On Friday, May 2, the U.S. government announced further steps in its much-discussed plan to re-write the FAR by establishing a “Revolutionary FAR Overhaul” (“RFO”) website on Acquisition.gov, issuing written guidance to federal agencies, and releasing proposed revisions to FAR Part 1 – Federal Acquisition Regulation System and Part 34 – Major System Acquisition.  This activity comes on the heels of recent presidential directives requiring agencies to examine and reform their approach to procurement of goods and services, including Executive Order (“E.O.”) 14275, “Restoring Common Sense To Federal Procurement,” and E.O. 14271, “Ensuring Commercial, Cost-Effective Solutions in Federal Contracts.”

As anticipated, the FAR re-write is spearheaded by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (“OFPP”) within the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) and the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (“FAR Council”).  The RFO website proclaims that the re-write is “the first-ever comprehensive overhaul of the FAR” and aims to “return the FAR to its statutory roots, rewritten in plain language, and remove most non-statutory rules.”  It also will result in “non-regulatory buying guides [to] provide practical strategies grounded in common sense while remaining outside the FAR.”  In short, the goal is characterized as “faster acquisitions, greater competition, and better results.”

To begin its process of “streamlining and deregulation,” the FAR Council will be issuing revised FAR Parts and Agency Deviations on a “rolling basis.”  As of May 2, the RFO website posted “streamlined” versions of FAR Part 1 and Part 34, with a corresponding GSA Class Deviation and Line Out Document reflecting text proposed for removal for each Part.  The RFO website expressly does not provide a crosswalk or other comprehensive document reflecting the changes between the existing FAR and the newly proposed FAR Parts.  The RFO website welcomes “informal input” on the revised versions of these FAR Parts by September 30, 2025 at noon ET.  Specifically, the FAR Council seeks input on (1) areas that need refinement and (2) any potential unintended consequences.  Although the FAR Council will not respond to the submitted feedback, such feedback may be considered in the forthcoming rulemaking process.   

Separately, aspects of the current FAR that OFPP deems “helpful non-regulatory content” are expected to be migrated to so-called “buying guides,” which are intended to capture best practices for acquisition streamlining and innovation.  Together, the revised FAR and new “buying guides” are defined as the Strategic Acquisition Guidance (“SAG”).

Aside from E.O. 14275 and its corresponding Fact Sheet, the RFO website cites two guidance documents that the Administration simultaneously issued on May 2, 2025:

1. a memorandum from OMB Director Russell Vought to executive departments and agencies (the “OMB Memo”); and
2. a memorandum entitled “Deviation Guidance to Support the Overhaul of the Federal Acquisition Regulation” (the “Deviation Guidance Memo”).

OMB Memo

The OMB Memo reiterates the goal of “refocusing” the FAR “on its statutory roots” and contains an Appendix detailing a “roadmap of actions to implement [E.O. 14275].”  These actions include publishing “a dedicated site” on Acquisition.gov – presumably the new RFO website – to keep contractors and the public apprised of SAG development and “plain language versions of individual FAR parts,” as well as “buying guides with innovative procurement techniques for different phases of the acquisition lifecycle and strategies for specific categories of spend prior to formal rulemaking.” 

Further, the OMB Memo explains that the FAR will be “streamlined” to remove “unnecessary regulation and policy,” through a phased approach moving from the issuance of deviation guidance to a formal notice-and-comment rulemaking process.  Agencies are similarly directed to “streamline their FAR supplements to minimize regulations that are not based in statute or executive order,”[1] to identify federal buying best practices, and to test new deviations or buying guide strategy initiatives.  Although the legal effect of such “buying guides” is not specifically addressed in the OMB Memo or on the RFO website, such subregulatory guidance presumably will reflect the government’s priorities and interpretations of regulations and therefore may well be highly influential, even if not formally binding.

Finally, the Federal Acquisition Institute and Defense Acquisition University – two federal acquisition training entities – are directed to collaborate with the FAR Council “to develop modernized training based upon the FAR Council’s deviation guidance and the buying guides as they become available.”

Deviation Guidance Memo

Deviations are used to implement new and time-sensitive acquisition policy changes on a temporary basis pending formal notice-and-comment rulemaking, and in this regard the Deviation Guidance Memo appears to be aligned.  The main difference here is scope: whereas deviations traditionally have been used relatively sparingly and in a targeted manner, the Deviation Guidance Memo contemplates deploying deviations broadly to match the ambition of the RFO announcement.  In giving effect to this approach, the Deviation Guidance Memo provides the following four pieces of guidance, with the aim of supporting agencies to develop their own class deviations to implement the FAR Council’s rolling class deviations for each revised FAR Part:

1. Agencies should generally issue their specific class deviations within 30 days from the release of the FAR Council’s class deviation on Acquisition.gov and should ensure these deviations are communicated throughout their workforce “to enable consistent implementation.” 
2. The agency’s required level of coordination with the FAR Council will vary depending on the extent to which the agency’s proposed deviation varies from the FAR Council’s text.  For instance, a wholesale adoption of the FAR Council’s class deviation text need not involve FAR Council coordination.  Conversely, where an agency issues a deviation that differs from the FAR Council’s text for a reason other than “to address agency-specific statutory direction,” the agency must request FAR Council approval by providing the proposed language and a corresponding explanation to a FAR Council contact.  Moreover, during the pendency of the overhaul agencies should “limit the issuance of class deviations that are unrelated to the [overhaul], except where required to implement executive, statutory, or new Council direction.”
3. Agencies should transmit their class deviations to the FAR Secretariat to be posted on the RFO website.
4. Finally, agencies should “make their class deviations effective until implemented in the FAR,” to account for the anticipated notice-and-comment rulemaking process to be conducted by the FAR Council once all streamlined FAR Parts have been released.

Although E.O. 14275 reflects that the FAR should be reformed to “support simplicity and usability,” in the short- and medium-term there remains significant uncertainty about the scope and timeline of this overhaul.  Although E.O. 14275 directs that “appropriate actions to amend the FAR” be taken within 180 days of the order (by October 12, 2025), the timeline on which the FAR Council is collecting informal input for the first two streamlined Parts (by September 30, 2025) indicates that this process may extend well beyond that date to complete notice-and-comment rulemaking addressing all 53 Parts of the FAR.  In the meantime, the FAR re-write appears certain to have concrete impacts on federal contractors as they navigate an evolving terrain of deviations and revised regulations at all stages of the procurement process.

[1] The OMB Memo’s reference to “statute or executive order” (emphasis added) is broader than EO 14275’s exclusive focus on the statutory basis for FAR regulations.  This appears to reflect a view by OMB that the Executive Orders issued by the President should be accorded equal weight as statutes for purposes of the FAR re-write.