SBIR/STTR Award Dollars · Department of Defense

## What this measures

SBIR and STTR award dollars ($ millions) made by the Department of Defense in each fiscal year, all its components together (Air Force, Army, Navy, DARPA, Missile Defense Agency and others; SBIR.gov now lists it as the Department of War).

## Why it matters

Each agency runs its own SBIR program with its own topics, so its awards show where that part of the government is placing small technology bets.

## How to read it

The series starts in FY1983 at $15.4 million. The latest reading, for FY2025, is $2.78 billion. The high is $2.87 billion (FY2024) and the low $15.4 million (FY1983).

## What it does not say

Agencies upload awards to SBIR.gov with a lag, so a fiscal year or quarter appears six months after it ends and can still rise a little on later monthly refreshes. Program authority lapsed from 1 October 2025 until the reauthorization signed on 13 April 2026 (P.L. 119-83), and few awards were made in between, so the quarters of the lapse read near zero and FY2026 will be thin for that reason as well.

## Source

SBIR.gov award data file (with abstracts), published by the U.S. Small Business Administration and refreshed monthly: https://data.www.sbir.gov/mod_awarddatapublic/award_data.csv. SBA: "Government information on SBA.gov is in the public domain." Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, SBIR.gov.