Where the FAR Overhaul Stands — August 2026

The Revolutionary FAR Overhaul moved from planning into formal rulemaking this summer. For anyone tracking acquisition policy, the practical question is no longer whether the FAR gets rewritten, but which parts have published and when they take effect.

Where things stand

On 23 June 2026 the FAR Council published four proposed rules in the Federal Register covering 20 FAR parts. The comment window was 30 days and closed on 23 July 2026. The Council has stated it intends to issue twelve proposed rules in total, which means the June batch is roughly a third of the way through the rewrite by volume — and that several heavily used parts, including 8, 12, 16, and 19, are still in later batches.

The Council has indicated it expects to finalize the overhaul rules, including the revised CUI requirements, before the end of 2026.

Why it matters for cost and pricing work

Two things are worth watching. First, the overhaul is being run in parallel with model deviation text, so in practice agencies may be operating against deviation language before a final rule lands — which means citation hygiene matters more than usual right now. Second, this is happening alongside the Department of War redesignation and the transition from the Defense Acquisition System to the Warfighting Acquisition System. Three renaming and restructuring efforts overlapping means source documents will disagree with each other for a while. When precision matters, pull from the issuing authority rather than a mirror or a summary.

Update, 21 September 2026

The second batch has landed, and it overtakes the paragraph above. On 18 September 2026 the FAR Council published four more proposed rules, all with comments due 19 October 2026:

FAR Case 2026-003 (RIN 9000-AO88, 91 FR 59406) — Parts 8, 12, 13, 15, 38, 44, 51 and 52. FAR Case 2026-006 (RIN 9000-AO91, 91 FR 59476) — Parts 16, 17 and 35. FAR Case 2026-010 (RIN 9000-AO83, 91 FR 59534) — Parts 14, 28, 36 and 52. FAR Case 2026-011 (RIN 9000-AO84, 91 FR 59584) — Parts 9, 27, 47 and 52.

That resolves three of the four parts this post had flagged as still to come: 8, 12 and 16 are now out for comment, and Part 15 came with them. Part 19 has still not published. The acquisition.gov overhaul hub footer moved to Last Updated 09/18/2026 in step with the batch, and the FAR Companion remains at Version 2. Separate posts on this site cover the Part 16 contract type changes, the Part 15 source selection changes, the 52.216-7 incurred cost submission changes, the Part 27 SBIR/STTR data rights rewrite, and the proposed removal of subpart 9.6.

Primary sources

Federal Register, FAR Overhaul Parts 5, 24, and 29 (23 June 2026) — federalregister.gov. Federal Register, FAR Overhaul proposed rules of 18 September 2026, FR documents 2026-19158, 2026-19159, 2026-19160 and 2026-19162. FAR Overhaul model deviation text — acquisition.gov. Open FAR cases — acq.osd.mil.