The article is devoted to studying the risks of executing government and municipal contracts. The article examines the regulatory framework governing the execution of government contracts. Based on the actual data, the article analyses the risks of organizations arising in the field of executing government and municipal contracts. The analysis of existing theoretical approaches in the field of government and municipal contracts execution made it possible to identify the main risks, which mainly relate to factors of the external economic environment, including financial risks, inflation risks, excess costs, etc. The analysis of the problems arising in an organization when conducting and executing public procurement has shown that the main problem can be identified as a complex legislative framework, in order to improve which the government makes changes almost every quarter. The article notes that the situation is aggravated by the fact that in Russia there is no single information portal on all changes to the law. Of course, there are legal web-portals, such as "Garant" and "Consultant Plus", but these portals host more general answers, they lack explanations on specific issues. The analysis of risks in the field of executing government and municipal contracts has shown that the main problems that organizations face are the following: lack of proper control by state authorities, increased corruption risks and revealed facts of unfair actions, which also complicate the process of public procurement in the country. Based on the research, the directions for managing external risks of modern organizations in the field of executing government and municipal contracts are determined.