Clauses · FAR · Administration and definitions
FAR 52.204-19 Incorporation by Reference of Representations and Certifications
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
No mandate — the clause has no subcontracts paragraph and 4.1202(b) addresses the contracting officer. Primes flow it down because it is the hinge of their entire reps & certs apparatus: without it the size status, place-of-manufacture, telecom, tax-delinquency and debarment answers a sub gave are pre-award statements; with it they are contract terms the prime can enforce and can pass to the Government. bae-usgova (Mar 2025) annotates it "For non-commercial products and services", but gdms-scm-tmp-095 (FFP COMMERCIAL, 2026-07-20) flows it in a commercial template — and FAR 4.1202(b) has no commercial carve-out, so the GDMS reading is the one the FAR supports; the RFO proposed rule also lists 52.204-19 as applying to commercial acquisitions
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 Dec 2014 · 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.
The representations and certifications package the order names, including the answers your SAM record supplied electronically, which this clause turns into terms of the deal
FAR 52.204-19
When it is used
Prescribed at FAR 4.1202(b) in the bluntest terms in this batch: "The contracting officer shall insert the clause at 52.204-19, Incorporation by Reference of Representations and Certifications, in solicitations and contracts." No dollar threshold, no contract-type limit, no commercial carve-out, no exception list. The clause itself is a single sentence: the Contractor's representations and certifications, including those completed electronically via SAM, are incorporated by reference into the contract. The restrictions that live next door in 4.1202(a) — the ones that keep the 52.204-8 provision out of part 12 commercial solicitations — do not carry over to (b).
Read closely
One sentence, no paragraphs, so the citation stays at the clause. The cost is not the signing, it is keeping the answers true afterwards: a size standard crossed organically or by acquisition, a principal's conviction, a covered telecommunications component picked up in a resold product, a tax debt gone delinquent. A dated copy of exactly what was certified is what governs a dispute two years later.
The 5 templates that name it, with the line
Source: acquisition.gov, FAR 52.204-19 and FAR 4.1202(b) (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.