Federal obligations in port and harbor operations (NAICS 488310)

Port-operations contracts at $836.9 million

Federal agencies that buy port and harbor operating services tag vendors classified in 488310. The obligation rollup is $836,879,590.28. That is not cargo tonnage and not a vessel call count. Physical throughput is not in the packet facts.

Operations means running port and harbor facilities and related operating services as classified by Census. Dredging, construction of docks, and water transportation of freight are other NAICS. The $836,879,590.28 follows the 488310 operations tag on 3,891 awards.

3,891 awards versus the 488999 residual

Three thousand eight hundred ninety-one awards against $836,879,590.28 averages about $215,000 per action. That is a many-site operations pattern: local port-service instruments rather than three mega-finance awards. Task orders add count. The industry hub shows the mix behind $836,879,590.28.

All other support activities for transportation (488999) in this slice has far fewer awards and a higher average. Those are different residual-versus-specific support codes. Do not merge 488310 and 488999 into one unlabeled “ports and logistics” cell.

Operations versus construction versus carriers

A port authority operating terminals should generally be 488310. A heavy-civil contractor building a quay uses construction NAICS. A containership line uses water-transportation NAICS. Dual-role entities can be tagged either way. The $836,879,590.28 is 488310 as recorded on 3,891 actions.

Assistance awards may not carry NAICS. DOT and Army Corps-related grants or cooperative agreements for port infrastructure will usually miss this operations-contract rollup even when the public-policy dollars are large. Program pages cover those streams.

A complete citation of this industry is $836,879,590.28 in USAspending contract obligations tagged to NAICS 488310, port and harbor operations, on 3,891 awards. Anything less—dropping the NAICS, dropping the word obligations, or dropping the contract-only universe—overstates what the extract contains. The packet facts do not include a fiscal year, so this guide does not invent one. Live tables on the industry hub can move when USAspending posts modifications; the harvested pair remains $836,879,590.28 and 3,891.

Obligations on operating vehicles

Port-operations contracts often obligate a period of performance and invoice as services are delivered. The $836,879,590.28 is committed value on 3,891 tagged actions, not cash already paid for every vessel handled. Unused ceiling can be de-obligated. Outlay fields track payments.

Classification errors are expected at the margin. Vendors that straddle ocean carriers, dock construction, and the 488999 transportation-support residual may land in 488310 on some actions and in a neighbor on others. All other support activities for transportation (488999) is the leftover support bucket, not ports. The public-record stance is to keep $836,879,590.28 attached to 488310 as tagged, then keep 488310 and 488999 apart when building a logistics spreadsheet from the 3,891 rows. Re-tagging the extract by hand is out of scope for this overlay.

Hub and directory

Open the port and harbor operations industry page for the 3,891 awards behind $836,879,590.28. Use the all-industries directory for 488999 without merging totals. Source: USAspending.gov contract awards. No fiscal year is in the packet.

Port operations are not the transportation-support residual

Award count interprets the buying pattern. 3,891 actions producing $836,879,590.28 is thousands of local port-operations service actions, with about $215,000 per action as the simple average. That average hides mix: modifications, options, and delivery orders all increment count. 3,891 is not a count of unique companies and not a count of physical units. Use the hub amount sort to see whether a few large rows plus a long tail make up most of the tagged total.

Outlays remain a separate USAspending concept. An agency can obligate $836,879,590.28 across 3,891 tagged port and harbor operations actions and pay on a different calendar. De-obligations after cancellations reduce the obligation ledger; they do not rewrite the fact that this NAICS has been a large tagged category in the harvest. Assistance without NAICS still sits outside even when the real-world activity looks similar. Program pages answer the grant question; this page answers the tagged-contract question.

Internal links on this file point only to the port and harbor operations industry page and the all-industries directory. Those are the packet hrefs. Neighboring industry codes mentioned in prose are classification context only. Source note, copied from the packet: NAICS from USAspending contract awards. Assistance awards may not carry NAICS. The overlay’s job is to state $836,879,590.28, 3,891, the obligation unit, and the boundary around ocean carriers, dock construction, and the 488999 transportation-support residual.

Questions

How much federal contract spending is coded to port and harbor operations?

NAICS 488310 shows $836,879,590.28 in obligations on 3,891 USAspending contract awards. That is port and harbor operations as tagged, not ocean shipping and not dock construction. The unit is obligations, not outlays or tonnage. Quote it as USAspending contract obligations tagged to NAICS 488310, not as cash outlays. Assistance awards may not carry NAICS, so grants remain outside the 3,891-award extract behind $836,879,590.28.

Is this the same as all other transportation support (488999)?

No. 488999 is a residual support code with a different award count and dollar total. This page’s $836,879,590.28 is 488310 on 3,891 tagged awards. Open 488999 separately. All other support activities for transportation (488999) is the leftover support bucket, not ports. Keep $836,879,590.28 attached to 488310 as tagged on 3,891 actions; do not merge neighbor codes into the same unlabeled cell.

Are port-infrastructure grants included?

Usually not. Assistance awards may not carry NAICS, so they fall outside this contract extract. Use program pages for grants and the industry page for tagged operations contracts totaling $836,879,590.28. That pattern is thousands of local port-operations service actions, with about $215,000 per action as the simple average of $836,879,590.28 over 3,891 awards. Keep 488310 and 488999 apart when building a logistics spreadsheet from the 3,891 rows.

Does $836.9 million measure cargo moved?

No. It is obligated contract value tagged to port and harbor operations, not a cargo statistic. Throughput figures are not in the packet facts. This industry guide covers tagged contracts only: $836,879,590.28 obligated on 3,891 port and harbor operations awards in USAspending. Outlays are a different field; assistance without NAICS is a different award type.