This two part article, "The Substantial Impact Of The Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act On Federal Procurement Law," published in THE GOVERNMENT CONTRACTOR, provides a comprehensive examination of the wide-ranging procurement law changes introduced by the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (FY 2026 NDAA).
Key highlights from our analysis include:
- The FY 2026 NDAA contains an unprecedented number of procurement-related provisions, with 81 provisions spread across Titles VIII and XVIII, and additional relevant changes in other titles.
- The FY 2026 NDAA’s major themes include:
- Reorienting the acquisition process to emphasize speed, best value, and weapons system readiness
- Supply chain security
- Strengthening the defense industrial base and reducing barriers to entry for nontraditional defense contractors
- Streamlining the acquisition process by strengthening commercial buying
- Enhanced focus on technology and cybersecurity
- The FY 2026 NDAA reflects the continued bipartisan and bicameral focus on China.
- Many provisions require regulatory implementation, which will take time to fully realize.
The FY 2026 NDAA, signed into law on December 18, 2025, continues a decades-long tradition of annual defense policy legislation, authorizing $900.6 billion for defense—$8 billion above the president's request.
Consistent with the administration’s actions through Executive Orders over the last year, the FY 2026 NDAA took aim at the entire acquisition process with a focus on speed, best value, and weapon system readiness (§ 1801). The FY 2026 NDAA makes some major organizational moves, including creating Portfolio Acquisition Executives (§ 1802) and elevating and empowering the Product Support Manager (§ 1803). It also takes steps to streamline the acquisition process by strengthening commercial buying (§§ 1821–25, 1827, 1828), deleting dozens of acquisition provisions that are out of date or no longer applicable (§ 811), and increasing key acquisition thresholds (§§ 1804, 1806). The FY 2026 NDAA reduces burdens on contractors by requiring DOD to consider a wider range of past performance examples (§ 824), limiting flow downs for commercial product and services contracts (§1824), and exempting nontraditional defense contractors from cost accounting standard compliance (§1826).
Industrial base and supply chain are among the FY 2026 NDAA’s most prominent themes in terms of the number of provisions, focusing on strengthening investments in the industrial base and expanding sources of production (§§ 832, 867, 914, 1841, 1847), contested logistics and supply chains (§§ 334, 833, 871, 872), and prohibiting purchases from and/or certain interactions with entities in China, Russia, North Korea, and/or Iran (§§ 843, 844, 847, 848, 850, 1692 & Title LXXXV).
Technology is a growing focus of recent NDAAs, with this year’s NDAA focusing on advanced manufacturing (§§ 221, 225, 1842, 1846), Cybersecurity (§§ 228, 866, 1513) and artificial intelligence (AI) (§§ 347, 350, 1512, 1532).
The FY 2026 NDAA’s themes are a continuation of those in recent NDAAs and are largely driven by the bipartisan and bicameral focus on China.
The full impact of these changes will unfold as regulations are updated and practices are adapted across the defense acquisition system.
Click the PDF below to read the article authored by Melissa P. Prusock, Michael J. Schaengold, Paul F. McQuade, Eleanor M. Ross, and Jordan N. Malone.