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DFARS — The Story

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DFARS — The Story

DFARS is the Defense Department’s 400-page supplement to the FAR. When you’re selling to DoD, you read both — and when they conflict, DFARS wins. This is where the national-security equities, tech-rights battles, cyber requirements, and industrial-base policy live.

Why defense has its own overlay

FAR is written for all federal agencies. That works for buying office chairs and janitorial services. It doesn’t work for buying a fighter jet, a classified payload, or a missile defense system — for which DoD has specialized concerns that civilian FAR simply doesn’t address:

  • Classified contracts and facility security clearances.
  • Technical data rights — who owns the designs, drawings, and software for weapons systems that the government funded.
  • Foreign Ownership, Control, or Influence (FOCI) — whether an adversary can read your balance sheet by acquiring a stake in your DoD contractor.
  • Cyber requirements for handling Controlled Unclassified Information about defense programs.
  • Domestic-sourcing and industrial-base protection — Berry Amendment (food, clothing, textiles), specialty metals, essential chemicals, rare earth magnets.
  • Progress payment mechanics calibrated for large, long-lead weapons production.

DFARS ships with a non-binding companion called PGI (Procedures, Guidance, and Information). DFARS is the rule; PGI is DoD’s explanation of how contracting officers should actually do it. PGI is out of scope for this vault’s v1 sync.

The 200-offset rule — DFARS mirrors FAR

This is the single most useful thing to memorize:

DFARS Part N+200 corresponds to FAR Part N.

So:

  • FAR Part 15 (Negotiation) ↔ DFARS Part 215 (Negotiation — DoD overlay)
  • FAR Part 19 (Small Business) ↔ DFARS Part 219
  • FAR Part 25 (Buy American) ↔ DFARS Part 225 (+ Berry, specialty metals)
  • FAR Part 27 (IP) ↔ DFARS Part 227 (tech-data rights, SBIR data, noncommercial computer software)
  • FAR Part 52 (Clauses) ↔ DFARS Part 252 (DFARS clauses)

When this vault rewrites bare citations inside a DFARS clause body, it uses this rule to disambiguate. A bare 15.203 inside a DFARS note resolves to FAR 15.203 (the FAR section). A bare 215.203 resolves to DFARS 215.203 (the DFARS overlay). The linker annotates the first cross-source citation per file with a review comment so you can audit.

The DFARS overlays that actually matter to clients

Most DFARS parts are minor procedural variations on their FAR parallel. A handful are substantive and drive real risk and real opportunity. These are the ones to know:

Cyber — the 252.204-7012 stack

DFARS’s cyber requirements run through a chain of clauses that collectively define how defense contractors must protect Controlled Unclassified Information:

  • DFARS 252.204-7008 — Compliance with Safeguarding Covered Defense Information Controls. Flags that 7012 applies.
  • DFARS 252.204-7012 — Safeguarding Covered Defense Information and Cyber Incident Reporting. The marquee cyber clause. Requires implementation of NIST SP 800-171 (110 controls), 72-hour cyber-incident reporting to DC3/DCISE, and flow-down to subcontractors. Non-negotiable in DoD contracts that touch CDI.
  • DFARS 252.204-7019 and DFARS 252.204-7020 — NIST SP 800-171 DoD Assessment Requirements. Self-assessment score and posting to the Supplier Performance Risk System (SPRS) before award.
  • DFARS 252.204-7021 — CMMC certification requirement. The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification clause; once fully phased in, requires third-party CMMC certification at the level specified in the solicitation before award.
  • DFARS 252.239-7010 — Cloud computing services. FedRAMP Moderate baseline for CSPs handling DoD data.

See DFARS Part 204 and DFARS Part 239 explainers for how these fit together.

Technical data rights — the 252.227 family

The government’s license in contractor-developed technical data and software is one of the highest-stakes IP battlegrounds in federal contracting. Default FAR IP rights (Part 27) are replaced for DoD by DFARS:

  • DFARS 252.227-7013 — Rights in Technical Data — Noncommercial Items. Establishes Government Purpose Rights (GPR) with a 5-year sunset to unlimited rights, unless contractor negotiates.
  • DFARS 252.227-7014 — Rights in Noncommercial Computer Software and Noncommercial Computer Software Documentation.
  • DFARS 252.227-7015 — Technical Data — Commercial Items. Narrower government license for commercial-item deliverables.
  • DFARS 252.227-7017 — Identification and Assertion of Use, Release, or Disclosure Restrictions. The assertions list — contractor has to identify every piece of restricted data at proposal time.
  • DFARS 252.227-7018 — Rights in Noncommercial Technical Data and Computer Software — Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program. SBIR data rights are stronger (20-year government license limit instead of unlimited-after-5).

Key rule: get the assertions list right at proposal. Data without an assertion at proposal is presumed to come with unlimited government rights. This is how contractors lose their IP by accident.

FOCI — Foreign Ownership, Control, or Influence

DFARS treats FOCI as a national security gate on cleared contracts. Relevant parts:

For classified work, the real FOCI regime lives in 32 CFR Part 117 (NISPOM) — not in DFARS — but DFARS points there.

Buy American + Berry + Specialty Metals — Part 225

DFARS Part 225 is where DoD stacks multiple sourcing regimes:

  • Buy American Act (same as FAR 25, higher domestic content thresholds post-2022)
  • Berry Amendment (10 U.S.C. 4862) — 100% domestic requirement for food, clothing, tents, tools, hand or measuring tools. No de minimis. No foreign content.
  • Specialty Metals restriction (10 U.S.C. 4863) — domestic-melt requirement for titanium alloys, stainless steels, nickel-cobalt alloys, specialty steels, and zirconium-based alloys in critical applications.
  • Critical minerals — an evolving set of restrictions (rare earth magnets, certain printed circuit boards, tungsten).
  • Trade Agreements Act interaction — TAA can override BAA for designated-country sourcing, but NOT for Berry or specialty metals.

For any hardware contractor, 225 drives sourcing decisions years before award.

Commercial items in defense — Part 212

DFARS Part 212 overlays FAR Part 12 with DoD-specific restrictions on what qualifies as a “commercial product” or “commercial service” for defense buys. DoD has historically pushed back on agencies’ overuse of commercial-item determinations to dodge CAS, TINA, and data-rights clauses. 212 is where that tension is codified.

Small business — Part 219

DFARS Part 219 adds DoD-specific wrinkles: Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan (CSP) eligibility, DoD-specific HUBZone requirements, and the DoD Mentor-Protégé program (separate and more generous than SBA’s).

Negotiation — Part 215

DFARS Part 215 is the overlay on FAR 15. Key additions:

  • Stricter cost/price proposal adequacy rules (Table 15-2 equivalent pre-proposal).
  • Should-cost analysis as a default for certain major system acquisitions.
  • Peer review requirements for source-selection at certain thresholds.

Progress payments — Part 232

DFARS Part 232 adjusts FAR 32 financing for large defense buys. Progress payment rates (80% for large business, 90% for small) and the Performance-Based Payments (PBP) framework that competes with progress payments in complex hardware buys.

How DFARS clauses get into a contract

Same mechanism as FAR: DFARS earlier Parts (203, 204, etc.) contain prescription clauses that tell the CO to insert a specific DFARS 252 clause. The CO puts both FAR 52 clauses AND DFARS 252 clauses in the solicitation’s clause matrix. When DFARS conflicts with FAR on the same issue, DFARS controls for DoD contracts (per DFARS 201.104).

What’s NOT here

  • PGI (DFARS Procedures, Guidance, and Information) — the non-binding companion. DoD publishes procedural guidance here rather than in the binding DFARS.
  • DoD class deviations — time-bounded suspensions of DFARS rules for specific programs.
  • Agency supplements below DoD — AFFARS (Air Force), AFARS (Army), NMCARS (Navy/Marine Corps), SOFARS (SOCOM), DARS (DLA). Each service writes its own supplement on top of DFARS. This vault’s v1 does not include them.

DFARS volume: roughly 500 pages, ~1,900 sections in the vault, ~700 distinct clauses in Part 252.

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