Revolutionary FAR Overhaul Enters Formal Rulemaking, With No Final Rules Yet

Key takeaways

The FAR Council is issuing twelve proposed rules that, collectively, are intended to streamline the FAR in its entirety. That statement appears in the official Federal Register notices, including 91 FR 37550 (June 23, 2026).
Eight of those twelve cases have been published as proposed rules: four on June 23, 2026, with comments due July 23, 2026, and four on September 18, 2026, with comments due October 19, 2026. Both comment periods have closed. No final Revolutionary FAR Overhaul rules were located in the official sources opened for this report.
FAR part 19 (small business programs) is not among the eight published cases listed on Acquisition.gov’s official “Requesting Comments” page.
The September 18 proposed rule in FAR Case 2026-003 would formally recognize “highest technically rated with a fair and reasonable price” as an evaluation approach, would let contracting officers accept late proposals when they determine that doing so is in the Government’s best interest and would not unduly delay award, and would remove the commercial “omnibus” provision and clause at FAR 52.212-3 and 52.212-5.
FAR Case 2026-011 would delete FAR subpart 27.4, Rights in Data and Copyrights, and replace it with DFARS-derived data-rights coverage, including a new subpart 27.5 for commercial technical data and software.
The FAR Companion, Version 3.0, was posted on Acquisition.gov on October 30, 2026. It is nonregulatory guidance, not a final FAR rule.

Findings

The proposed rules implement Executive Order 14275, Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement, as described in the notices themselves. The June 23, 2026 notice for FAR Case 2026-001 (91 FR 37550) states that the FAR Council is issuing twelve proposed rules that collectively will streamline the FAR in its entirety, following model class deviations issued in fiscal year 2025 as phase one, with formal rulemaking as phase two. OMB Memorandum M-25-26, which announced the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul, is described in that same notice.

Acquisition.gov’s official “Requesting Comments” listing, opened for this briefing, identifies eight RFO proposed-rule cases. Cases 2026-001, 2026-002, 2026-005, and 2026-007 were published June 23, 2026, with comments due July 23, 2026. Cases 2026-003, 2026-006, 2026-010, and 2026-011 were published September 18, 2026, with comments due October 19, 2026. Both dates have passed. Four of the twelve rules described in the Federal Register notices have not yet appeared as published proposed rules on that official list. Part 19 is not among the eight published cases.

The June 23 cluster covers substantial non-part-19 territory. FAR Case 2026-001 proposes revisions to parts 1, 2, 4, 33, 39, 40, 52, and 53. FAR Case 2026-002 proposes revisions to parts 6, 7, 10, 18, 26, 37, 41, and 52. FAR Case 2026-005 proposes revisions to parts 5, 24, 29, and 52.

The September 18 proposed rule in FAR Case 2026-003 (parts 8, 12, 13, 15, 38, 44, 51, and 52) would change how civilian and governmentwide buyers evaluate and award work. It would formally recognize highest technically rated with a fair and reasonable price as a way to evaluate best value: the contracting officer would identify the highest technically rated proposal, then evaluate only whether that offeror’s price is fair and reasonable, without tradeoffs between price and non-price factors. On late proposals, the notice says current policy treats a proposal received after the time specified in the RFP as late and generally not for award unless stated exceptions apply. The proposed rule would simplify that policy by permitting the contracting officer to accept a late proposal when the officer determines that doing so is in the Government’s best interest and would not unduly delay award.

The same case proposes to remove FAR 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications—Commercial Products and Commercial Services, and FAR 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders—Commercial Products and Commercial Services, the so-called omnibus provision and clause. Contracting officers or agency clause-logic systems would instead rely on updated individual prescriptions to select clauses for commercial acquisitions.

FAR Case 2026-011, also published September 18, 2026, proposes revisions to parts 9, 27, 47, and 52. It would delete FAR subpart 27.4, Rights in Data and Copyrights, in its entirety, along with associated provisions and clauses, and replace it with analogous DFARS-derived content retitled for other-than-commercial technical data, computer software, and associated rights. It would also add a new FAR subpart 27.5 for technical data, computer software, and associated rights related to commercial products and computer services, likewise derived from the DFARS, with corresponding clauses.

These remain proposed rules. The official notices and the Acquisition.gov comments listing opened for this report do not include final RFO rules. Agencies continue to operate, as the June 23 notice describes, against the phase-one model class deviations until formal rulemaking is completed. This report does not treat unofficial predictions of final-rule timing, or unofficial claims about an internal FAR Council deadline, as established.

On October 30, 2026, Acquisition.gov posted FAR Companion Version 3.0. The Companion is the nonregulatory guidance that the RFO model described alongside a streamlined FAR. Posting Version 3.0 updates that guidance; it does not itself finalize the twelve proposed rules.

What it means for contractors

Bid strategy

Until final rules are published, the solicitation in hand — including any class deviation the agency has adopted — still controls. Offerors should read each solicitation for whether the agency is using current FAR text, an RFO model deviation, or a mix. If FAR Case 2026-003 is finalized as proposed, source-selection plans that assume tradeoff analysis in every negotiated procurement would be incomplete: a highest-technically-rated, fair-and-reasonable-price award would not make price/technical tradeoffs. The proposed late-proposal change would also alter a bid-risk calculation that today is often treated as a hard cutoff.

Compliance cost

Removing 52.212-3 and 52.212-5, if finalized, would shift commercial clause logic from two familiar omnibus vehicles to a longer set of individual prescriptions. That is a representation, certification, and flow-down maintenance cost, especially for schedule holders and resellers who have built compliance tools around the current commercial clause set. The part 27 proposal would require companies that sell to both defense and civilian agencies to re-map data-rights assertions, marking, and licensing to a DFARS-derived FAR vocabulary, including a separate commercial subpart.

Execution

Comment periods on the eight published cases have closed. Remaining work on those cases is inside the agencies and the FAR Council. Contractors should track final-rule publication in the Federal Register and should use FAR Companion Version 3.0 only as guidance, not as a substitute for the clause text in a given award. Because part 19 has not been published as a proposed RFO rule, small-business programs should be treated as unchanged by this rulemaking wave until an official proposal appears.

Watch next

The official documents opened for this report do not announce a date for the four unpublished proposed rules, including any proposal for part 19, or for final RFO rules. The comment deadlines of July 23, 2026, and October 19, 2026, have already passed.

Sources

Federal Acquisition Regulation: Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation Overhaul Parts 1, 2, 4, 33, 39, 40, and 53, proposed rule, FAR Case 2026-001, 91 FR 37550, June 23, 2026, comments due July 23, 2026 (FR Doc. 2026-12559). federalregister.gov/d/2026-12559.
FAR Case 2026-002, proposed rule, 91 FR 37636, June 23, 2026 (FR Doc. 2026-12560); FAR Case 2026-005, proposed rule, 91 FR 37676, June 23, 2026 (FR Doc. 2026-12561).
Federal Acquisition Regulation: Revolutionary FAR Overhaul Parts 8, 12, 13, 15, 38, 44, and 51, proposed rule, FAR Case 2026-003, published September 18, 2026, comments due October 19, 2026 (FR Doc. 2026-19162). Official text.
Federal Acquisition Regulation: Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation Overhaul Parts 9, 27, and 47, proposed rule, FAR Case 2026-011, published September 18, 2026, comments due October 19, 2026 (FR Doc. 2026-19159).
Acquisition.gov, official “Requesting Comments” listing of the eight published RFO proposed-rule cases and their comment due dates, opened for this briefing. acquisition.gov/rfo/requesting-comments.
FAR Companion, Version 3.0, posted on Acquisition.gov, October 30, 2026. acquisition.gov Companion 3.0.

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