Clauses · FAR · Pricing and audit
FAR 52.222-2 Payment for Overtime Premiums
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
No flow-down paragraph in the text (verified); the prime includes it in cost-type subs because a sub's unapproved overtime premium becomes a cost the prime itself cannot pass through to the government
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 2026-08-04 · edition JUL 1990 · base v0.9.3 Read the text ↗
What it makes you produce
2 items for your checklist, slowest first.
Something you write
Days to weeks, and nobody outside your company has to agree to it.
- FAR 52.222-2(b)
A written request covering all estimated overtime to completion, naming the work unit with its present workload and staffing, what a refusal does to the delivery schedule, the effect on other Government contracts with each one identified, and why more shifts or more people will not answer
Owed where a request for estimated overtime premium exceeds the amount specified in paragraph (a), which is usually zero
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.
Overtime premium is billable up to the amount written into the clause, and beyond it only under the four exceptions at paragraph (a): emergencies, indirect labor functions, continuous operation, and where overtime is the cheaper route
FAR 52.222-2(a)
When it is used
Goes into cost-reimbursement contracts (prescription 22.103-5(b); the prescription's threshold — above the SAT — was not confirmed in the text read). At the sub level, it appears when the prime mirrors it into a cost-type subcontract to control what it can bill.
Read closely
On cost-type work an unapproved overtime premium is a cost the company above you cannot pass on, which is why the request is answered before the hours are worked rather than at invoice.
The 4 templates that name it, with the line
Source: acquisition.gov, FAR 52.222-2 and 22.103-5(b) (verified 2026-08-04)
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.