Six months into the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO), the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and the FAR Council report the FAR text has been reduced 25%, eliminating 484 pages and 2,724 "must-do" requirements. The overhaul gives acquisition officers greater flexibility to make judgment-based decisions. Coverage from Acquisition.gov, Wolters Kluwer, and The Coalition for Government Procurement.
How agencies are absorbing the changes
Agencies are adopting the overhaul through rolling class deviations, which lets them test changes early before formal FAR revisions. GSA has now published deviations for all FAR parts. The result: transitional differences between agencies until the formal rulemaking lands in FY2026.
Major structural shifts
- Part 4 reduced ~50%; security-related content moved to a new Part 40
- Significant restructuring of Parts 4, 6, 10, 18, and 48
- EO 14275 ("Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement") set the framework
What this means in practice
- More CO discretion = more variability across agency procurements
- Compliance teams should track agency-by-agency class deviations, not just FAR text
- Phase 2 (formal proposed rules) will require public-comment engagement during FY26
What to do
- Re-baseline your contract templates against the most recent class deviations from your top buyer agencies
- Train your CO-facing teams on the new judgment-based decision framework
- File comments on FY26 proposed rules — early industry input shapes the formal revision