Clauses · FAR · Small business, labor and socioeconomic · provision
FAR 52.222-56 Certification Regarding Trafficking in Persons Compliance Plan
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
No flow-down mandate — 22.1705(b) addresses solicitations only. The anti-trafficking regime reaches you through 52.222-50(i), which requires the substance of that clause, including paragraph (i) itself, in ALL subcontracts and in all contracts with agents, at any value. When a prime cites 52.222-56 in a flow-down packet, what it can actually enforce is 52.222-50(h): the compliance plan and the annual certification for the >$700,000 outside-US, non-COTS portion of YOUR subcontract
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 Oct 2025 · 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.
- FAR 52.222-56(c)
The certification submitted with the offer: that a compliance plan to prevent the prohibited activities is implemented, and that after due diligence neither you nor your proposed agents or subcontractors is engaged in them — or that remedial and referral action was taken
Owed when paragraph (b) applies — more than $700,000 of the value is supplies other than commercially available off-the-shelf items acquired outside the United States, or services performed outside it
When it is used
FAR 22.1705(b): a SOLICITATION provision, inserted when it is possible that at least $700,000 of the contract value may be performed OUTSIDE the United States and the acquisition is not entirely for commercially available off-the-shelf items. The apparent successful offeror submits the certification before award. The performance obligation it certifies to lives in the clause 52.222-50 (Combating Trafficking in Persons, Oct 2025), paragraph (h) — which is where the same $700,000 threshold and COTS exception actually bite, and paragraph (h)(5) where the annual certification recurs during performance.
Read closely
Due diligence is the expensive word: it means the foreign recruiters and the lower tiers were actually looked at and it can be shown. This is a pre-award instrument; inside a signed order the live obligation is the plan and the annual certification at FAR 52.222-50(h).
The 3 templates that name it, with the line
Source: acquisition.gov, FAR 52.222-56, FAR 22.1705 and FAR 52.222-50(h)/(i) (verified 2026-08-05); RFO Part 22 retention via the VA class deviation adopting the FAR Council model text, signed 2025-11-13
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.