How to Complete and Submit SF 1443: Contractor’s Request for Progress Payment

To complete SF 1443, the Contractor’s Request for Progress Payment, first confirm your fixed-price contract contains the Progress Payments clause at FAR 52.232-16, then fill in the form’s three sections — contract identification, cumulative allowable costs, and the payment computation that applies either the 80% (large business) or 85% (small business) rate against prior payments received — and submit the signed request through Wide Area Workflow in the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment to the paying office named in your contract.¹

Confirm You’re Eligible Before You Start

FAR clause 52.232-16 must already be in your contract. Without it, you cannot bill this way; you would need a formal modification adding the payment terms first.² The mechanism is for fixed-price contracts only. Cost-reimbursement contracts use a different billing route, typically the SF 1034 public voucher.³

Two other limits apply. The contract price generally must exceed the simplified acquisition threshold, currently $350,000.⁴ And each individual request must be at least $2,500, with no more than one request per month.²

One boundary worth flagging: if your contract uses performance-based payments (PBPs) instead of the 52.232-16 clause, SF 1443 does not apply. PBPs pay on defined milestones rather than accumulated costs.⁵

Download the current November 2021 edition of the form from the GSA Forms Library. Report every dollar amount in whole dollars, and choose one rounding method (always up, always down, or nearest dollar) that you apply consistently throughout.⁶

Section I: Contract Identification

Section I links the request to your specific contract and routes it to the right paying office.

Item 4 — contract number. Enter the contract number, including the task or delivery order number if applicable. When a contract carries multiple delivery orders, each order gets its own separate SF 1443 sequence and is treated as its own contract unless the contract says otherwise.⁶

Request number. Number progress payment requests consecutively starting with 1. Do not skip numbers or restart the sequence; either will cause confusion during review.

Item 5 — contract price. The correct figure depends on your contract type (firm-fixed-price, fixed-price incentive, redeterminable, or letter contract), each of which has its own rules. Exclude any portion of the contract that provides for cost reimbursement only. An error here throws off the payment ceilings in Section III.

Item 6B — liquidation rate. Format matters. Express the rate as three digits: 80% is entered as 800, and 72.3% is entered as 723. If your rate falls between tenths of a percent, round up to the next tenth. Rounding down would produce a rate below the regulatory minimum.⁶

Section II: Cumulative Costs Incurred

Section II is a running total, not a monthly snapshot. Report every allowable cost incurred from contract start through the current billing period: direct labor, direct materials, and allocable overhead recorded in your accounting system.

Only costs that are reasonable, allocable, and allowable under FAR Part 31 belong here. A cost is reasonable if a prudent business person would incur it in a competitive environment. A cost is allocable if it is chargeable to the contract based on benefits received or another equitable relationship.⁷⁸ Including unallowable costs such as entertainment, lobbying, or fines can trigger a DCAA audit and expose you to False Claims Act liability. When you’re unsure about a category, check the detailed list in FAR 31.205.

Subcontractor Financing Lines (14a–14e)

If you are making progress payments to subcontractors under subcontracts that carry their own progress payment terms, report those financing payments in Items 14a through 14e:⁶

14a: total financing payments you have paid to subcontractors.
14b: liquidated financing payments already recouped from subcontractor delivery invoices.
14c: unliquidated financing payments (14a minus 14b).
14d: subcontract financing payments approved for the current period.
14e: eligible subcontractor financing payments (14c plus 14d), which carries forward to Section III.

These figures are computed under FAR 52.232-16(j) and are added to your own incurred costs when the government calculates what you get paid.

Section III: Computing What You Get Paid

Section III applies the progress payment rate to your cumulative eligible costs, then subtracts everything already paid.

The standard rate is 80% of total eligible costs for large businesses. Small business concerns use 85%, which also becomes the liquidation rate.⁹²

The math: multiply total eligible costs by the applicable rate, then subtract all previous progress payments the government has made on the contract. That result is the current request. Total outstanding progress payments at any point cannot exceed the applicable rate times the total contract price. This ceiling caps the government’s exposure against undelivered work.

Arithmetic errors in Section III are the single most common reason requests come back. Before you submit, reconcile your cumulative totals against every prior SF 1443 on the same contract. If the numbers don’t tie out, the contracting officer will reject the request rather than guess which figure is right.

How Recoupment Works

Progress payments are not free cash. When you later submit a delivery invoice for accepted goods or services, the government deducts either the unliquidated progress payment balance or the liquidation rate times the invoiced amount, whichever is less. The default liquidation rate is 80% for large businesses and 85% for small businesses.²

If your contract heads into loss territory (total incurred costs plus estimated costs to complete are likely to exceed the contract price), the contracting officer computes a loss ratio factor and applies it to all future requests. The factor is the revised contract price divided by total incurred plus estimated remaining costs. It shrinks your eligible cost base so the government does not finance the losing portion of the work.¹⁰

Submitting Through WAWF

Most federal agencies, and virtually all Department of Defense contracts, require electronic submission through Wide Area Workflow (WAWF) inside the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment (PIEE). Paper submissions are rare and generally allowed only when the contract expressly calls for a hard copy.¹¹

Before you can submit anything, your company needs a PIEE account. Registration runs in this order:¹²

Register your company in the System for Award Management at SAM.gov.
Contact the PIEE Help Desk to have your CAGE code added to a Vendor Group. No employees can register until the group exists.
Have the electronic business point of contact listed in SAM appoint a Contractor Administrator (CAM), who manages PIEE access for company users.
Once the CAM is active, they add WAWF document-creation roles for the employees who will prepare and submit requests.

High-volume contractors can send documents via Secure File Transfer Protocol or Electronic Data Interchange instead of keying data into the WAWF web interface. Guides for both are in the PIEE documentation portal after login.

Route each SF 1443 to the Administrative Contracting Officer (ACO) or the designated paying office listed in your contract. WAWF handles most of the routing automatically from the contract data you enter, which eliminates most misdirected submissions. An authorized company representative must sign or digitally certify the request before submission.

When You’ll Get Paid

When the government receives a proper request (complete, correctly computed, and backed by contractual authority), the Prompt Payment Act clock starts. For construction contracts, progress payments are due 14 days after the designated billing office receives the proper request.¹³ For non-construction supply and service contracts, the general due date is 30 days after receipt of a proper invoice. Miss the deadline and interest may be owed on the late payment under federal law.

An incomplete or erroneous request does not start the clock. The government will notify you of deficiencies, and the timeline resets when you resubmit. Staying in contact with your ACO during review often resolves minor discrepancies before they harden into a formal rejection.

When Payments Can Be Reduced or Suspended

The contracting officer may reduce progress payments, suspend them, or raise the liquidation rate if substantial evidence supports any of these findings:²

You failed to meet a material contract requirement.
Work is falling behind in a way that endangers performance.
Your financial condition raises doubts about your ability to complete the work.
Inventory allocated to the contract substantially exceeds what the remaining work requires.
You are behind on paying subcontractors, suppliers, or other costs of performance.
The fair value of undelivered work is less than the unliquidated progress payment balance.

If continued payments would increase the government’s probable loss, payments can be suspended entirely until the unliquidated balance is eliminated.¹⁰

Records to Keep After You File

Keep every document supporting your SF 1443 filings — accounting records, timesheets, purchase orders, subcontractor invoices, overhead allocation worksheets — for at least three years after final payment on the contract. The government can require access to your books, records, and accounting procedures in any format: paper, electronic, or imaged.¹⁴ A specific contract clause can extend the retention period, and a late final indirect cost rate proposal stretches the clock by one day for every day the proposal is overdue.

1
Acquisition.GOV. 53.232 Contract Financing SF 1443
2
Acquisition.GOV. 52.232-16 Progress Payments
3
Acquisition.GOV. 48 CFR 1232.905-70 – Payment Documentation and Process – Form of Invoice
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Acquisition.GOV. Threshold Changes – October 1st, 2025
5
Warfighting Acquisition University. Performance-Based Payments
6
General Services Administration. SF 1443 Contractor’s Request for Progress Payment
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Acquisition.GOV. 48 CFR 31.201-2 – Determining Allowability
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Acquisition.GOV. Part 31 – Contract Cost Principles and Procedures
9
Acquisition.GOV. 32.501-1 Customary Progress Payment Rates
10
Acquisition.GOV. 32.503-6 Suspension or Reduction of Payments
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Defense Contract Audit Agency. From a DCAA Perspective Series – Barriers to Payment
12
Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment. New Vendor Organization – Getting Started Help
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Acquisition.GOV. 52.232-25 Prompt Payment
14
GovInfo. Contractor Records Retention