The Federal Acquisition Regulation clause that once required an incoming contractor to offer you your job back now reads, in its entirety: 52.222-17 [Reserved]. So does the whole subpart telling contracting officers when to insert it, checked at FAC 2026-01, effective 03/13/2026: FAR 52.222-17, FAR Subpart 22.12. If you went looking for what the winner of your recompete owes you personally, that is it.

What was the right of first refusal, and why did it never apply?

Short answer: a duty on the successor company, never a right a worker held, and it never took effect.

Executive Order 14055, signed November 18, 2021, prescribed the clause. Read its operative paragraph to the end. The contractor “shall … in good faith offer service employees … a right of first refusal of employment,” and the very next sentence lets that same contractor “determine the number of employees necessary for efficient performance” and “employ more or fewer employees than the predecessor contractor employed … solely on the basis of that determination.” Paragraph (b) then dropped the duty altogether toward anyone who is not an SCA “service employee,” excluding much of the cleared professional workforce. Section 12(c) closed the other end: the order “does not … create any right or benefit … enforceable at law or in equity by any party against … any other person.” A preference on a headcount the winner set alone, that nobody could sue on.

It never switched on by its own terms. Section 11 applied the order only “to solicitations issued on or after the effective date of the final regulations issued by the FAR Council,” agencies merely “strongly encouraged” to use it meanwhile. Those regulations never came, and the Labor Department’s final rule of December 22, 2025 says so: the FAR Council “never promulgated regulations … the Department’s rule effectively never became applicable. The Department is unaware of any solicitations that incorporated the provisions …” Unaware is not the same as none: an agency that took the encouragement could have written the clause into a live contract, and there it would bind. The order ran to revocation on January 20, 2025 by EO 14148: 1,159 days, by our subtraction of the two signing dates. Four orders since 2009 created, killed, revived and killed it, and nothing prevents a fifth.

What actually transfers when the contract changes hands?

Does the successor have to keep paying the old rate?

Short answer: the floor is the contract’s wage determination, not your salary, attaching to the job, not to you.

One gate sits above all of it. Under 29 CFR 4.156 a “service employee” “does not include persons employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity,” and the Act reaches nobody else. High pay alone does not exempt you: DOL names “laboratory technicians, draftsmen, and air ambulance pilots” as ordinarily covered because they fail the duties tests in 29 CFR part 541. But those tests include 541.601, which deems an office or non-manual employee with total annual compensation of at least $107,432 exempt if they customarily and regularly perform any one exempt executive, administrative or professional duty.

29 CFR 4.163(a), past the convenient stopping point: the successor’s “sole obligation is to insure that all service employees are paid no less than the wages and fringe benefits to which such employees would have been entitled if employed under the predecessor’s collective bargaining agreement (i.e., irrespective of whether the successor’s employees were or were not employed by the predecessor contractor).” It “does not extend to other items such as seniority, grievance procedures, work rules, overtime, etc.”

The rate follows the seat: a successor can fill it with a stranger, pay the bargained rate, and comply. Section 4(c) reaches a successor contract over $2,500 only where it furnishes “substantially the same services … in the same locality” (29 CFR 4.1b(a), 4.163(i)), though it does survive a company winning its own recompete. Where predecessor contracts are consolidated, only the agreement covering “the greater portion of the work” carries over under 4.163(g); the smaller predecessors’ bargained rates are extinguished. None of it holds a salary above a labor category ceiling, covered in labor category mapping.

Two things switch that bargained floor off; one much-quoted thing does not. Paragraph (f) makes section 4(c) “operative only if” predecessor employees were actually paid under a collective bargaining agreement. No union contract, no bargained rate, which is not the same as no floor: under 29 CFR 4.161 and 4.162(a) every covered contract over $2,500 must specify wages and fringe benefits at “prevailing rates for such employees in the locality” where no predecessor agreement applies, and 4.163(d) confirms a missing agreement “does not negate the application of a prevailing wage determination issued pursuant to section 2(a).” Ask for the wage determination incorporated in the successor contract; being paid below it is a Wage and Hour complaint. Second, the proviso in paragraph (a) lets the Secretary of Labor cancel bargained rates after a hearing finding them “substantially at variance with those which prevail … in the locality.” What does not switch it off is the variation at 29 CFR 4.1b(b), which defeats only a new or changed agreement consummated during the predecessor’s performance and notified to the agency too late, and only where the contracting officer gave the incumbent and the union 30 days’ notice. An existing bargained floor is untouched (see SCA wage determinations).

What else survives the handover?

Short answer: a conditional seniority list, portable vacation credit, and WARN notice if your employer is big enough.

FAR 52.222-41(n) is conditional three times over, and the conditions sit ahead of the clause people quote. The duty runs “not less than 10 days prior to completion of any contract being performed at a Federal facility where service employees may be retained … and subject to a wage determination which contains vacation or other benefit provisions based upon length of service.” In a contractor-owned SCIF, or under a determination with no length-of-service benefit, no list is owed at all. Where one is owed, the incumbent prime sends the contracting officer a certified list of names and anniversary dates for the successor. Note what is absent: any entitlement for you to see it. Keep your own dated record of hire.

Vacation credit rides along. Under 29 CFR 4.173(a)(1), an employer counts service with the successor plus time “in the continuous service of any predecessor contractor(s) who carried out similar contract functions at the same Federal facility.” Three limits sit below it, each fatal alone: (a)(3) excludes prior federal service, (a)(4) withdraws portability where the determination reads “with an employer” rather than with a contractor or successor, and (b)(2) makes quitting or a firing for cause a break in service. The same section carries DOL’s qualitative finding that for many service contracts “a successor contractor will utilize the employees of the previous contractor,” a regulatory premise rather than a measured retention rate. Treat any rehire percentage you are quoted with suspicion.

WARN notice runs from your employer, never from the agency you support: governments are not covered employers, and contract employees “who have a separate employment relationship with another employer” are not affected employees of the business they serve. Under 20 CFR 639.3 the employer needs 100 or more employees excluding part-timers, or 100 including them if they aggregate at least 4,000 hours a week; a plant closing needs 50 or more employment losses at one site in 30 days; a mass layoff, 33 percent of active employees and at least 50, unless 500 or more are affected. Every threshold counts “employment losses,” defined narrowly at 639.3(f): a termination other than discharge for cause, voluntary departure or retirement; a layoff exceeding six months; or a cut of more than half your hours in each month of a six-month period. A five-month bench is not one; neither is an offered transfer within reasonable commuting distance with no more than a six-month break. And 20 CFR 639.9(b)(1), which names “a principal client’s sudden and unexpected termination of a major contract” as a circumstance shortening notice, covers only circumstances “not reasonably foreseeable at the time that 60-day notice would have been required,” its indicator “some sudden, dramatic, and unexpected action or condition outside the employer’s control.” A scheduled end date lost on a recompete your employer bid is none of those; the employer bears the burden of proof.

What happens to your clearance the day the contract ends?

Short answer: access ends, collateral eligibility usually does not. SCI and SAP are decided separately.

32 CFR 117.10(h) is the reciprocity engine: an eligibility determination based on an investigation meeting or exceeding the scope needed “will provide the basis for a new eligibility determination,” used “without further investigation or adjudication unless the CSA becomes aware of significant derogatory information that was not previously adjudicated.” That engine carries collateral eligibility only. Paragraph (a)(8) holds SCI, SAP, RD and FRD outside it: access to each “is a determination made … by the applicable USG granting authority for each category of information.” A TS/SCI holder can be cleared reciprocally at the collateral level and still sit unbillable while the gaining program runs its own determination.

Paragraph (j) is the one people misread. Subparagraph (j)(1) permits access after a break in employment, on CSA guidance, provided you remain eligible and hold a current investigation of sufficient scope. Subparagraph (j)(2) then forbids access to anyone whose break “resulted in a loss of eligibility” absent a new CSA determination. Quote (j)(1) alone and you have promised what the regulation withholds. Note what is not here: no 24-month window, no numeric clock at all. Whatever states that figure, it is not this rule; see the 24-month clock.

The successor is constrained too. It must determine that access “is essential in the performance of tasks or services related to the fulfillment of a classified contract,” may not build “a cache of cleared employees,” and may not sponsor anyone who is not its own employee or consultant. One clock you may be quoted does not run against you: paragraph (f) is permissive and pre-employment. It lets a contractor request an investigation before your start date if it has made a written offer you accepted in writing, and its 45 days run from the grant of eligibility, not from the offer. An incumbent who already holds current eligibility is on the (h) reciprocity path instead: see moving a clearance to a new contractor.

Where does a job board actually help here, and where does it not?

We run ClearedJobs.NET, so treat this with the skepticism it deserves. The strongest channel in a transition is incumbent capture: the winner has seats to fill and its recruiters come to you first. Second is internal: your FSO knows whether your access is ending or transferring, your program manager which labor categories survived. Both beat any job search, ours included; re-badging 60 cleared people in 30 days shows the other side. A board earns its place when the rebadge offer does not arrive, when the successor’s headcount is lower than the predecessor’s (which EO 14055 expressly permitted), or when your category is not on the new staffing plan. Then work the award data, not the listings: reading a DoD contract award. This is general information about published regulations, not legal advice; WARN and SCA questions belong with an employment lawyer or DOL’s Wage and Hour Division.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there any right of first refusal on a federal service contract in 2026?

No. FAR 52.222-17 and Subpart 22.12 read [Reserved] at FAC 2026-01 (eff. 03/13/2026). EO 14055 was revoked January 20, 2025; 29 CFR part 9 removed effective December 22, 2025.

Does the incoming contractor have to match my current salary?

No. Two floors may apply, neither of them your salary. Every SCA-covered contract over $2,500 carries a wage determination at prevailing locality rates. Where a predecessor collective bargaining agreement covered substantially the same services in the same locality and employees were actually paid under it, section 4(c) makes the bargained rates the floor instead.

Do I keep my clearance if I am not rebadged?

Your collateral eligibility and investigation generally persist while access is administratively terminated. But under 32 CFR 117.10(j)(2), a break in employment that resulted in a loss of eligibility cannot be cured by the next employer without a new CSA determination. SCI and SAP access is decided separately by each granting authority under 117.10(a)(8).

Does the government have to give me notice before my contract ends?

The agency you support is not your employer and is not a covered employer under WARN. Notice runs from the company that pays you, and only if the thresholds in 20 CFR 639.3 are met and what happens to you is an “employment loss” as that section defines it.

The four-order pattern since 2009 says a nondisplacement clause will be tried again. Until then what travels is the wage determination, a seniority list you never see, your vacation anniversary date and your clearance eligibility. So on the day the recompete is announced, ask your FSO in writing whether your access ends or transfers, which labor category you sit in on the successor’s plan, and for the wage determination in the follow-on contract. Under 32 CFR 117.10(a)(7) the winner cannot request a clearance for anyone who is not its own employee or consultant, and under the current FAR nobody has to offer you a job.