TINA Compliance Threshold 2026: $10M for DoD, $2.5M for Civilian Agencies

How large does a contract have to be before you must certify your cost and pricing data? In 2026 there is no single answer. There are two, and which one applies to you depends on which agency is buying. If the Department of Defense is buying and your prime contract is awarded after June 30, 2026, the figure is $10 million. For everyone else, including NASA and the Coast Guard, it is $2.5 million. If you are a nontraditional defense contractor, DoD work does not require certified data from you at all.

Those are the answers. The rest of this article is why the two numbers differ, which one your contracting officer will actually apply, and what your books have to produce when you cross the line.

The Truthful Cost or Pricing Data Statute, still widely called TINA, requires certified cost or pricing data above a threshold. As of August 12, 2026 there are two live thresholds, split by which agency is buying. Defense, NASA and Coast Guard work runs on 10 U.S.C. 3702, and DoD contracting officers have applied $10 million to prime contracts awarded after June 30, 2026 since March 16, 2026, under a class deviation.

That deviation is addressed to DoD components only, so NASA and Coast Guard contracting officers still apply $2.5 million absent one of their own. Civilian agency work runs on 41 U.S.C. 3502, which Congress did not amend, and stays at $2.5 million.

Awards made on or after July 1, 2018 and on or before June 30, 2026 remain at $2.5 million on both sides. Certified data must be accurate, complete and current as of the date of price agreement. A defective submission triggers a price reduction under FAR 52.215-10, interest on any resulting overpayment, and, if you knew the data was wrong when you certified, a further penalty equal to that overpayment. False Claims Act exposure sits on top of all of it.

The TINA compliance gap that shows up most often in cost proposal reviews is not a missing vendor quote. It is a stale one. Proposals developed over three to six months routinely carry quotes obtained at the start of the build cycle. By the time the price-agreement date arrives, those quotes are months old. The seven-step sweep at the end of this article is designed to surface that exposure before the certificate is signed.

Understanding the TINA compliance threshold in 2026 now means knowing two things: which statute covers the agency buying from you, and which text your contracting officer is actually working from. Those are different questions, and in 2026 they have different answers.

The Thing Most Coverage Has Not Caught Up To

Most coverage of this still says the FY2026 NDAA raised the threshold to $10 million, but the FAR has not been updated, so $2.5 million still governs. That stopped being true for defense work on March 16, 2026, and the contractors it costs most are the ones pricing new DoD contracts today.

DoD issued class deviation 2026-O0048 on March 5, 2026, effective March 16. It was revised and superseded on July 22, 2026 by Revision 1, which is the version in force as of August 12, 2026 and which carries the same threshold. If you cite this deviation, cite Revision 1. The dollar figures did not change. Some of the section numbers did.

Revision 1 opens by telling contracting officers exactly what to use: “Effective immediately, this class deviation revises and supersedes Class Deviation 2026-O0048, issued on March 5, 2026 … Contracting officers must use … The revised FAR part 15, Contracting by Negotiation, published on the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul web page … in lieu of the text codified at 48 CFR chapter 1.”

The deviation carries its own DFARS Part 215, and that is where the threshold now lives:

DFARS 215.403-3(a), as deviated (Revision 1): “Threshold. In lieu of the requirements of FAR 15.403-3(a), obtain certified cost or pricing data when a prime contract is expected to exceed $10 million and is awarded after June 30, 2026, unless an exception at FAR 15.403-2 or [DFARS] 215.403-71 applies. The threshold is $2.5 million when the prime contract is awarded on or before June 30, 2026, unless otherwise stated in the contract (10 U.S.C. 3702). (1) Use the same criteria for contract modifications or changes as the prime contract being modified or changed.”

Revision 1 renumbered the DoD-specific sections. What was DFARS 215.403-270 is now 215.403-71. Any article still citing the old number is pointing at a section that no longer exists.

So for a new DoD prime award the $10 million figure is not waiting on a rulemaking. It has been the operating instruction since March 2026. But read the date condition before acting on it. A $6 million sole-source DoD proposal sits below the deviated threshold only if it will be awarded after June 30, 2026 as a new prime contract. If it is a modification, DFARS 215.403-3(a)(1) sends you back to the criteria of the contract being modified, and for anything awarded on or before June 30, 2026 that is $2.5 million.

A great deal of defense work in flight is modifications rather than new primes, so check which one you are pricing before you conclude you are exempt.

Two practical consequences. First, your DoD contracting officer applies the deviation text rather than the codified text at eCFR, and the codified page stays silent about it. Second, the FAR Overhaul renumbered Part 15. Under the text DoD uses, the threshold sits at 15.403-3(a) and 15.403-4 is the Certificate of Current Cost or Pricing Data.

Citations written against the codified numbering send a reader who is working from the Overhaul text to the wrong rule, and that is not a DoD-only problem: the FAR Council issued the model Part 15 text on September 30, 2025 and civilian agencies have been adopting it since. This article dual-cites for that reason.

The Defense Versus Civilian Split Breaks For Two Agencies

The dividing line people reach for is DoD versus civilian. That is close, and it is wrong at the edges in a way that matters to two agencies.

10 U.S.C. 3702 applies to procurement by the agencies named in 10 U.S.C. 3063. That list reads: the Department of Defense, the Departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force, the Coast Guard, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Title 41 then says the same thing from the other side. 41 U.S.C. 3101(c)(1) provides that the part of Title 41 containing the civilian rules “does not apply … (A) to the Department of Defense, the Coast Guard, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”

So NASA and Coast Guard primes are on the Title 10 side. That settles which statute covers you. It does not settle your number. The $10 million figure is in your statute; it is not in the rule your contracting officer applies. Class deviation 2026-O0048, Revision 1, is a memorandum addressed to DoD components only, and absent a NASA or Coast Guard deviation of their own, their contracting officers work from the FAR, which says $2.5 million in both the codified text at 15.403-4(a)(1) and the Overhaul text at 15.403-3(a).

Confirm in writing which figure your contracting officer is using. If you hold a NASA award, the safe planning assumption is $2.5 million, not $10 million.

The Threshold Table

Read the statute column and the administered column separately. They are not rivals. The statute is the law as Congress wrote it; the administered column is the figure a contracting officer actually applies today, which is not always the same thing.

Sources and as-of date. Figures current at August 12, 2026, taken from 10 U.S.C. 3702 and 41 U.S.C. 3502; FAR 15.403-4 as codified and FAR 15.403-3 in the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul text; DoD class deviation 2026-O0048 Revision 1 (July 22, 2026); and the inflation adjustment at 90 FR 41872, effective October 1, 2025. Thresholds re-adjust for inflation every five years, so confirm the figure for your own contract in writing.

Three conditions sit behind that table and decide how it is read:

• The 2018-2026 row. 10 U.S.C. 3702(a)(1)(B) reaches every DoD prime entered on or before June 30, 2026, with no lower date bound. DFARS 215.403-3(a) as deviated states $2.5 million directly.
• The DoD $10 million figure. It applies under the class deviation in force since March 16, 2026, which drops the bid-count condition the statute carries.
• NASA and the Coast Guard. 10 U.S.C. 3063 puts them under the same statute as DoD, but the DoD class deviation is addressed to DoD components only. Absent a deviation of their own, those contracting officers still apply the FAR figure of $2.5 million.

Read the scope on the $10 million figure before relying on it. 10 U.S.C. 3702(a)(1) reaches a prime contract “to be entered into using procedures other than sealed-bid procedures that is only expected to receive one bid.” Note what the trigger is: the number of bids expected, not the label on the procurement. A competitively solicited award that draws a single offer sits inside those words. DoD has a whole DFARS section for that case, 215.202-71, and it directs the contracting officer back to the certified data requirement.

The statute escalates itself. 10 U.S.C. 3702(g) and 41 U.S.C. 3502(g) both provide that effective October 1 of each year divisible by five, each amount in subsection (a) is adjusted under 41 U.S.C. 1908. That is why the statute says $2,000,000 and the FAR says $2.5 million. It is one number at two points in its own escalation, not a regulation disagreeing with a statute. The October 1, 2025 adjustment (90 FR 41872) moved $750,000 to $950,000 and $2,000,000 to $2.5 million.

Your Old Contract Does Not Keep Its Old Dollar Figure

This one runs opposite to the intuition, and getting it backwards costs you either way.

Your award date fixes which tier you are in: the pre-July-2018 tier or the post-July-2018 tier. The dollar value of that tier is not frozen. [FAR 15.403-4(a)(1) codified / 15.403-3(d) deviated] says it directly: “When a clause refers to this threshold, and if the threshold is adjusted for inflation pursuant to 1.109(a), then pursuant to 1.109(d) the changed threshold applies throughout the remaining term of the contract, unless there is a subsequent threshold adjustment.” FAR 52.215-12 carries the same rule inside the clause itself.

The figure also depends on who bought. For a civilian contract awarded in 2016 that referenced $750,000, the figure for the remaining term is $950,000 as of October 1, 2025. For a DoD contract of the same vintage, start with what your contract says. Most legacy vehicles state a figure, and where they do, that figure controls: deviated DFARS 215.403-3(a) sets its $2.5 million “unless otherwise stated in the contract.” Only where the contract is silent does the deviation supply $2.5 million for a prime awarded on or before June 30, 2026.

Reading it the other way round is how a contractor skips certification on a $1.5 million modification. Two legacy contracts of the same age therefore sit at $950,000 and $2.5 million. Get yours in writing from the contracting officer.

There is also a modification you are entitled to and probably have not asked for, and the two sides of the split get different versions of it.

On DoD work, 10 U.S.C. 3702(f) provides that for a prime entered into on or before June 30, 2018, the head of the agency “shall modify the contract as soon as practicable to reflect paragraphs (1) and (2) of such subsection, without requiring consideration.” Those are the prime-contract and modification thresholds, and no request is required on its face.

The civilian counterpart is narrower, and worth understanding before you ask. 41 U.S.C. 3502(f) requires the agency, on the contractor’s request, to modify a pre-July-2018 prime without consideration, but only “to reflect paragraphs (2)(B) and (3)(B) of subsection (a).” Those are the modification and subcontract thresholds, not the prime-contract threshold at (a)(1)(B). And because 3502(a)(2)(B) and (a)(2)(C) now both read $750,000, the modification half of that request changes nothing. What it still moves is the subcontract threshold, from $750,000 to $2,000,000 as adjusted.

FAR 15.403-4(a)(3) implements that subcontract half in the codified FAR, and it is the provision to cite, because it reads $2.5 million where the statute reads $2,000,000. The FAR Overhaul Part 15 text carries no equivalent, so on the Overhaul text the statute is where the entitlement lives.

Note the whole section reaches civilian awards only: 41 U.S.C. 3101(c)(1)(A) says the division “does not apply … to the Department of Defense, the Coast Guard, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.” And it runs only for a contractor “that was required to submit cost or pricing data under subsection (a)” in the first place.

Whether to request it, and what it is worth on your specific vehicle, is a contract-administration question for your contracting officer and, on a large vehicle, your contracts counsel.

What Certification Requires

When an action crosses the applicable threshold, none of the FAR exceptions applies, and on DoD work the nontraditional-defense-contractor exemption at DFARS 215.403-71(a)(5) does not reach you, you submit certified cost or pricing data and sign the Certificate of Current Cost or Pricing Data [FAR 15.406-2 codified / 15.403-4 under the deviation text].

The certificate attests that the data is accurate, complete and current as of the date of price agreement, “or, if applicable, an earlier date agreed upon between the parties that is as close as practicable to the date of agreement on price.” That earlier-date option is a real lever for cutting sweep exposure, and it is worth raising in negotiation rather than after.

Cost or pricing data is defined at [FAR 2.101], not in Part 15. That section says cost or pricing data “are factual, not judgmental; and are verifiable.” Vendor quotes are facts. Actual historical labor rates are facts. Internal estimates and projections are not, though the data underlying them is. The Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals addressed the line in Alloy Surfaces Co. (ASBCA No. 59625, 2020), holding that work-in-progress projections were not cost or pricing data.

The distinction runs both ways. You cannot satisfy the obligation by substituting an internal estimate for an actual vendor quote you hold. A contractor facing a defective pricing claim argues the disputed item was judgment rather than fact.

Certified data goes in the [FAR 15.408 Table 15-2 codified / Table 15-1 at 15.408-2 under the deviation] format, the same structure behind any government contract cost proposal. DCAA uses it to trace from summary to cost element to supporting document.

When Certified Data Is Not Required

Five exceptions, at [FAR 15.403-1(b) codified / 15.403-2(b) deviated]: (1) adequate price competition; (2) prices set by law or regulation; (3) a commercial product or commercial service; (4) a waiver granted by the head of the contracting activity; (5) modifying a contract or subcontract for commercial products or services.

Two of those exceptions carry more than the table holds:

• Adequate price competition. The three prongs are: two or more responsible offerors competing independently submit priced offers; award goes to best value with price a substantial factor; and there is no finding that the winning price is unreasonable. The third prong gets missed, and a finding of unreasonableness must be approved above the contracting officer. The rule also splits by agency: for agencies other than DoD, NASA and the Coast Guard there is a second route at 15.403-2(c)(1)(ii), where a single offer still qualifies if competition was reasonably expected, or where price analysis shows the price reasonable against recent comparable prices.
• Prices set by law or regulation. It covers prices a governmental body sets by ruling or statute, such as regulated utility and carrier tariffs. GSA Schedule prices are negotiated rather than set by law, and Schedule work is normally outside certification because of the commercial-product exception instead.

The commercial exception carries a cap, and it sits in a narrower place than the summaries suggest. It does not cap the exception for modifying a commercial-item contract. It caps one specific category: minor modifications under paragraph (3)(ii) of the commercial product definition at FAR 2.101. Modifications of a type customarily available in the commercial marketplace, paragraph (3)(i), are exempt with no cap at all.

For minor modifications on acquisitions funded by DoD, NASA or the Coast Guard, [FAR 15.403-1(c)(3)(iii)(B) codified / 15.403-2(c)(3)(iii)(B) deviated] makes them exempt only while the total price of all such modifications under a particular contract action “does not exceed the greater of the threshold for obtaining certified cost or pricing data in [15.403-4 codified / 15.403-3(a) deviated] or 5 percent of the total price of the contract at the time of contract award.” Over that line, subparagraph (C) says they are not exempt.

Misclassifying a minor modification as a (3)(i) modification is how a defense contractor ends up defectively priced while believing they were covered.

There are further exceptions on DoD work, and Revision 1 is where the best known of them appeared. Implementing sections 1826(8) and (9) of the FY2026 NDAA, deviated DFARS 215.403-71(a)(5) states that “unless waived, nontraditional defense contractors are not required to submit certified cost and pricing data.” PGI 215.403-71(b)(5)(i) puts it as a prohibition on the contracting officer, who “may not require a nontraditional defense contractor to submit certified cost or pricing data or comply with other special cost or pricing requirements unless waived by the HCA in a written determination justifying why the waiver is in the best interest of the Government,” delegable no lower than the senior contracting official.

A nontraditional defense contractor, per 10 U.S.C. 3014, is an entity that has not performed a DoD contract or subcontract subject to full CAS coverage for at least the year before the solicitation. That will describe many small contractors, but it turns on your own contract history rather than on your size, so check it against your record instead of assuming.

If you qualify and no waiver has issued, the threshold question in this article does not reach you on DoD work at all. Confirm your status against the definition, and confirm in writing with your contracting officer that no waiver has been granted, before relying on it.

Below the threshold there is still a path the government can use: [FAR 15.403-3 codified / 15.403-1 deviated] lets the contracting officer request data other than certified cost or pricing data, with no certificate. And “below the threshold” is not an absolute shield. [FAR 15.403-4(a)(2) codified / 15.403-3(e) deviated] lets the head of the contracting activity, without power of delegation, authorize the contracting officer to obtain certified data below the threshold where the action exceeds the simplified acquisition threshold, supported by a written finding.

Fragmenting a requirement to stay under the threshold is a matter for contracting counsel rather than a bookkeeping decision. Whatever the answer, the defective-pricing exposure does not disappear with the fragments.

One more piece of arithmetic that catches people. [FAR 15.403-4(a)(1)(iii) codified / 15.403-3(b)(3)(i) deviated] says modification pricing adjustments “must consider both increases and decreases,” and gives its own worked example: a $500,000 modification made up of a $1,500,000 reduction and a $1,000,000 increase is a $2,500,000 pricing adjustment. If you net your modifications and conclude you are under the line, run the absolute values before you rely on it.

Defective Pricing: What Is Actually at Risk

The enforcement consequence is a post-award defective pricing audit, opened when DCAA sees a significant price-to-cost variance on a negotiated contract. The audit itself is governed by FAR 15.407-1, which is 15.304 in the Overhaul text, and the clause at FAR 52.215-10; DCAA’s internal manual tells the auditor how to conduct it.

DCAA works through five elements: that the information qualifies as cost or pricing data; that the data existed and was reasonably available to you before the price-agreement date; that you did not disclose it and the government negotiator did not otherwise know it; that the negotiator relied on it; and that the price went up as a result. Contractors defend by attacking any one.

The “reasonably available” qualifier in element two is the whole ballgame in most defenses, and FAR 15.407-1(b)(2) grounds it: the contracting officer must consider “the time by which the certified cost or pricing data became reasonably available to the contractor.”

The penalty is measured by the overpayment, not by the overstatement. That distinction is money. FAR 15.407-1(b)(7)(iii) says that where the submission was knowing, the contracting officer “shall obtain an amount equal to the amount of overpayment made,” and FAR 52.215-10(d) matches it. On a contract still in performance, the overpayment runs far smaller than the pricing overstatement, so the familiar “it doubles” shorthand only holds against amounts actually paid out. Note also that 52.215-10 is the initial-pricing clause; 52.215-11 is the modifications version, and 52.215-12 and 52.215-13 push the requirement down to subcontracts.

On the False Claims Act, the standard is lower than “intent to defraud.” Liability turns on a “knowing” violation, and 31 U.S.C. 3729(b)(1) defines that to include actual knowledge, deliberate ignorance, or reckless disregard, and then says it in terms: the definitions “require no proof of specific intent to defraud.” Whether that standard is met in any particular case is a legal question for counsel, not an accounting judgment. It is worth stating plainly because “we did not mean to” is not the defense people think it is.

Two settlements show the range. On February 6, 2025, Lockheed Martin agreed to pay $29.74 million over defective cost data on five F-35 production and sustainment contracts between 2013 and 2015, on top of $11.3 million it had already paid the Defense Department on some of the same contracts. In October 2024, Raytheon settled a $428 million civil False Claims Act case covering defective pricing and double-billing on work spanning 2009 to 2020, part of a $950 million package that also carried a deferred prosecution agreement on two counts of major fraud against the United States.

Both are Defense Department primes, so both carried a Title 10 certification duty and False Claims Act exposure on top of it. The mechanism is identical at a smaller scale.

DOJ reported more than $6.8 billion in False Claims Act settlements and judgments in fiscal year 2025, the highest annual total in the statute’s history, with more than $5.3 billion of it coming from qui tam suits. DOJ’s own Department of Defense table puts FY2025 DoD-related recoveries at $633.9 million, the second-highest annual figure on record, scoped to matters where DoD is the primary client agency.

Subcontracts carry the exposure down the chain. Under FAR 52.215-12 the prime must obtain certified data from subcontractors expected to exceed the threshold, unless an exception applies. For DoD work, 10 U.S.C. 3702(a)(3) ties the subcontract figure to the prime’s date, and gates it: the requirement attaches only where the prime and each higher-tier subcontractor were themselves required to submit. If DCAA opens a post-award audit, see the DCAA audit preparation playbook.

What Is a TINA Sweep?

A sweep is the pre-certification scrub run before signing the certificate. It identifies data that changed between submission and price agreement, for disclosure first. A documented sweep is not a defense. FAR 52.215-10(c)(1) has you agree not to raise listed matters as a defense, and FAR 15.407-1(b)(3) says the Government’s right to a price adjustment is not affected by them. What a sweep does is earlier and better: it discloses data before you certify, so the defect never forms, and it evidences good faith against the knowing finding that triggers the penalty.

1. Lock the price-agreement date. Identify the exact date price was agreed. Consider whether an earlier agreed date is available under the certificate’s own terms, because it moves the whole exposure window.
2. Refresh every vendor quote. For each quoted item, confirm whether a newer quote exists as of that date. Disclose the updated quote, not an internal estimate of what it should be.
3. Reconcile labor rates to payroll actuals. Compare proposed rates against actual rates for the same people or categories, and document the comparison with a signed reconciliation. Treat any movement you would not want to explain under oath as material.
4. Check subcontractor certifications. For every subcontract above the threshold, confirm the sub’s certificate is keyed to the date of agreement on the subcontract price, and that any later update flows into your package. See subcontractor management requirements.
5. Check indirect rate actuals against proposed rates. Forward pricing rates that moved since submission are a common finding, and unallowable costs in indirect pools create double exposure.
6. Verify the proposal format. Table 15-2 under the codified FAR, Table 15-1 at 15.408-2 under the deviation text. Ask which one your contracting officer expects.
7. Document the sweep and sign it. One page: who ran it, what was reviewed, what changed, what was disclosed. Attach it to the certification. If an audit opens, this is the first document your attorney asks for.

None of this cures a certificate already signed. And check which figure governs before you price: for civilian awards the tier is set by the award date while the dollar figure moves with inflation, so the current threshold applies unless your contract names one. For any DoD award entered on or before June 30, 2026 the deviated figure is $2.5 million unless the contract states otherwise, and most legacy vehicles do state one. For how the FY2026 NDAA reshaped thresholds across cost accounting generally, see the NDAA 2026 CAS threshold analysis.

Frequently Asked Questions

These answers describe accounting and contract administration practice as of August 12, 2026. They are not legal advice, and the thresholds differ by which agency is buying and by which text your contracting officer applies, so confirm the figure for your contract with that officer in writing.

Key Takeaways

• DoD applies $10 million to primes awarded after June 30, 2026, under a deviation in force since March 16, 2026. Those are two different dates and the gap is real: a DoD award made between March 16 and June 30, 2026 was still tested at $2.5 million. Class deviation DARS 2026-O0048, as revised on July 22, 2026 by Revision 1, directs contracting officers to use the FAR Overhaul Part 15 “in lieu of the text codified at 48 CFR chapter 1,” and deviated DFARS 215.403-3(a) carries $10 million for primes awarded after June 30, 2026. The common line that the FAR has not been updated so $2.5 million still governs is out of date for defense work.
• Civilian agencies stay at $2.5 million Congress amended 10 U.S.C. 3702 and not 41 U.S.C. 3502. But the line is not defense versus civilian: NASA and the Coast Guard are on the Title 10 side under 10 U.S.C. 3063. That gets them the statute, not the number. The DoD class deviation is addressed to DoD components only, so in practice a NASA or Coast Guard contracting officer still applies $2.5 million from the codified FAR.
• The statute and the rule your contracting officer applies are scoped differently. 10 U.S.C. 3702(a)(1) reaches a prime awarded other than by sealed bid that is only expected to receive one bid. The deviated DFARS 215.403-3(a) drops that condition and applies $10 million to any DoD prime expected to exceed it and awarded after June 30, 2026, unless an exception at FAR 15.403-2 or DFARS 215.403-71 applies. Do not treat the statutory qualifier as a shield.
• Your old contract does not keep its old dollar figure, and the figure depends on who bought. The award date fixes the tier and FAR 1.109(d) applies the adjusted threshold for the remaining term, so a 2016 civilian contract works from $950,000. A 2016 DoD contract works from $2.5 million, because the deviated DFARS 215.403-3(a) replaces the FAR threshold paragraph, unless your contract states otherwise, which some do. Check yours. Get the figure from your contracting officer in writing. And if your DoD prime predates July 1, 2018, 10 U.S.C. 3702(f) requires the agency to modify it, without consideration, to reflect the current prime-contract and modification thresholds in 3702(a)(1) and (a)(2). Its civilian counterpart at 41 U.S.C. 3502(f) is narrower and works only on the contractor’s request. It reaches paragraphs (a)(2)(B) and (a)(3)(B), and because the modification figure is $750,000 either way, the only figure that actually moves is the subcontract one. Ask for it as the FAR administers it: FAR 15.403-4(a)(3) directs the contracting officer to modify the contract, without consideration, to a $2.5 million subcontract threshold, not the statute’s $2,000,000. The prime-contract threshold is left alone.
• Five FAR exceptions is a floor, not a list, and DoD adds more. Deviated DFARS 215.403-71(a)(5) exempts nontraditional defense contractors unless waived by a written HCA determination, which is delegable no lower than the senior contracting official and must be reported to the congressional defense committees within 60 days. Per 10 U.S.C. 3014 that definition turns on whether you have performed a DoD contract under full CAS coverage in the preceding year, so check it against your own history rather than assuming. 215.403-71(a)(2) separately excludes indirect-offset data. Of the five FAR exceptions, two have teeth that go unread. Adequate price competition is a three-prong test that every agency uses, and only buyers other than DoD, NASA and the Coast Guard get a second route besides it. The commercial-modification exception is capped for DoD, NASA and Coast Guard buys at the greater of the threshold or 5 percent of award price.
• The knowing-violation penalty under the FAR is measured by the overpayment, not the overstatement. The False Claims Act sits on top of that, not inside it: a per-claim civil penalty plus treble damages, on a “knowing” standard that expressly requires no proof of specific intent to defraud.
• Cite carefully in 2026. The FAR Overhaul renumbered Part 15: the threshold moved to 15.403-3 and 15.403-4 is now the Certificate. A citation written against the codified numbering points any reader on the Overhaul text at a different rule, and that is not only a DoD problem: civilian agencies began adopting the model Part 15 text before DoD did.

Amerifusion Bookkeeping provides CPA-managed cost proposal support, certified cost or pricing data preparation, and pre-certification sweeps for contractors working on either side of the threshold split. Run your Compliance Readiness Check to see where your documentation stands, or book a discovery call to talk through your portfolio before your next sole-source certification.