Clauses · DFARS · Pricing and audit
DFARS 252.244-7001 Contractor Purchasing System Administration
Deviation number 252.244-7998. DoD Class Deviation 2026-O0015 rewrites DFARS part 244 for the FAR overhaul. It prescribes 252.244-7998 in place of 252.244-7001, so a document written under it can cite 252.244-7998 instead. The two texts can differ. The source at the foot of this page says how.
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
The clause runs (a) through (f) in both Basic and Alternate I and no paragraph requires insertion in subcontracts; DFARS 244.305-71 addresses only solicitations and contracts. Primes flow it anyway for two reasons visible verbatim in the corpus. First, criteria (c)(2) and (c)(19) make the prime's own system approval depend on demonstrating that mandatory clauses — including 252.246-7007 and 252.211-7003 — are flowed to subcontracts, so the prime pushes clause lists at you to build its CPSR evidence file. Second, criterion (c)(24), the 70 percent notification, gets passed down as a standalone duty: gdms-scm-tmp-048 writes 'In compliance with DFARS 252.244-7001, SELLER shall maintain procedures to timely notify BUYER, in writing, if SELLER changes the amount of lower-tier SELLER effort after award such that it exceeds seventy percent of the total cost of the work to be performed under its Order … SELLER shall include the substance of this [requirement]' in its own lower-tier subcontracts — a prime-invented flow-down of one criterion, not a DFARS mandate.
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 2026-08-11 · edition JAN 2025 (Basic; Alternate I JAN 2025) · base v0.9.3 Read the text ↗
What it makes you produce
One item for your checklist.
Something you write
Days to weeks, and nobody outside your company has to agree to it.
- DFARS 252.244-7001(c)(24)
Written notice that lower-tier effort has passed 70 percent of the total cost of the work under the order — a running percentage that a change in scope can cross on its own
Owed where the order you signed rewrites criterion (c)(24) as a duty you owe the prime; the criterion itself describes the purchasing system of the company holding the Government contract and directs its notice to the contracting officer
When it is used
DFARS 244.305-71 codified, and 244.301-71 under RFO class deviation 2026-O0015, where the clause is renumbered 252.244-7998: use the Basic clause in solicitations and contracts that include FAR 52.244-2, Subcontracts; use Alternate I when the contract includes DFARS 252.246-7007, Contractor Counterfeit Electronic Part Detection and Avoidance System, but does NOT include FAR 52.244-2. There is no dollar threshold in the prescription — the gate is which other clause is present in the document. Alternate I applies only to contractors subject to the Cost Accounting Standards (41 U.S.C. chapter 15, 48 CFR 9903.201-1) and compresses the Basic clause's 24 system criteria down to three, all organized around flowing down 252.246-7007 and 252.211-7003. Small business is exempt from CAS under 48 CFR 9903.201-1(b), which takes most small subs outside Alternate I entirely.
Read closely
The 24 criteria at paragraph (c) describe the purchasing system of the company holding the Government contract, and no paragraph of the clause asks a subcontractor to run one. Criterion (c)(24) is the one primes rewrite into the order they send down as a duty owed to them — GDMS does it in as many words — so the sentence that binds a subcontractor is the one in its own order, set against the criterion it was copied from. The material-weakness machinery at (d) and (e) — a 30-day written response at (d)(2), a correction or corrective action plan within 45 days at (e) — and the withholding at (f) run between a contracting officer and the company holding the Government contract, so none of it reaches a subcontractor either.
Alternates
Alternate I · JAN 2025
DFARS 244.305-71(b) — contract includes DFARS 252.246-7007 but does not include FAR 52.244-2. Alternate I itself is limited to contractors subject to the Cost Accounting Standards (41 U.S.C. chapter 15, 48 CFR 9903.201-1).
Alternate I retitles paragraph (b) from General to Acceptable purchasing system and replaces paragraph (c), cutting the 24 criteria to three built around passing DFARS 252.246-7007 and DFARS 252.211-7003 to suppliers and selecting responsive, competitive, quality sources. Criterion (c)(24) is not among the three, so the 70 percent notice — the one thing the basic clause is sent down for — is gone, and nothing takes its place. Paragraphs (d) material weaknesses, (e) corrective action and (f) withholding come through unchanged, and those run between a contracting officer and the company holding the Government contract. Alternate I also reaches only contractors subject to the Cost Accounting Standards, and 48 CFR 9903.201-1(b)(3) is the small business exemption from that coverage.
The 5 templates that name it, with the line
Source: acquisition.gov, DFARS 252.244-7001 (Basic and Alternate I). CODIFIED REGIME, read 2026-08-11 at DFARS Change 5/7/2026: prescribed at 244.305-71, "Use the Contractor Purchasing System Administration basic clause or its alternate as follows: (a) Use the clause at 252.244-7001 ... in solicitations and contracts containing the clause at FAR 52.244-2, Subcontracts. (b) Use the clause at 252.244-7001 ... in solicitations and contracts that contain the clause at 252.246-7007 ... but do not contain FAR 52.244-2", the clause head reading "As prescribed in 244.305-71 and 244.305-71(a)" and the Basic designated (JAN 2025). RFO CLASS DEVIATION 2026-O0015 (DFARS part 244, effective February 1, 2026) CARRIES THIS CLAUSE UNDER A DIFFERENT NUMBER: 252.244-7001 and 244.305-71 each appear ZERO times in that memo, while 244.301-71 Contract clause directs an officer to "Insert the clause at 252.244-7998, Contractor Purchasing System Administration-Basic" at (a) and to insert THE SAME NUMBER 252.244-7998 as Alternate I at (b), and the memo prints 252.244-7998 designated (FEB 2026)(DEVIATION 2026-O0015) for the Basic while its Alternate I is printed (JAN 2025) with no deviation suffix. That memo also states Alternate I's construction in its own words, "amends paragraph (c) of the basic clause by deleting paragraphs (c)(1) through (c)(18) and (c)(22) through (c)(24), and revising and renumbering paragraphs (c)(19) through (c)(21)", so the loss of criterion (c)(24) that this entry records for the codified Alternate I is stated expressly in the deviation, and the CAS limit survives verbatim: "The following paragraphs (a) through (f) of this clause do not apply unless the Contractor is subject to the Cost Accounting Standards under 41 U.S.C. chapter 15, as implemented in regulations found at 48 CFR 9903.201-1." THIS IS THE SAME SHAPE AS 252.244-7000 TO 252.244-7999, OUT OF THE SAME MEMO, nineteen lines earlier in the same section, and it was missed when that one was recorded: a sub holding a document that cites DFARS 252.244-7001 needs the successor number to find the text a DoD contracting officer applies. Whether changes2025_26 should record the renumbering is a ruling and is left to one. DFARS 212.301 was re-read twice on 2026-08-11 and is recorded in the commercial field, the second read against acquisition.gov/dfars/part-212-acquisition-commercial-products-and-commercial-services at 244146 bytes to give the absence a named page and a named expression, which the first read did not. 48 CFR 9903.201-1(b) for the small business CAS exemption is carried forward from the 2026-08-05 read and was NOT re-read on 2026-08-11. Prescription, designation and renumbering read in both regimes on 2026-08-11 (verified 2026-08-11)
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.