Clauses · FAR · Administration and definitions · provision
FAR 52.204-7 System for Award Management
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
No mandate: 4.1105(a) tells a contracting officer to put the provision in a Government solicitation, and the provision has no subcontracts paragraph. Primes flow it down anyway because they need YOUR unique entity identifier for their own reporting — 52.204-10 makes the prime report first-tier subcontract awards with the sub's name and UEI, 52.219-9 subcontracting-plan reporting runs on the same identity data, and FAR 9.405-2(b) makes the prime check SAM exclusions before a subcontract above $45k. The practical effect is that a UEI is a commercial precondition even where SAM registration is not a legal one
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 Nov 2024 (Basic; Alt I Oct 2018) · base v0.9.3 Read the text ↗
What it makes you produce
2 items for your checklist, slowest first.
A state you have to be in, in a government system2
The record has to be posted before the prime can see it, and posting is not the same day as being ready.
An active registration in the System for Award Management, which is the state an offeror to the Government is in when the offer goes in and at award
FAR 52.204-7(b)(1)A unique entity identifier, obtained free from the entity designated at sam.gov if the company does not already have one
FAR 52.204-7(c)
When it is used
A solicitation provision addressed to offerors to the GOVERNMENT, prescribed at FAR 4.1105(a)(1) for all solicitations except where 4.1102(a) applies. The 4.1102(a) exceptions: (1) micro-purchase-threshold buys where the Government purchase card is both the purchasing and payment mechanism (not payment only); (2) classified contracts where SAM registration or use of SAM data could compromise classified information or national security; (3) awards by deployed contracting officers in military or contingency operations, by COs outside the US supporting diplomatic/developmental missions in danger-pay posts, or by COs conducting emergency disaster operations; (4) individual contracts performed outside the US and outlying areas; (5) contracts awarded without full and open competition for unusual and compelling urgency; (6) contract actions at or below $40,000 to foreign vendors for work outside the US where SAM registration is impractical; (7) micro-purchases not using EFT payment and not required to be reported. Alt I is prescribed at 4.1105(a)(2) when award is anticipated under 4.1102(a)(5). The companion CLAUSE 52.204-13 (SAM Maintenance), not this provision, is what carries the duty to keep the registration current after award.
Read closely
This is a state in a Government system, not a form: the record is validated and marked active by the Government, and (d) warns that processing time is real. It is a solicitation provision addressed to offerors to the Government and it has no subcontracts paragraph — what actually travels down the chain is the identifier, because the prime cannot file its first-tier report under 52.204-10, close its subcontracting-plan numbers or set up a payee without it. The duty to keep a registration current after award lives in 52.204-13.
Alternates
Alt I · OCT 2018
FAR 4.1105(a)(2) — the solicitation is anticipated to be awarded in accordance with 4.1102(a)(5), i.e. without full and open competition because of unusual and compelling urgency.
Alt I substitutes paragraph (b)(1) to move the timing — registered as soon as possible rather than when the offer goes in, with the awardee registered under 52.204-13 — and the registration and the identifier themselves are the basic provision's.
Alternate A · cited as NOV 2003 in the corpus; no such alternate exists in FAR 52.204-7 today
former DFARS 204.1105 (unconfirmed — the prescription for the removed Alternate A could not be closed against a live acquisition.gov page; the current 252.204-7004 is prescribed at DFARS 204.7203 for antiterrorism training)
The designator names the retired Central Contractor Registration substitution, which went with CCR in 2012 and has no successor in this provision; a document citing it is citing a designator that no longer exists, and nothing is produced under it beyond the basic provision's registration and identifier.
The 1 template that name it, with the line
Source: acquisition.gov, FAR 52.204-7, FAR 4.1105 and FAR 4.1102(a) (verified 2026-08-05); DFARS 252.204-7004 checked on acquisition.gov (DFARS Change effective 2026-05-07) for the stale Alternate A citation
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.