Clauses · DFARS · Supply chain and sourcing · provision
DFARS 252.225-7010 Commercial Derivative Military Article—Specialty Metals Compliance Certificate
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
No subcontract paragraph. More than that: 252.225-7009(e)(1) instructs the prime to 'exclude and reserve paragraph (d) and this paragraph (e)(1) when flowing down this clause to subcontracts' — paragraph (d) being the commercial-derivative alternative compliance this certificate serves. The escape hatch is held at the prime level by design. Your part is real but derivative: 252.225-7010(c) has the offeror certify that 'the offeror and its subcontractor(s)' will individually or collectively enter contractual agreements to buy the required volume of domestic melt, so the prime needs your purchase commitment in writing before it can certify. Primes paste the provision into supplier terms to capture that commitment
A clause can reach your subcontract without a mandate. Once it is in your document, it is a contract term all the same. The missing mandate is a fact about the regulation. It is not a ruling on your order.
Checked against acquisition.gov on 2026-08-05 · edition JUL 2009 · base v0.9.3 Read the text ↗
What it makes you produce
2 items for your checklist, slowest first.
Something you write
Days to weeks, and nobody outside your company has to agree to it.
The purchase agreements with your own suppliers that back that volume — the greater of 120 percent of the metal needed for the article or half of all specialty metal bought for the military and commercial versions together
DFARS 252.225-7010(c)
Something you fill in and send back
Hours, once you know which one is missing.
The certificate committing to buy domestically melted or produced specialty metal in the required volume, signed before award
DFARS 252.225-7010(c)
When it is used
A solicitation provision, not a clause. 225.7003-5(b): use it in solicitations — including solicitations using FAR part 12 procedures — that (1) contain the clause at 252.225-7009 and (2) for which the contracting officer anticipates that one or more offers of commercial derivative military articles may be received. So it rides entirely on 252.225-7009's own trigger: above the SAT ($350k) and delivering aircraft, missile or space systems, ships, tank or automotive items, weapon systems, or ammunition, or components of those, containing specialty metal. A 'commercial derivative military article' is an item produced using the same production facilities, a common supply chain, and the same or similar production processes as an article predominantly sold to the general public. The designation is not self-declared: 225.7003-3(c)(2) requires USD(A&S) or the secretary of the military department to determine that the item is a commercial derivative military article, and the contracting officer must notify the contractor of the items so determined.
Read closely
(b) is where the commercial derivative military articles are listed and (d) makes the count include metal inside any item incorporated, off-the-shelf ones included. This route replaces tracing every gram with a volume commitment, and the Government decides whether an item qualifies as a commercial derivative military article. Because 252.225-7009(e)(1) holds the route at the prime's level, what reaches a supplier is the written purchase commitment rather than the certificate.
The 5 templates that name it, with the line
Source: acquisition.gov, DFARS 252.225-7010, 252.225-7009 (paragraphs (d) and (e)), 225.7003-3(c) and (d), 225.7003-5(b), and 212.301(f)(x)(G) (verified 2026-08-05)
This is research, not legal advice. It states what the regulation says about this clause and cites the paragraph behind it. It does not rule on your order, and it does not rule on whether a prime's markings are correct.