Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS)
The Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) is the Department of Defense's implementation and supplementation of the FAR, codified at 48 CFR Chapter 2, issued under the authority of the Secretary of Defense, and paired with the non-regulatory PGI companion.
DFARS 201.301 draws a hard line on content: requirements of law, DoD-wide policies, delegations of FAR authorities, deviations from FAR requirements, and policies with significant effect beyond DoD's internal operations or significant cost or administrative impact on contractors. Material below that threshold goes to the Procedures, Guidance, and Information (PGI), a companion document outside the regulation itself.
The numbering tracks the FAR with a 200-series prefix, and Part 252 carries the DoD solicitation provisions and contract clauses. On a defense contract the FAR and DFARS operate as one set: the solicitation pulls clauses from both, and reading either without the other misses half the requirements.
Two traps recur. Guidance that once sat in the regulation may now live in the PGI; and since December 2025 the operative text of many parts sits in RFO class deviations rather than codified Chapter 2, so the deviation check comes before the citation.
Regulatory Reference
48 CFR chapter 2; DFARS 201.301
RFO Status
DoD ran the overhaul on its own book in parallel, issuing class deviations 2026-O0002 through 2026-O0050 from December 18, 2025 through March 2026 to adopt RFO text and revise DFARS parts, so check the deviation before citing codified Chapter 2 text.
Category
Regulations & Policy
How AcqBot Helps
AcqBot layers the DFARS and PGI over the FAR baseline for defense actions, building clause sets from both books and flagging where an RFO class deviation has replaced the codified text your template still cites.
Related glossary entries
Class Deviation
A class deviation authorizes an agency to depart from specific FAR or supplement provisions for a category of contract actions rather than a single case — the mechanism agencies are using to implement the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul ahead of formal rulemaking.
Commercial Products and Services (FAR Part 12)
Commercial products and commercial services are items of a type sold, leased, licensed, or offered in the commercial marketplace, defined at FAR 2.101. FAR Part 12 implements the statutory preference for buying them whenever market research shows they can meet the agency's need.
Rule of Two
The rule of two directs a contracting officer to set aside an acquisition for small business when there is a reasonable expectation of receiving offers from at least two responsible small business concerns and making award at fair market prices, per FAR 19.502-2.
Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)
Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) is information the government creates or possesses, or that an entity handles on its behalf, that a law, regulation, or governmentwide policy requires safeguarding or dissemination controls for — sensitive but not classified, governed by 32 CFR Part 2002.