Period of Performance (PoP)
The period of performance is the span in which the contractor is bound to perform — base period plus exercised options. For services funded with annual appropriations, its length is bounded by the fiscal-year rules at FAR 32.703-3 and FAR 37.106.
The period of performance sets when work may start and when it must stop, and every funding decision hangs on it. A contract funded by annual appropriations normally cannot cross fiscal years absent statutory authority (FAR 32.703-3(a)), so structure follows money: a base period matched to the appropriation, then option periods.
Severable services get a statutory carve-out. Under 10 U.S.C. 3133 and 41 U.S.C. 3902, implemented at FAR 32.703-3(b) and 37.106, an agency may award a severable-services period that starts in one fiscal year and ends in the next, provided the period does not exceed one year (measured without counting options), and may fund the whole period from the first year's appropriation.
The practitioner traps are lapse and stretch. Let the period expire before an option is exercised and there is no live contract left to extend; adding time by modification to finish late work raises scope and fiscal-law questions. The five-year services cap at FAR 17.204(e) sits over the whole structure.
Regulatory Reference
FAR 37.106; FAR 32.703-3; 10 U.S.C. 3133; 41 U.S.C. 3902
RFO Status
The one-year severable-services authority is statutory and carries through the overhaul; the Part 37 model deviation restates it, but section numbers shift in the rewritten parts, so verify cites against your agency's adopted deviation text.
Category
Processes & Methods
How AcqBot Helps
AcqBot checks each planned period of performance against its funding — severable terms running past one year, options that would breach the five-year services cap — and flags contracts whose periods will lapse before a renewal action is ready.
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