Clauses · FAR · Clauses that carry other clauses
FAR 52.212-5 Contract Terms and Conditions Required To Implement Statutes or Executive Orders-Commercial Products and Commercial Services
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
Paragraph (e)(1) is a CEILING, not a floor. Its chapeau reads: 'Notwithstanding the requirements of the clauses in paragraphs (a), (b), (c), and (d) of this clause, the Contractor is not required to flow down any FAR clause, other than those in this paragraph (e)(1), in a subcontract for commercial products or commercial services.' Paragraph (e)(2) allows, but does not require, a minimal number of additional clauses necessary to satisfy the prime's contractual obligations. So the honest verdict on the vehicle is: no mandate to pass 52.212-5 itself down, a hard mandate on its 27 contents, and an express permission slip that primes routinely stretch. Primes flow the whole clause down because it is administratively cheaper to hand over the vehicle and the checkbox marks than to extract 27 numbers — and because doing so quietly moves paragraphs (b) and (c), which bind the PRIME, into a document the sub signs.
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 Mar 2026 (Basic; Alt I Feb 2000; Alt II Oct 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.
- 52.212-5(e)(1)
The flow-down list your own orders have to carry — the clauses named at paragraph (e)(1), each reaching as far as that clause itself says
Owed when you place a subcontract of your own for commercial products or commercial services
When it is used
FAR 12.301(b)(4): the contracting officer inserts this clause in solicitations and contracts for commercial products and commercial services; it incorporates by reference only the clauses required to implement provisions of law or Executive orders applicable to a commercial acquisition. No dollar threshold — Part 12 applicability is what triggers it. Structure matters more than the trigger: (a) is the always-applicable block (five clauses, including 52.209-10 at (a)(4)); (b) is 65 numbered checkbox items the contracting officer marks as applicable; (c) is 10 more checkboxes specific to commercial SERVICES (52.222-41, -42, -43, -44, -51, -53, -55, -62, 52.226-6, 52.247-69); (d) is Comptroller General access to records; and (e)(1) is the flow-down list, 27 items, Mar 2026. Alternate I is used when the head of the agency has waived Comptroller General examination of records; Alternate II when American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 funds are involved, and Alternate I may not be used when Alternate II applies. The parallel vehicle for a commercial subcontract under a NONcommercial prime is 52.244-6, whose (c)(1) list is not the same.
Read closely
Paragraph (e)(1) is a ceiling and says so: beyond those clauses nothing has to go into a subcontract for commercial products or services, and (e)(2) permits a minimal number of extras rather than requiring them. The boxes marked in (b) and (c) belong to a contracting officer and bind the buyer under its own contract. The date designator decides which list applies — a February 2025 deviation version and the March 2026 version do not carry the same one.
The 7 templates that name it, with the line
Source: acquisition.gov, FAR 52.212-5 (Mar 2026, including (a), (b), (c) and (e)), FAR 12.301(b)(4) and (d)-(e), FAR 52.244-6 (Oct 2025), and the class deviation regarding E.O. 14173 and E.O. 14168 hosted at acquisition.gov/sites/default/files/caac/deviation/ (HUD CPO, signed 2025-05-22) (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.