Clauses · FAR · Administration and definitions
FAR 52.204-15 Service Contract Reporting Requirements for Indefinite-Delivery Contracts
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
Yes
The mandate bites only when the clause is legitimately in the prime contract: a non-DoD-funded indefinite-delivery services contract above the 4.1703(a)(2) thresholds, not classified, not awarded with a generic entity identifier. On a DoD subcontract it is inert. Four corpus documents flow it down regardless — aar-c40 (Jan 2026) and gdms-scm-tmp-048 (Jul 2026) list it bare, caci-corvus (2020) lists it in the answer key, and l3harris-lgl-50-f1 (Feb 2026) quotes the exception verbatim next to it ("clause not required for actions entirely funded by DoD, contracts awarded with generic entity identifier, or in classified solicitations, contracts, or orders") inside a US Government DoD flow-down template — printing the reason the clause does not apply and flowing it anyway
- Form
- partial substance — paragraph (f) only: the Contractor "shall require each first-tier subcontractor" with subcontracts valued at or above the 4.1703(a)(2) thresholds to provide (i) the subcontract number, including subcontractor name and unique entity identifier, and (ii) the number of first-tier subcontractor direct-labor hours expended on the services performed during the previous Government fiscal year. The clause itself is not required to be inserted
- Reaches
- first tier only — the clause reaches no further down; a second-tier sub owes nothing under it
Checked against acquisition.gov on 2026-08-05 · edition Oct 2016 · base v0.9.3 Read the text ↗
What it makes you produce
One item for your checklist.
Something you fill in and send back
Hours, once you know which one is missing.
- FAR 52.204-15(f)
Two data points for the prime's annual filing: the subcontract number with your company name and unique entity identifier, and your direct labor hours on the services performed in the previous Government fiscal year, October 1 to September 30
Owed where your subcontract is valued at or above the thresholds at FAR 4.1703(a)(2)
When it is used
Prescribed at FAR 4.1705(b) for solicitations and indefinite-delivery contracts for services (including construction) where one or more orders issued under them are expected to EACH meet or exceed the thresholds at 4.1703(a)(2): above the simplified acquisition threshold ($350k since 2025-10-01) for cost-reimbursement, time-and-materials and labor-hour service contracts and orders; $500,000 or more for fixed-price service contracts (FY2016 and later). 52.204-14 is the definite-delivery twin — same thresholds, everything that is not an indefinite-delivery contract. The decisive carve-out sits in both 4.1705(b) and 4.1702(a)(1): subpart 4.17 applies to FAIR Act agencies "except DoD", and the clause "is not required for actions entirely funded by DoD, contracts awarded with a generic entity identifier, or in classified solicitations, contracts, or orders." On a subcontract under a DoD-funded prime — which is every document in this corpus — the reporting regime does not reach you at all.
Read closely
The prime files at sam.gov by October 31, so the ask lands weeks earlier, and the tally runs on a federal fiscal year that matches neither your billing periods nor your accounting year. FAR 4.1702(a)(1) puts subpart 4.17 outside actions funded entirely by the Department of Defense, and 4.1705(b) repeats the exception — four prime flow-down templates we have read carry the clause onto defense-funded work anyway, one of them printing that exception verbatim on the same line.
The 3 templates that name it, with the line
Source: acquisition.gov, FAR 52.204-15, FAR 4.1705(b), FAR 4.1703(a)(2) and FAR 4.1702(a)(1) (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.