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NAICS Code for Administrative Support Services

Federal administrative support contracting covers office operations, document management, call centers, staffing, and back-office services for federal agencies. The NAICS structure in this space is fragmented — a dozen different codes in the 561xxx cluster, each with different size standards and competitive pools. Picking the right primary requires matching your actual service to the most specific applicable NAICS.

Primary NAICS codes for administrative support

561110: Office Administrative Services ($12.5M size standard) General office administration services provided on a contract basis. Low size standard but direct match for general admin support contracts.

561410: Document Preparation Services ($15M size standard) Document creation, editing, formatting, production. Common for federal agencies needing document support services.

561421: Telephone Answering Services ($22M size standard) Contracted telephone answering and message services.

561422: Telemarketing Bureaus and Other Contact Centers ($22M size standard) Contact center operations, outbound telemarketing, inbound customer support centers. Frequent federal use for citizen support lines.

561499: All Other Business Support Services ($15M size standard) Business support services not classified elsewhere. Often used for mixed back-office support contracts.

Staffing and placement NAICS

561311: Employment Placement Agencies ($30M size standard) Direct hire placement services.

561312: Executive Search Services ($25.5M size standard) Executive and specialized professional placement.

561320: Temporary Help Services ($34M size standard) Temporary and contract staffing services.

561330: Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) ($39.5M size standard) Co-employment and HR outsourcing services.

Which code should be your primary

Answer one question: what specifically do you do for your federal customers?

Office administration (receptionist services, executive admin, general office support) — primary under 561110.

Document work (creating, editing, producing, managing documents) — primary under 561410. Many federal technical writing and editing contracts fall here.

Contact center operations (answering calls, processing inquiries, citizen support lines) — primary under 561422. VA benefits call centers, SSA support lines, and IRS assistance lines run through contractors under this NAICS.

Staffing — primary under the specific staffing NAICS. 561320 for temp staffing (highest size standard at $34M, widest application), 561311 for direct hire, 561312 for executive search, 561330 for PEO services.

Mixed back-office services that don't fit a more specific NAICS — primary under 561499. Lower size standard than others but broad applicability.

Size standard considerations

Administrative support size standards vary widely. 561110 ($12.5M) at the low end, 561330 ($39.5M) at the high end. A 3x spread.

Firms providing a mix of services should carefully consider which NAICS classification best fits their work. A staffing firm primary under 561110 (instead of 561320) is operating under a much tighter size ceiling than necessary. Review the SBA size table against your actual service mix annually.

Staffing strategy specifics

Federal staffing is a high-volume, high-margin-pressure business. Key considerations:

  • GSA Schedule Temporary Administrative and Professional Services (TAPS) is the primary vehicle for federal temp staffing. Getting on TAPS is a meaningful investment but opens access to significant volume.
  • Clearance-ready staffing (firms with a bench of cleared candidates) commands premium rates. Clearance-related work increasingly gets routed to cleared staffing firms.
  • Task order IDIQs across many agencies use staffing as the delivery model. Positioning as a staffing partner on these vehicles is how many firms enter the federal market.

561320 at $34M is the standard staffing NAICS. Most small staffing firms in federal work primary here.

Federal demand snapshot

Every federal agency contracts administrative support to some degree. Largest spenders on admin support contracts:

  • SSA, VA, IRS — citizen-facing call centers, claim processing support, document services
  • DoD — admin staffing at installations, document management for acquisition programs
  • DHS, HHS — contact center operations for benefits and immigration services
  • GSA — cross-agency admin support through schedule contracts

SDVOSB, WOSB, HUBZone, and 8(a) set-asides are common across admin support NAICS. The professional employer organization (PEO) space (561330) sees less set-aside activity than pure staffing (561320) or contact center work (561422).

Next steps

Use the NAICS recommender to validate your code selection. For the 561110 vs 561499 vs specific-NAICS selection strategy, see the NAICS code finder guide.