Clauses · FAR · Pricing and audit · provision
FAR 52.207-4 Economic Purchase Quantity-Supplies
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
No mandate exists in FAR 7.203 or in the text of the provision, and none could — a provision asks an offeror for information during a competition, and a prime is not running a Government competition. It appears in prime flow-down exhibits because those exhibits are assembled by copying the clause list from the prime's own solicitation and never filtering out the provisions. l3harris-lgl-50-f1 goes further and invents a condition the FAR does not impose — '(applies to fixed price Orders for supplies)' — which converts a solicitation provision into a purported term of an executed fixed-price order. Treat its presence as a signal about the quality of the whole exhibit.
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 1987 · 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.
An opinion on whether the quantity asked for is economically advantageous and, where a different quantity would be, a recommended economic purchase quantity with both a total and a unit price at the point the price break occurs
FAR 52.207-4(a) and (b)
When it is used
FAR 7.203: 'Contracting officers shall insert the provision at 52.207-4, Economic Purchase Quantity-Supplies, in solicitations for supplies.' It is a SOLICITATION PROVISION, not a contract clause. No dollar threshold, no contract-type restriction, no flow-down. It need not be included where the solicitation is for a GSA multiple award schedule contract, where the contracting officer determines the Government already has the data or the data are otherwise readily available, or where it would be impracticable for the Government to adjust (vary) its future requirements. Nothing in FAR Part 7 or the provision text extends it to subcontracts, and it has no operative role at all after award — its whole function is to collect a quotation-stage opinion the Government uses to avoid buying in disadvantageous quantities and to build a data base for future acquisitions.
Read closely
This is answered inside a quote and there is nothing behind it — no records, no system, no certification, no retention period, no dollar threshold. Inside a purchase order already signed, the moment it speaks to has passed. Paragraph (c) reserves the right to amend, cancel or resolicit on the strength of what comes in, so an alternate quantity is worth quoting only where you can produce and finance it.
The 3 templates that name it, with the line
Source: acquisition.gov, FAR 52.207-4, FAR 7.203, FAR 52.212-5 (Mar 2026) and FAR 52.244-6 (Oct 2025) (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.