions, the federal government now supplies small businesses operating in HUBZones with special advantages to help them succeed — including access to 3% of the contracting opportunities they allocate every year.
Benefits of Registering Your HUBZone Small Business
That means billions of dollars in exclusive government awarded work opportunities, and they’re only available to certified HUBZone businesses.
For Reference: In 2018 the federal government set aside $560 billion for annual contract spending. Nearly $10 billion of those funds were reserved to support HUBZone small businesses, and an even larger budget has been approved since then.
However, after the results of the 2010 U.S. census, 37% of registered HUBZone businesses were disqualified to receive federal benefits. Because of this, there aren’t enough HUBZone certified businesses to claim all the lucrative opportunities reserved for them, with more than $2.3 billion of HUBZone federal contracting funds going untouched in 2018.
On the bright side, this means that all a HUBZone-located business needs to guarantee their share of funding is to get certified for their federally-supplied benefits.
- Sole Source Awards: Sole Source Law decrees that a percentage of dollars for federal prime contracts must be awarded directly to HUBZone organizations without competition.
- Set-Aside Awards: Set-aside contracts give registered HUBZone small businesses access to restricted work opportunities that only they can bid and compete for.
- Price Preferences: HUBZone small businesses also receive a preferential 10% price evaluation when competing for full and open-bid contracts available to the rest of the federal marketplace.
- Subcontracting Options: HUBZone small businesses may subcontract on the jobs they are awarded. That way organizations operating inside HUBZones are never restricted from earning federal work opportunities due to their limited size.
- Private Sector Opportunities: In addition to gaining eligibility for federal benefits, HUBZone certification also grants organizations access to more exclusive contracting opportunities in the private sector.
HUBZone Program Qualifications
To successfully qualify and gain certification as a HUBZone small business, an organization must meet all the following criteria:
- Has a principal office located in a HUBZone (learn more about the HUBZone map here)
- Qualifies for Small Business Status and is not currently part of the HUBZone SBA Program
- 35% of business employees live in a HUBZone
- At least 51% owned by U.S. citizens, a Community Development Corporation, an Agricultural Cooperative, a Native Hawaiian Organization, or a Native American Tribe
If your business is located in a HUBZone and qualified for the certification requirements, start your registration today to gain the federal contracting benefits waiting for you.
Ways to Certify: FAMR or DIY
To access HUBZone small business opportunities, organizations must first go through a detailed registration process with the federal government where the smallest filing error can cause a business to lose out on the federal benefits its rightfully qualified for.
The entire registration and certification processes take roughly 35 – 50 hours of clerical labor to complete, and that’s not including the follow-up work of filing annual registration renewals, informing the government of business updates, and more.
DIY – Registering your HUBZone Alone
Small business owners in HUBZones who want to file for themselves by learning how to navigate the federal application process and registering at SBA.gov.
But don’t forget, the federal government requires a lot of detailed information before it can approve your business certification and it needs to be submitted without any mistakes.
In cases where organizations don’t complete their registration perfectly, those HUBZone small business owners will likely find themselves needing to endure the entire SBA.gov certification process over again and under even harsher filing guidelines. Furthermore, if HUBZone small businesses do manage to gain registration status despite some minor inaccuracies when filing, that misrepresentative information can hurt an organization’s ability to win future set-aside and open-bid contracts.
- Dozens of Registration Hours > Registering HUBZone Small Business status with the federal government is an in-depth process that takes dedicated time, patience, and a keen eye for detail
- DIY Registration > The self-registration process can be completed by those who research and learn how to accurately file their HUBZone information and stay up-to-date with HubZone Qualifications.
FAMR – Let Us Register Your HUBZone Small Business
When we get started, we’ll ask you to send over some general information and speak with you about what to expect from your business’ registration process.
Then We’ll Take Care of Everything Else
Our Certification Specialists are dedicated to your success and are experts at the meticulous art of government form-filing. We’ll stay by your side throughout the complex federal registration process, keeping you informed with frequent updates and communicating closely to ensure your business is found by the contractors you want to work with.
After your HUBZone certification status is approved, we’ll continue to help you to take care of registration renewals and review your federal account. This is to make sure everything is correct, compliant, and optimized for the contracting opportunities you’ll earn for as your business grows.
- Effortless registration > Faster, easier, and more accurate than manual registration. You provide your business info, and we’ll take care of everything else.
- Teammates you can trust > FAMR’s certification specialists are a passionate team that specialize in registering qualified businesses to work alongside the federal government. We’ve helped businesses of all kinds achieve certification status and are more than happy to walk you through every step of your own HUBZone certification process and assure your confidence.
(855) 718-1264