CPARS

CPARS (Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System) is the government's official record of how a contractor performed on past contracts. FAR 42.15 requires the evaluation, and FAR 15.305 requires source selection to consider past performance. A rating written on the contract you hold today scores the proposal you write tomorrow.

FAR 42.1501(b) states it directly: "CPARS is the official source for past performance information."

Citations on this page were read against FAR text at FAC 2026-01, effective 03/13/2026. FAR 42.15 changed. Read the current section rather than a summary of it, and check the FAC number of anything else you rely on.

What the government rates

FAR 42.1503(b)(2) sets the minimum evaluation factors:

• Technical (quality of product or service).
• Cost control. This factor does not apply to a firm-fixed-price arrangement, or to fixed-price with economic price adjustment.
• Schedule/timeliness.
• Management or business relations.
• Small business subcontracting, where FAR 19.702(a) requires a subcontracting plan.
• Other, as applicable.

FAR 42.1501(a) describes the underlying information more broadly. Its examples cover workmanship, cost forecasting and control, schedule adherence, and customer satisfaction. They also cover small business subcontracting, database reporting, integrity and business ethics. The list in the regulation is illustrative, not a closed set.

The five ratings

The scale is in the regulation, not only in agency guidance. FAR 42.1503(b)(4) states that each evaluation factor "shall be rated in accordance with a five scale rating system (i.e., exceptional, very good, satisfactory, marginal, and unsatisfactory)."

Two tables in the same section define the ratings. Table 42-1 carries the general definitions. Table 42-2 carries a separate set for the small business subcontracting factor, where FAR 52.219-9 applies. So one contract can produce two different rubrics on one evaluation.

Two details in Table 42-1 change how a rating reads:

• A fundamental principle of assigning ratings is that contractors will not be evaluated with a rating lower than Satisfactory solely for not performing beyond the requirements of the contract/order.
• A plus or minus sign may mark an improving or worsening trend that is not enough to change the rating.

When an evaluation happens

FAR 42.1502(a) requires an evaluation "at least annually and at the time the work under a contract or order is completed." An interim evaluation is optional under FAR 42.1503(a)(3).

The current thresholds sit in FAR 42.1502:

• Contracts and orders — 42.1502(b) and 42.1502(c) direct agencies to evaluate above the simplified acquisition threshold.
• Orders under a single-agency contract — the contracting officer may require one above the same threshold (42.1502(d)).
• Construction — $900,000 or more, and every construction contract terminated for default at any value (42.1502(e)).
• Architect-engineer services — $45,000 or more, and every such contract terminated for default at any value (42.1502(f)).
• Subpart 8.7 contracts — excluded (42.1502(h)).

The 14 days you control

FAR 42.1503(d) sets the comment window. A contractor gets "up to 14 calendar days from the date of notification of availability of the past performance evaluation to submit comments, rebutting statements, or additional information."

The same paragraph requires the agency to "provide for review at a level above the contracting officer to consider disagreements between the parties." It then draws the limit plainly: "The ultimate conclusion on the performance evaluation is a decision of the contracting agency."

FAR 42.1503(f) sets the other clock. The evaluation reaches source selection officials "not later than 14 days after the date on which the contractor is notified of the evaluation's availability for comment." A comment inside the window travels with the record. Silence travels with it too.

How long a rating follows you

FAR 42.1503(g) directs agencies to use CPARS information "within three years (six for construction and architect-engineer contracts) of the completion of performance of the evaluated contract or order." The same paragraph adds the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS), which the current text treats as a module of CPARS.

An evaluation is not public. FAR 42.1503(d) directs that it "should therefore be marked 'Source Selection Information'." The same paragraph limits distribution to "Government personnel and the contractor whose performance is being evaluated" while the record can serve source selection.

Content posted in the FAPIIS module is a separate matter. Under FAR 42.1503(h)(2), "all such information posted in FAPIIS will be publicly available, unless covered by a disclosure exemption under the Freedom of Information Act."

How the record reaches the next award

FAR 15.305(a)(2)(i) calls past performance "one indicator of an offeror's ability to perform the contract successfully." It directs the evaluator to weigh currency, relevance, source, context, and "general trends in contractor's performance." It also separates this assessment from the responsibility determination under FAR subpart 9.1.

Two more rules decide who gets credit:

• A company with no relevant record. FAR 15.305(a)(2)(iv): "In the case of an offeror without a record of relevant past performance or for whom information on past performance is not available, the offeror may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance." The FAR text never uses the word "neutral." That label is trade shorthand.
• Borrowed records. FAR 15.305(a)(2)(iii) opens three routes. An evaluation may consider predecessor companies, key personnel with relevant experience, and subcontractors that "will perform major or critical aspects of the requirement."

The mistake that makes this term matter

The evaluation arrives as a system notification, in the middle of performance, from a program office you talk to every week. It carries a short clock and no visible consequence. The ratings look fine. Somebody skims it, finds nothing worth arguing about, and returns to the actual work.

Two years later a source selection board reads that same record next to a competitor whose narrative names outcomes and numbers. What the board sees is a thin narrative, a rating nobody questioned, and a blank space where a rebuttal belonged. Nothing improper happened. Nobody protested anything. One person wrote the record once, under time pressure, and the government then quoted it for three years. The window to add your side of it closed quietly, while the contract was still going well.

What goes wrong in practice

Nobody owns the notification. The system emails a registered point of contact. When that person changes role, the clock still runs. A missed notification is the most common way a company loses its comment rights.

Satisfactory gets read as a good result. Satisfactory means the contractor met the requirements. Table 42-1 bars a lower rating for that reason alone. But against a competitor who holds Very Good and Exceptional ratings on the same factors, meeting the requirements is still the weaker record.

The narrative is thin. FAR 42.1501(a) treats the ratings and the supporting narratives as the information. A high rating with two vague sentences behind it gives a later evaluator very little to credit you for.

Contractors comment and then stop. FAR 42.1503(d) provides a review above the contracting officer. Many companies file a rebuttal, receive no movement, and treat that as the end of the road.

Teams expect a cost control rating that cannot exist. On a firm-fixed-price contract, that factor does not apply. Chasing it wastes the comment window.

Nobody reads their own record before bidding. Companies write a past performance volume from memory of how the job went, then submit it against a government record that says something else.

What to do

1. Name one person to own CPARS notifications, and keep that registration current.
2. Read each evaluation on the day it arrives.
3. Submit comments inside the 14 calendar days.
4. Correct facts with evidence, not with tone.
5. Escalate a genuine disagreement to the review above the contracting officer.
6. Read your own record before you draft a past performance volume.
7. Ask the program office for a strong narrative while the work is still going well.

What CPARS is not

CPARS is not an appeal system. The agency decides the final content, and the review above the contracting officer sits inside that same agency.

CPARS is not a responsibility determination either. FAR 15.305(a)(2)(i) keeps the comparative past performance assessment separate from the responsibility rules in FAR subpart 9.1.

CPARS is also not PPIRS. The current FAR 42.15 text names CPARS as the official source and does not mention the older retrieval system at all. Guidance that still routes you to PPIRS is out of date.

Silas™ reads a company's past performance records against the stated requirements of a solicitation and surfaces where the recorded relevance is thin.