Clauses · DFARS · Small business, labor and socioeconomic
DFARS 252.226-7003 Drug-Free Work Force
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
The AUG 2024 clause has no subcontracts paragraph — it runs (a) through (e) and stops — and DFARS 226.570-2 says nothing about subcontracts. There is no regulatory flow-down. Primes flow it down anyway because the population it regulates is the cleared population: the DD Form 254 makes the sub's workforce the prime's security problem, and a prime cannot certify a drug-free program covering classified work it subcontracted out. Read the prime's own exclusion list before accepting it: if your subcontract is commercial, at or below $350k, or performed outside the US, the DFARS forbids the clause at prime level and the flow-down is the prime's template running ahead of the regulation.
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 AUG 2024 · base v0.9.3 Read the text ↗
What it makes you produce
2 items for your checklist, slowest first.
A program you have to be running2
You are either running it or you are not, and what the prime asks for is the date it started.
A program for achieving a drug-free work force, instituted and kept running — employee assistance with high-level direction, education, counseling, rehabilitation and community resources, supervisory training, and a self-referral and supervisor-referral route into treatment
DFARS 252.226-7003(b)Controlled drug testing for employees in sensitive positions, whose extent and criteria you set yourself against the nature of the work, the employee's duties and the risk if that person fails
DFARS 252.226-7003(c)(4)(i)
When it is used
Narrower than its reputation. DFARS 226.570-2(a): use the clause in solicitations and contracts that (1) involve access to classified information, or (2) where the contracting officer determines it is necessary for reasons of national security or to protect the health or safety of those using or affected by the product of, or performance of, the contract. And 226.570-2(b) forbids it in three cases: (1) contracts for commercial products and commercial services; (2) where performance or partial performance will be outside the United States and its outlying areas, unless the CO determines inclusion is in the Government's best interest; and (3) where the value of the acquisition is at or below the simplified acquisition threshold ($350,000 since 2025-10-01). DoD policy behind it (226.570-1) is simply that contractors maintain a drug-free work force program.
Read closely
Paragraph (c) lists the components, and a comparable alternative program is allowed where it meets the same objectives. Sensitive positions cover anyone granted access to classified information plus any position you determine involves national security, health or safety, or a high degree of trust. Testing yields where it conflicts with state or local law or with an existing collective bargaining agreement. Nothing here is submitted to anyone. The clause has no subcontracts paragraph and DFARS 226.570-2 adds none; 226.570-2(b) bars it at prime level on commercial acquisitions, at or below $350,000, and where performance is outside the United States unless the contracting officer decides inclusion is in the Government's interest.
The 3 templates that name it, with the line
Source: acquisition.gov, DFARS 252.226-7003, DFARS 226.570-1 / 226.570-2 and DFARS 212.301 (verified 2026-08-05); DoD Class Deviation 2026-O0008, DFARS Part 226, 2025-12-18, Attachment A1, 226.570-2; Class Deviation 2026-O0028, Tables 212.2/212.3/212.4
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.