Buying Faster than the Enemy Act of 2025

Summary

Makes the Department of Defense buy faster and more like commercial buyers. It creates enduring open solicitations and consortia to attract nontraditional vendors, changes rules so DoD treats products and services as commercial by default, limits which defense-unique clauses must flow down to subcontractors, and raises the limit on advance contract payments from 15% to 30%. Also requires the Pentagon to keep narrow lists of defense-unique statutory clauses that apply to commercial buys, lets competitively chosen firms get follow-on sole-source awards, and directs the use of faster acquisition pathways where practical.

• Default presumption that DoD acquisitions are commercial and should use commercial procedures and open-topic solicitations.
• DoD must create enduring open solicitations for major commands and labs and prefer faster acquisition pathways for resulting efforts.
• Creates at least five consortium-based acquisition vehicles to bring nontraditional contractors into DoD prototype and production work.
• Limits mandatory flowdown of defense-unique contract clauses to subcontractors for commercial products and services, with a statutory exceptions list.
• Requires DFARS to maintain three narrow lists of defense-unique provisions that may apply to commercial contracts, subcontracts, and COTS buys.
• Allows competitively selected recipients to receive follow-on sole-source awards without additional justification.
• Raises the cap on allowable advance payments from 15% to 30% of contract price.
• Requires written, approved justification when a contracting officer determines an item is noncommercial and preserves first-tier reseller protections.