The Building People, LLC (B-423896)

You should not care.

Categories: 8(a), SBA, eligibility

Date: 20 November 2025

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423896

The Building People protests its exclusion from competition from a DOE technical support services order issued under GSA's Multiple Award Schedule as an 8(a) small business set-aside. The agency excluded the Building People after the SBA concluded the firm was not an eligible 8(a) small business.

GAO dismissed the protest. The Building People's arguments effectively challenged SBA's determination of its size and socioeconomic status, which falls outside GAO's bid protest jurisdiction. GAO also dismissed the protester's allegation that the agency applied an unstated evaluation criterion by deferring to SBA's eligibility conclusion, finding the protester failed to demonstrate any legal prohibition on the agency's consultation with SBA.

Digest

1. Protest alleging that the agency erred by excluding the protester from the competition for an 8(a) small business set-aside because the SBA concluded the protester was not an eligible 8(a) small business is dismissed because GAO does not consider as part of our bid protest function challenges to SBA's determinations with respect to a firm's small business or socioeconomic status.
2. Protest alleging that the agency applied an unstated evaluation criterion by deferring to SBA's conclusion that the protester was not an eligible 8(a) small business is dismissed where the protester fails to demonstrate any legal prohibition on the agency's consultation with the SBA.