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Clauses · FAR · Administration and definitions

FAR 52.233-3 Protest after Award

Does the regulation require it to flow down?

No

The prime mirrors it (or uses its own stop-work) to pass down the (a) stop order to the sub and be able to recover from the Government, via (b), the costs the sub claims — without the mirror, the prime foots the chain's shutdown alone

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 AUG 1996 (Basic; Alt I JUN 1985) · base v0.9.3 Read the text ↗

What it makes you produce

One item for your checklist.

  1. 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 day-by-day record of what the stoppage cost — demobilization, idle crew, remobilization — and the claim for an adjustment of schedule or price within 30 days of the end of the stoppage

      FAR 52.233-3(b)

When it is used

Goes into virtually every prime contract — prescription 33.106(b) requires insertion in all solicitations and contracts. It does not flow down by mandate: the sub encounters it when the prime mirrors it in order to be able to stop the whole chain if a post-award protest freezes performance.

Read closely

(a) is the stop itself: work halts on the written order and costs are kept down during the period. Nothing is produced unless a post-award protest freezes the job, and working through a stoppage is a cost nobody reimburses.

Alternates

  • Alt I · JUN 1985

    FAR 33.106(b) — cost-reimbursement contract contemplated.

    Alt I is the cost-reimbursement version: it substitutes the termination-clause reference in (a)(2) and widens what the adjustment in (b) may reach to estimated cost and fee, leaving the record and the 30-day claim exactly where they were.

The 6 templates that name it, with the line
143CORPDOC 3A — FAR/DFARS Flowdown Provisions for Fixed Price Non-Commercial Items under a DoD Prime ContractLockheed Martinline 255155CORPDOC 4A — FAR/DFARS Flowdown Provisions for Cost-Reimbursement/T&M Subcontracts under a DoD Prime ContractLockheed Martinline 285255GD Mission Systems SCM-TMP-005 — General Provisions, Firm Fixed Price PO under U.S. Government Contract (Non-Commercial)General Dynamicsline 1074243GD Mission Systems SCM-TMP-048 — T&M Purchase Orders for Non-Commercial Items in Support of a U.S. Government ContractGeneral Dynamicsline 2112122GD Mission Systems SCM-TMP-095 — FFP Purchase Orders for Commercial/COTS Products or Services in Support of a U.S. Government ContractGeneral Dynamicsline 1026273BAE Systems Inc. USGOVA — FAR/DFARS Flow Down Provisions for Subcontracts/Purchase Orders under a U.S. Government (DoD) Prime ContractBAE Systemsline 657

Source: acquisition.gov, FAR 52.233-3 and 33.106(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.