Clauses · FAR · Payment and financing
FAR 52.232-25 Prompt Payment
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
No mandate: the clause has no subcontract paragraph, and 32.908 imposes none. Primes flow it down as part of the Part 32 payment block, and sometimes to import the overpayment-return duty in paragraph (d) against the sub. Be blunt about what does not travel: the Prompt Payment Act's 30-day clock, the automatic interest penalty and the additional penalty all run Government-to-prime. Nothing here obliges a prime to pay a subcontractor in 30 days. The only two FAR instruments that create a real subcontractor payment right are 52.232-27 (construction — mandatory 7-day payment clauses in construction subcontracts) and 52.232-40 (accelerated payments to small business subcontractors, already in the base).
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 JAN 2017 (Basic; Alt I FEB 2002) · 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 52.232-25(d)
A written description of a duplicate payment or overpayment — the circumstances, the contract and delivery order number, the affected line item and your point of contact — sent with the money
Owed from the point you become aware of the duplicate or overpayment
Something you fill in and send back
Hours, once you know which one is missing.
A proper invoice carrying all ten items paragraph (a)(3) lists — name and address, invoice date and number, contract and order and line item numbers, description with quantity, unit of measure, unit price and extended price, shipping and payment terms, a remit-to matching the contract or a proper notice of assignment, a named contact for defective invoices, and taxpayer identification and electronic funds transfer details where the contract calls for them
FAR 52.232-25(a)(3)
When it is used
FAR 32.908(c): insert 'in all other solicitations and contracts, except when the clause at 52.212-4 ... applies, or when payment terms and late payment penalties are established by other governmental authority (e.g., tariffs)'. 'All other' means other than the two routed elsewhere by 32.908(a) and (b): fixed-price architect-engineer goes to 52.232-26, construction goes to 52.232-27. No dollar threshold. 32.908(c)(3): use Alternate I if the contract is a cost-reimbursement contract for services. The Prompt Payment Act (31 U.S.C. chapter 39) runs from the Government to its prime contractor.
Read closely
A non-conforming invoice comes back within 7 days, 3 for meat and fish and 5 for other perishables, and the clock never started. The 30-day due date, the automatic interest and the additional penalty all run from the Government to the company holding the prime contract, and nothing here obliges a prime to pay a supplier in 30 days. The two FAR instruments that create a real payment right for a subcontractor are FAR 52.232-27 in construction and FAR 52.232-40 for accelerated payments to small business subcontractors.
Alternates
Alt I · FEB 2002
FAR 32.908(c)(3) — the contract is a cost-reimbursement contract for services.
Alt I adds a paragraph (e) for interim payments under a cost-reimbursement service contract: it turns off five subparagraphs of (a), fixes the interest due date at the 30th day after the designated billing office receives a proper invoice, and routes invoices through paragraph (a) of FAR 52.216-7. The invoice is the same one; where it is prepared from and when interest starts are what move.
Source: acquisition.gov, FAR 52.232-25 and FAR 32.908(c) (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.