AF Form 3065, the Contract Progress Report, is how construction and service contractors document completed work on a Department of the Air Force project and request the matching progress payment. You download the current version from the Air Force e-Publishing site (e-publishing.af.mil), fill in completion percentages by work category against your approved schedule of values, certify the numbers, and submit the report on the schedule your contract requires. What follows walks through each step and the rules that hang off it.
Where to Get the Form and When It’s Due
The form lives on e-publishing.af.mil alongside all other current official Air Force forms. Each submission is a snapshot: the header asks for contractor name and address, contract and project number, report number, and a “from” and “to” reporting period. Most contracts call for monthly reports timed to the billing cycle for labor and materials, but your contract sets the exact frequency. Check the reporting schedule before you prepare the first one.
Filling In the Work Breakdown
Pull the schedule of values you submitted at award. Every line item on AF Form 3065 should map to a line on that schedule. Typical categories include site preparation, foundation, structural steel, electrical, mechanical, and finishing work. For each one, enter the percentage of physical completion as of the reporting date. Those percentages drive the dollar amount you can request, so honest assessment matters more than any other single task on the form.
Cross-check your entries against the site superintendent’s daily logs. Labor hours, equipment usage, material deliveries, and inspection records all feed the completion figure for a category. If a subcontractor owns a line item, get their update before filling that field. A gap between what you report and what a subcontractor has actually produced will show up during the government’s site visit.
Materials Stored On and Off the Site
The form captures the value of materials sitting on the job site that have not yet been installed. Include only materials you can document with invoices or inventory records. Under FAR 52.232-5, any material covered by a progress payment becomes government property when the payment is made, so the accounting cuts both ways.
Off-site storage is tighter. You can include materials held at a warehouse or fabrication facility only if the contract specifically authorizes off-site materials and you can prove you hold title and intend to use them on this contract. Miss either condition and the government will strike those costs from the payment calculation.
Certification: What You’re Signing
The signature block certifies that every figure on the form is accurate, that the work was performed to the contract specifications, and that your subcontractors and suppliers have been paid for work the government previously reimbursed. The certification carries real legal weight.
False numbers on a progress report can trigger civil and criminal liability. The False Claims Act (31 U.S.C. § 3729) allows civil penalties from $14,308 to $28,619 per false claim, plus treble the government’s actual damages. The federal false-statements statute (18 U.S.C. § 1001) makes knowingly submitting materially false information to a federal agency a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
How to Submit and What Happens Next
Most contractors file AF Form 3065 electronically through the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment (PIEE), the Defense Department’s centralized portal for acquisition transactions including invoicing and contract administration. On smaller contracts, some Contracting Officers accept the form by email or direct delivery to the assigned project inspector. Your contract specifies the route. Confirm it before your first filing.
After the report arrives, a government representative walks the site to verify that your reported percentages match the physical work. If the inspector adjusts a percentage downward, the approved payment amount drops with it.
When the Money Arrives, and Retainage
The Prompt Payment Act starts interest running on an approved progress payment that remains unpaid more than 14 days after the agency receives the request. A solicitation can specify a longer window if the government needs more inspection time, but 14 days is the statutory baseline.
Even when your numbers hold up, the full amount is not guaranteed. Under FAR 52.232-5(e), if the Contracting Officer finds that satisfactory progress was made during the billing period, the payment is released in full. If progress was unsatisfactory, the Contracting Officer may retain up to 10 percent until performance improves. As the project nears substantial completion, withheld retainage is typically released in stages, and once the government accepts a separately priced building or phase, the full payment for that portion is made with no retainage holdback.
Paying Subcontractors After You’re Paid
Once the government’s payment reaches you, you have seven days to pay subcontractors for their share of the completed work. FAR 52.232-27 builds that deadline into every federal construction contract, so it is not something you negotiate.
If the Inspector Cuts Your Percentages
Many percentage disagreements get worked out informally during the inspection itself. When they can’t be, the formal route runs through the Contract Disputes Act process in FAR Part 33. Submit a written claim to the Contracting Officer describing the dispute and the amount in question. For claims over $100,000, include a signed certification that the claim is made in good faith and the supporting data are accurate.
The Contracting Officer has 60 days from receipt of a certified claim to issue a written decision, though they can extend that timeline by naming a specific date. While the dispute is pending, you keep working. The contract does not pause for the appeal.
Records You Have to Keep
Hold every AF Form 3065 you submit, along with its supporting documentation, for at least three years after final payment on the contract. FAR 4.703 requires you to make those records available for audit by the contracting agency and the Comptroller General throughout the retention period. Electronic storage is allowed if the imaging process reliably preserves accurate copies including signatures, you have an indexing system for quick retrieval, and you keep the paper originals for at least one year after conversion so the system can be validated. Do not overwrite, delete, or destroy the data during the retention window.