Federal contractors will no longer have to ask job applicants and employees whether they have a disability, and they will no longer have to track whether people with disabilities make up at least 7% of the workers in each job group. A final rule from the Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) rescinding those Section 503 requirements takes effect Monday, September 21, 2026. The bulk of the rule wipes out a disability-data regime that contractors have run for years, though one narrow amendment does not kick in until December 21, 2026.
What the Rule Repeals: Self-ID Forms and the 7% Goal
The rule strikes 41 CFR 60-741.42, the provision that required contractors to invite applicants and employees to voluntarily self-identify as individuals with disabilities at the pre-offer, post-offer, and periodic stages of employment. Along with it goes the Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability Form, known as Form CC-305, which OFCCP is formally discontinuing. Contractors will no longer have to hand that form to every incoming worker or file it away.
Two related obligations fall with it. The data-collection requirement at 41 CFR 60-741.44(k), which told contractors what to do with the disability responses they collected, is eliminated. So is the utilization-goal and workforce-analysis requirement at 41 CFR 60-741.45 — the rule that had contractors compare the share of people with disabilities in each job group against OFCCP's longstanding 7% benchmark and document a plan when they fell short. Contractors do not have to run that math, or the underlying analysis, anymore. Only the amendment touching 41 CFR part 60-30 is held back to December 21, 2026; every other change in the rule is live this coming Monday.
Why DOL Says the Self-ID Mandate Had to Go
OFCCP's own preamble grounds the rescission in a specific legal finding, not just executive-order housekeeping. DOL concluded that the disability-inquiry requirement and the utilization goal built on top of it were themselves inconsistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which bars employers from requiring most disability disclosures. The final rule also ties the change to two executive orders: DOL wrote that the revisions align the regulations with applicable law and recent executive orders, including Executive Order 14173, "Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity," and Executive Order 14219, "Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President's `Department of Government Efficiency' Deregulatory Initiative." The rule followed a notice of proposed rulemaking DOL issued July 1, 2025, and was published in the Federal Register on August 21, 2026, about a month before contractors have to comply with it.
Contractor Counsel Sees a Broader Pattern
Employment counsel at PilieroMazza framed the rescission as one entry in a longer run of OFCCP deregulatory action, not an isolated change. Attorney Sara N. Strosser wrote in a client alert: "Effective September 21, 2026, a final rule adopted by the United States Department of Labor (DOL)'s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) will eliminate several compliance requirements under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 503). This follows a pattern of recent final rules issued by the OFCCP signaling the dismantling of protections afforded to minorities, women, and now, individuals with disabilities."
What Still Applies Under Section 503
The rescission does not touch Section 503's core anti-discrimination and recordkeeping duties, which still bind contractors holding contracts worth $20,000 or more. Contractors with 50 or more employees and a contract of $50,000 or more still must maintain a written Affirmative Action Program, but those AAPs now have to be rewritten to strip out the utilization analyses and any data drawn from CC-305 responses that the old rule required. Contractors cannot simply leave the outdated sections in place; the analysis itself is no longer authorized, let alone required.
Two obligations outside Section 503 are unaffected by this rule. VEVRAA's separate veteran self-identification requirements continue to apply on their own statutory footing and were not part of this rescission. And any state or local law that independently requires disability-data reporting from contractors — apart from anything OFCCP enforces — still applies; this rule only reaches the federal Section 503 regulations.
What It Means for Contractors
Contractors covered by Section 503 should pull Form CC-305 out of onboarding packets and applicant portals before Monday, since OFCCP has discontinued the form and the regulation that required distributing it. Human resources teams that built intake workflows, HRIS fields, or applicant-tracking-system prompts around the self-ID invitation should retire those steps rather than leave them running on a rule that no longer exists.
Contractors with 50 or more employees and a $50,000-plus contract need to open their current Affirmative Action Program and remove the utilization-goal analysis tied to the 7% benchmark and any workforce comparisons built on CC-305 data, since 41 CFR 60-741.45 no longer requires — or authorizes — that section. That does not mean the AAP goes away; the anti-discrimination and recordkeeping obligations under Section 503 remain in force for contracts of $20,000 or more, so contractors should keep the rest of the plan intact and simply excise the rescinded pieces.
Contractors should not extend this change to veteran hiring. VEVRAA self-identification and its own affirmative-action-program thresholds are untouched by this rule, so any parallel move to drop veteran self-ID forms would go beyond what OFCCP actually rescinded. Contractors operating in states or localities with independent disability-data-reporting mandates should also confirm those obligations survive, since this rule reaches only OFCCP's federal Section 503 regulations. Because the part 60-30 amendment does not take effect until December 21, 2026, compliance teams should track that date separately rather than assuming every piece of the rule lands on September 21.
Given the broader deregulatory pattern PilieroMazza flagged in OFCCP's recent rulemakings, contractors should treat their entire affirmative-action compliance calendar as due for a review this fall rather than patching Section 503 in isolation.
