Clauses · FAR · Administration and definitions
FAR 52.217-9 Option to Extend the Term of the Contract
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
No flow-down mandate: 17.208(g) addresses the contracting officer, and nothing in Subpart 17.2 reaches subcontracts. Primes mirror it so the subcontract's term tracks the option structure of the prime contract — if the Government exercises option year two, the prime needs the same unilateral right against its subs rather than a fresh negotiation with each one. In the corpus it appears only in the CACI Corvus labor-hour subcontract, at the current MAR 2000 designation.
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 2000 (no alternates) · base v0.9.3 Read the text ↗
What it makes you produce
One item for your checklist.
Nothing to send now
It does not hold the order. It decides what money moves later — what you can claim, what can be claimed from you, and what can be held back — and none of that changes after signature.
A price for each option period costed on its own basis, since the clause carries no escalation mechanism at all
FAR 52.217-9(a)
When it is used
FAR 17.208(g): insert a clause substantially the same as 52.217-9 in solicitations and contracts when the inclusion of an option is appropriate (see 17.200 and 17.202) and it is necessary to include any or all of: a requirement for preliminary written notice of intent to extend, a provision that the extended contract is considered to include the option clause, or a stated limit on total duration. No dollar threshold and no contract-type restriction. FAR 17.204(b) requires the contract to state the period within which the option may be exercised; FAR 17.204(e) caps the total of basic plus option periods at 5 years for services and at the 5-year requirement for supplies, unless otherwise approved under agency procedures (the 5-year limit does not apply to information technology contracts).
Read closely
(a) makes the extension the buyer's alone, on written notice, and the preliminary notice of intent commits the buyer to nothing — it is information, not an award, and hiring or buying long-lead material against it is unpaid. (b) puts the option clause into the extended term, so one exercise can be followed by another, and (c) caps the total at the figure in the blank.
Source: acquisition.gov, FAR 52.217-9, FAR 17.208(g) and FAR 17.204(b) and (e); acquisition.gov FAR Overhaul deviation guide (Part 17 model text posted 2025-09-11) (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.