FPDS Query Library
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Obligated Amount

Monetary amount of funds obligated on the contract action in the FPDS award record. It represents the reported dollars committed by the government for that award action, as stored in the award/dollarValues/obligatedAmount element.

Family: Award
Category: Dollar Values
Data Type: numeric
Semantic Type: financial
Mapping: flattened_fpds_xml_field
AI Confidence: high

Variable Overview

FPDS Query Variable
content__award__dollarValues__obligatedAmount
Title
Obligated Amount
FPDS Path
award/dollarValues/obligatedAmount
Description
Monetary amount of funds obligated on the contract action in the FPDS award record. It represents the reported dollars committed by the government for that award action, as stored in the award/dollarValues/obligatedAmount element.
Business Meaning
This field is a primary measure of federal spending and is used to size awards, compare contract activity across vendors, agencies, and time periods, and evaluate obligated funding trends. It supports obligation-based reporting, market analysis, and concentration or share calculations.
Example Value
217801
Observed Non-Null Count
111,509,025

FPDS Compare

FPDS Query Variable
content__award__dollarValues__obligatedAmount
FPDS XML Path
award/dollarValues/obligatedAmount
Mapping Type
flattened_fpds_xml_field
Comparison Summary
FPDS Query flattens the original nested FPDS XML path 'award/dollarValues/obligatedAmount' into the SQL-ready variable 'content__award__dollarValues__obligatedAmount'.

Use Cases

  • Dictionary lookup and field explanation
  • SQL filtering and grouping
  • Analytical reporting and reusable query building
  • Spending aggregation and trend analysis

Common Usage

  • Summing obligated dollars by vendor, agency, or fiscal year
  • Comparing award magnitude across contract actions
  • Building obligation-based trend and market share analyses

Common Mistakes

  • Treating obligated amount as total contract ceiling or anticipated spend
  • Double-counting obligations by summing multiple modifications for the same award without action-level filtering

Query Guidance

Select and aggregate this numeric field directly for obligation totals, but group at the intended analysis grain and filter out duplicate or superseded records when necessary. If the dataset includes both base awards and modifications, decide whether to sum all actions or only distinct award ids and use COALESCE/CAST to handle nulls and numeric precision.

SQL Examples

Preview values

SELECT
    content__award__dollarValues__obligatedAmount AS obligated_amount
FROM fpds.data
WHERE content__award__dollarValues__obligatedAmount IS NOT NULL
LIMIT 25

Aggregate total

SELECT
    sum(content__award__dollarValues__obligatedAmount) AS total_value
FROM fpds.data
WHERE content__award__dollarValues__obligatedAmount IS NOT NULL

Distribution overview

SELECT
    min(content__award__dollarValues__obligatedAmount) AS min_value,
    avg(content__award__dollarValues__obligatedAmount) AS avg_value,
    max(content__award__dollarValues__obligatedAmount) AS max_value,
    count() AS record_count
FROM fpds.data
WHERE content__award__dollarValues__obligatedAmount IS NOT NULL

Each dictionary item includes SQL-ready examples generated alongside the variable metadata, allowing immediate use in FPDS Query for filtering, aggregation, and analysis.