On 16 July 2026 the Office of Management and Budget concluded three OFCCP paperwork actions. One renewed the Section 503 recordkeeping collection, OMB control 1250-0005, without change, pushing its expiration from 31 July 2026 to 31 July 2029. Two were discontinuations: control 1250-0003, the “Supply and Service Program” collection behind the scheduling letter that opens a routine compliance evaluation, and control 1250-0001, OFCCP’s construction recordkeeping collection. Same day. Opposite directions.

Read the renewal precisely. What OMB extended for three years is a collection, not a duty: 29 U.S.C. 793 and 41 CFR part 60-741 carry no expiration date, and OMB has no power to lapse them. The obligation is intact; the instrument that used to knock on the door has, on the paperwork record, been withdrawn. Nothing says the three actions were decided together, so treat any intent as our reading.

Why did Section 503 survive when Executive Order 11246 did not?

Because it is an act of Congress. Executive Order 14173 revoked EO 11246 outright on 21 January 2025. Section 503 lives at 29 U.S.C. 793, enacted in 1973, and the text of EO 14173 never mentions Section 503 or the Rehabilitation Act. It does order OFCCP to “immediately cease… Holding Federal contractors and subcontractors responsible for taking ‘affirmative action’,” and nothing there confines that to EO 11246. Read at its own scope it binds the agency, not you: it changes what OFCCP does, not what the statute requires of a contractor. A President can stand an agency down; he cannot repeal its statute, the reasoning that also saved VEVRAA and the mandatory job listing. The EO 11246 regulations are still printed in the CFR, parts 60-1 and 60-2 unreserved as of 1 July 2026. Orphaned, not deleted.

Which contracts does Section 503 actually cover?

Contracts over $20,000, and the figure in the statute is not the live one. 29 U.S.C. 793(a) and 41 CFR 60-741.4(a)(1) both still read $10,000, but 41 U.S.C. 1908 indexes acquisition thresholds to inflation. OFCCP dates the rise to $15,000 from 1 October 2010; a FAR final rule of 27 August 2025 took it to $20,000. FAR 22.1402(a) is the operative text, 22.1408(a) prescribes clause 52.222-36 at the same figure, and 52.222-36(b) flows it down to subcontracts above that threshold. Treat every contract over $10,000 as covered and you bind yourself and your subcontractors two adjustments early.

Then the provision behind this article’s title. Under 41 CFR 60-741.5(e) the equal opportunity clause “shall be considered to be a part of every contract and subcontract required by the act and the regulations in this part to include such a clause, whether or not it is physically incorporated in such contract.” Searching your contract file and finding nothing is not a defense.

Coverage is one test. Three other numbers govern other duties.

The second row is stated too narrowly almost everywhere. 41 CFR 60-741.1(b) applies the part to covered contracts generally, “Provided, That subpart C of this part applies only as described in Sec. 60-741.40.” Subpart C is where the written program, the CC-305 invitation at .42, the outreach and data duties at .44 and the 7 percent goal at .45 all sit. Under 50 employees, or under $50,000, none of what follows attaches to you. Where it applies, the program is due within 120 days of the contract commencing, reviewed annually, and must reach OFCCP within 30 days of a request, “unless the request provides for a different time,” with a separate duty to have it promptly available on-site.

What does the 7 percent utilization goal actually require?

An annual measurement, and an assessment if you fall short. Not a hire. 41 CFR 60-741.45(a) sets a goal of 7 percent for each job group, and the section opens by calling it not “a rigid and inflexible quota which must be met, nor… either a ceiling or a floor.” Quotas, it adds, “are expressly forbidden.”

Two subsections at the end are usually quoted away. Subsection (g) says a determination that you have not attained the goal “does not constitute either a finding or admission of discrimination in violation of this part.” Subsection (h) forbids using it “as a quota or ceiling that limits or restricts the employment of individuals with disabilities.” Quote paragraph (a) and stop, and you have described a quota.

A shortfall triggers 60-741.45(e): determine whether and where impediments exist, assessing personnel processes, outreach effectiveness and program audit results, “and any other areas that might affect the success of the affirmative action program.” Three named areas and an open residual, not a four-box checklist. Then action-oriented programs under (f). Nowhere does it say hire someone.

What does the self-identification invitation still require?

Three moments and a repeating cycle, and the middle one carries a deadline that gets dropped. 41 CFR 60-741.42 requires the invitation pre-offer; post-offer at any time “before the applicant begins his or her job duties,” which on a cleared req can fall months after the offer while the clearance crosses over; and to employees in the first year the contractor becomes subject to Subpart C, then at five-year intervals. At least once in the intervening years you must also remind employees they may voluntarily update their status.

The wording is not yours to write: (a)(2) requires “the language and manner prescribed by the Director,” the CC-305 form, and (a)(1) adds that the pre-offer invitation may accompany application materials but must be separate from the application. The protected veteran question has the same architecture.

Responses go in a data analysis file, never in medical files, and (d) forbids coercing anyone to self-identify. Response rates are low, so why bother? Read (f) and (g). Both open “Nothing in this section shall relieve the contractor” of affirmative action toward people “of whose disability the contractor has knowledge,” or of liability for discrimination. A low self-ID rate shrinks your data, not your duty.

The renewed collection splits in two, and the halves are not comparable. OFCCP counts an Applicant/Employee collection of 41,527,357 CC-305 responses against 1,411,955 hours, and a Contractor collection of 119,971 responses against 426,797 hours plus the entire $475,085. By our arithmetic that is about 2.0 minutes per individual response and about 3.6 hours per contractor response; dividing the combined totals gives 2.6 minutes and describes nobody. The individual side counts people across the economy, not federal contractors and not workers with disabilities. All of it is agency projection, not measurement.

One absence is worth stating plainly, because someone will fill it with a borrowed statistic. No published figure exists for disability self-identification, utilization or hiring among clearance holders specifically. A vendor quoting an economy-wide rate as though it described cleared work is extrapolating.

What records must you be able to produce?

The annual data collection analysis at 60-741.44(k) gets remembered as three or four items. It is five, kept three years: applicants who self-identified as individuals with disabilities or who are otherwise known to be individuals with disabilities; total job openings and total jobs filled; total applicants for all jobs; applicants with disabilities hired; and total applicants hired.

That second limb does real work: the count takes in people whose disability you know by other means, making the required number larger than your self-ID tally. The GovCon applicant tracking stages are the plumbing under these figures.

Outreach carries its own annual homework at 60-741.44(f)(3): review the previous twelve months of effort, document the criteria used to judge each effort and your conclusion on whether it worked, and include the paragraph (k) data for the current year and the two most recent previous years. The conclusion “must be reasonable as determined by OFCCP.” Its last sentence is the one that costs money: “If the contractor concludes the totality of its efforts were not effective in identifying and recruiting qualified individuals with disabilities, it shall identify and implement alternative efforts listed in paragraphs (f)(1) or (f)(2) of this section in order to fulfill its obligations.” An honest finding of ineffectiveness, filed and left there, is a documented violation rather than a discharged duty.

General retention is two years, one for the smaller tier in the table above. The three-year tier for the (f)(4) and (k) records has no size carve-out; it says “all contractors.” Once notice of a complaint, compliance evaluation or enforcement action arrives, 41 CFR 60-741.80(a) requires preserving all relevant records until final disposition.

The penalty for gaps gets misread in both directions. 60-741.80(c) opens flatly: failure to preserve records “constitutes noncompliance with the contractor’s obligations under the act and this part,” and noncompliance is what 60-741.66 answers with withholding, termination or debarment. The adverse inference is the softer half: there “may be a presumption” that missing material would have been unfavorable, and the sentence ends with a proviso for loss outside the contractor’s control. The gap is itself a violation whether or not the presumption is drawn. Our piece on the recruitment records you must be able to produce covers the audit side.

Does posting a cleared req satisfy the outreach obligation?

No, and since we own a clearance job board, take that answer as costing us something. 41 CFR 60-741.44(f)(2)(i) names eight source types. Six are disability-specific, from State Vocational Rehabilitation agencies to Ticket to Work Employment Networks, Centers for Independent Living and placement services specializing in candidates with disabilities. Two are not: the American Job Center is the general public workforce system, and the VA Regional Office is veteran-specific. We are none of the eight.

We are a strong channel for reaching people who already hold a TS/SCI, and a poor one, arguably the wrong one, for disability-specific outreach and the documented effectiveness assessment (f)(3) demands. “We posted it on a clearance board” is thin evidence in a file OFCCP judges for reasonableness. Build the specialist relationships separately, and keep the correspondence.

One qualification the other way, and one forgotten duty. The list is open-ended, so a sector board can sit in your record as one effort among many; it cannot be the record. And (f)(1)(ii) requires written notification of your affirmative action policy to all subcontractors, vendors and suppliers. Our guidance on where to post cleared jobs sits alongside the specialist sources, not in place of them.

What changed in July 2026, and what is still only proposed?

Instruments changed, not duties. The Section 503 collection at OMB control 1250-0005 was extended without change fifteen days before it would have lapsed. The Supply and Service Program collection at 1250-0003 and the construction recordkeeping collection at 1250-0001 were both approved for discontinuation the same day.

Be careful what you take from those two. A discontinued collection is a paperwork fact, not an announcement that evaluations have ended, that open audits are closed, or that Section 503 will go unenforced. We could not verify any OFCCP statement to that effect on 22 July 2026 (its site returns 403 to bots). The complaint route is statutory regardless: 29 U.S.C. 793(b) lets any individual with a disability file with DOL, which “shall promptly investigate.”

The rulemaking is a separate track, and it has not arrived. On 1 July 2025 OFCCP published a proposed rule at 90 FR 28494 that would remove and reserve both 60-741.42 and 60-741.45 and reserve the (k) analysis, reasoning that the utilization analysis “is dependent on the E.O. 11246 requirements, which no longer have the force of law.” Comments were scheduled to close on 2 September 2025; DOL extended them to 17 September 2025 at 90 FR 42712 and said no further extension would be granted.

Keep it conditional. No final rule has issued, and the live eCFR for 1 July 2026 shows part 60-741 in force at 35 sections, .42 and .45 among them. Stop issuing CC-305 invitations on the strength of a proposal and you have stopped complying with a regulation in force.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Section 503 still apply now that Executive Order 11246 is revoked?

Yes. Section 503 is a statute at 29 U.S.C. 793, and an executive order cannot repeal one. EO 14173 revoked EO 11246 in January 2025 without mentioning Section 503; part 60-741 remains in force, unamended since September 2023.

What is the dollar threshold for Section 503 coverage?

$20,000. The $10,000 in 29 U.S.C. 793(a) and 41 CFR 60-741.4(a)(1) is unadjusted text; 41 U.S.C. 1908 indexes the figure and FAR 22.1402(a) now sets it at $20,000. The separate 50-employee and $50,000 pair does not change coverage: it decides whether Subpart C binds you, and with it the written program, the CC-305 cycle, the 7 percent analysis and the (k) counts.

Can a contractor fail an audit for not reaching 7 percent?

Not for the shortfall itself. 60-741.45(g) makes failure to attain the goal neither a finding nor an admission of discrimination, and (h) forbids using it as a ceiling. What the rule requires below 7 percent is the assessment under (e) and action-oriented programs under (f). Skipping or failing to document that is a different matter.

Does posting on a clearance job board count as Section 503 outreach?

It can count as one effort, since the list at 60-741.44(f)(2) is non-exhaustive, but alone it is weak evidence. Most sources the regulation names are disability-specialist: State Vocational Rehabilitation agencies, Centers for Independent Living, Ticket to Work Employment Networks. A clearance board, ours included, is no substitute, much as veterans’ preference does not cover contractor jobs.

The obligation outlived its enforcement machinery

A covered contractor’s Section 503 duties are what they were before EO 11246 fell eighteen months ago. The regulation is unamended, the collection runs to 2029, and the proposal to cut it is still a proposal. What changed is the probability of a routine audit, not the obligation.

The move for the rest of 2026 starts with checking whether Subpart C reaches you at all. If it does, compute the five counts at 60-741.44(k) annually, with both limbs of item one; write down the outreach evaluation with its criteria and conclusion; and where that conclusion is failure, put the replacement effort in the file beside it. Keep it three years. If the rescission has not landed by 31 July 2029, you answer the request in thirty days instead of explaining why the file starts mid-story.