GSA Schedule (Multiple Award Schedule) (GSA Schedule)

Definition

The General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule, formally the Multiple Award Schedule (MAS), is a long-term, governmentwide contract administered by GSA. Once a contractor is awarded a Schedule contract, agencies across government can place orders against it under streamlined procedures in FAR 8.4. The MAS covers hundreds of thousands of products and services across Large Categories like IT, Professional Services, and Facilities. Orders above the Simplified Acquisition Threshold must generally be competed among at least three Schedule holders. Schedule contracts have 5-year base periods and up to 15 years of options.

Why It Matters

A GSA Schedule is often the lowest-friction on-ramp to the federal market. Once you're on Schedule, agencies can buy from you in days rather than months, and they do so with confidence in pre-negotiated pricing. But submitting a Schedule proposal is itself a major undertaking (6–12 months), and Schedule contracts carry ongoing compliance obligations: price reductions, TAA country-of-origin, industrial funding fee reporting, and more. Strategic Schedule holders treat the contract as a platform for a broader BPA and task-order portfolio.

Example

A 25-person cybersecurity firm earns a GSA MAS contract. Within 18 months, it wins six agency BPAs totaling $11M in ceiling, all executed as mini-competitions among three Schedule holders. No open-market RFPs required.

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