WASHINGTON — The United States government has temporarily banned the British oil company BP from new federal contracts, citing the company’s “lack of business integrity.”

The decision comes after BP agreed to plead guilty this month to criminal charges over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill that killed 11 workers and polluted hundreds of miles of Gulf of Mexico shoreline. As part of its settlement, the company agreed to pay penalties of $4.5 billion, including $1.26 billion in criminal fines.

The Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that BP’s suspension from new contracts would remain in effect “until the company can provide sufficient evidence to E.P.A. demonstrating that it meets federal business standards.”

Although the suspension does not affect the company’s existing federal contracts, the action is nonetheless a blow to BP. It is one of the government’s largest contractors, with $1.47 billion in federal business in 2011, according to a ranking compiled by the General Services Administration. Much of that revenue comes from the Defense Department, to which it provides more than $1 billion a year in fuel.