The Time to Choose Act directs the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council to prevent consulting firms that advise certain foreign governments or listed entities from receiving federal consulting contracts. It focuses procurement scrutiny on management, scientific, and technical consulting services (NAICS group 5416) and creates a structured waiver path where national security requires it.
The bill matters because it forces a binary choice on a segment of the consulting market: continue commercial work for specified foreign actors or remain eligible for U.S. government consulting work. That choice is intended to close a perceived conflict of interest and channel sensitive government work away from firms with ties to actors the bill identifies as threats.
At a Glance
What It Does
Mandates a FAR amendment within one year requiring bidders for executive-branch consulting work to certify they — and their affiliates — are not providing consulting services to covered foreign entities and bars awards where that certification fails. It establishes a narrowly circumscribed waiver process, contractor reporting duties, and penalties for false statements.
Who It Affects
Directly affects firms in NAICS group 5416 (management, scientific, and technical consulting), their subsidiaries and affiliates, prime contractors who rely on such consultancies, and federal acquisition offices that purchase consulting services. Oversight committees and national-security agencies are also drawn into waiver and notification procedures.
Why It Matters
This bill changes procurement eligibility criteria for a defined slice of the consulting market and ties procurement compliance to foreign-affiliation disclosures. For acquisition officers and compliance teams, it creates new pre-award vetting, waiver workflows, and potential False Claims Act exposure for firms that misrepresent foreign ties.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill sets a procurement rule: before awarding consulting work, contracting officers must rely on a certification from bidders that neither they nor their affiliates hold consulting contracts with ‘covered foreign entities.’ Those covered entities are defined expansively — ranging from specified state actors (notably the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation) to entities identified on Commerce Department lists and other defense-related listings. The scope of work targeted is management, scientific, and technical consulting services under NAICS 5416, but the bill excludes routine legal, accounting, tax or dispute-resolution services.
If a contractor cannot meet the certification, the agency must refuse to award the contract unless the agency head issues a waiver. The waiver route is tightly controlled: agencies must consult DoD and DNI, justify why no conflict-free supplier exists, notify OMB five days beforehand, brief congressional oversight committees within 30 days, and publish the names of covered foreign entities associated with the waiver recipient unless publication would harm national security.
Waivers are time-limited (365 days with a single possible 180-day extension) and an entity may hold only one active waiver across all agencies at any time.To support oversight, the statute requires the waivering agency to collect detailed contractor data: corporate structure, foreign ownership and real estate holdings, contract histories with covered foreign entities, and granular staffing numbers including how many employees have or held U.S. security clearances. Contractors that receive waivers must report during performance on human rights or religious liberty abuses, and any identified U.S. economic or national security risks arising from the foreign work.For enforcement, the bill instructs agency heads to terminate contracts and consider suspension or debarment if they determine a firm knowingly submitted false certifications after the FAR amendment takes effect.
It also makes clear that knowingly hiding or misrepresenting covered foreign contracts can trigger False Claims Act liability, including treble damages. Finally, the statute contains a definitional section that cross-references existing Commerce and Treasury lists and several statutory authorities to identify covered foreign entities, and it specifies that no additional funds are authorized to implement the law.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council must amend the FAR within 1 year to require pre-award self-certifications that bidders (and their affiliates) do not hold consulting contracts with covered foreign entities.
‘Consulting services’ covered by the prohibition target NAICS Industry Group 5416 — management, scientific, and technical consulting services — while excluding routine legal, audit, tax, and dispute-resolution work.
An agency may grant a waiver only if the head (after consulting DoD and DNI) finds it in the national security interest, notifies OMB at least 5 days beforehand, briefs oversight committees within 30 days, and publishes the names of the covered foreign entities linked to the waiver recipient unless disclosure would harm national security.
Waivers last up to 365 days and may be extended once for up to 180 days; an entity may hold no more than one active waiver across all executive agencies at any time.
False or knowingly misleading certifications trigger contract termination and potential suspension/debarment, and deliberate concealment of covered foreign contracts exposes firms to False Claims Act liability, including treble damages.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title
Assigns the Act the short title ‘Time to Choose Act of 2025.’ This is purely stylistic but signals the bill's policy frame: forcing a choice by certain consulting firms between foreign clients and U.S. government work.
Findings establishing purpose
Sets out Congress’s rationale: that consulting firms sometimes simultaneously advise foreign actors that could harm U.S. interests while contracting with agencies charged with U.S. defense and security. Findings are not operative law, but they shape judicial and administrative interpretation of the statute’s scope and intent.
FAR amendment: pre-award certification and prohibition
Directs the FAR Council to implement two principal changes within one year: (1) require bidders for executive-agency consulting contracts to certify no covered-foreign-entity consulting relationships exist among them or their affiliates; and (2) make such certifications a condition of award. Practically, procurement systems and solicitations will need updated contract clauses, and contracting officers must incorporate certification checks into source selection.
Waiver process and reporting requirements
Creates a multi-step, document-heavy waiver path where agency heads can authorize an exception if national security warrants. The waiver demands pre-notification to OMB, post-decision briefings to two congressional committees, public disclosure of covered foreign entities tied to the waiver recipient (with national-security carve-outs), and a required oversight plan approved at deputy-secretary level. The contractor must also report during performance any human-rights or religious-liberty abuses and identified U.S. security or economic risks arising from its foreign work.
Penalties for false information and False Claims Act exposure
Requires termination of contracts where a firm knowingly submits false certifications and authorizes agencies to pursue suspension and debarment under FAR subpart 9.4. Separately, it expressly connects willful misrepresentation about covered foreign contracts to False Claims Act liability, preserving treble damages and civil penalties — a significant financial risk for corporate bidders.
Definitions and scope of covered foreign entities
Defines key terms: who counts as a covered foreign entity (explicitly naming PRC organs, Russian entities, state sponsors of terrorism, Commerce Department export-control lists, a DOD-identified list, and OFAC’s NS–CMIC list), what counts as consulting services (NAICS 5416 and specified subcodes), and what ‘executive agency’ means for application. By leaning on existing statutory and administrative lists, the bill ties the prohibition to dynamic, established inventories but also inherits their complexity.
Funding
States that no additional funds are authorized to implement the Act. That forces agencies to absorb implementation costs — e.g., updating solicitations, vetting certifications, and processing waiver notifications — within existing budgets and staffing.
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Explore Government in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Department of Defense and other national-security agencies — they gain procurement rules designed to reduce the chance that contractors hold conflicting advisory relationships with hostile or sanctioned foreign actors.
- U.S.-based consulting firms without ties to covered foreign entities — they face reduced competition for federal consulting work from firms that would otherwise serve both markets.
- Congressional oversight committees (HSGAC and House Oversight) — they receive mandatory notifications and briefings on waivers, increasing visibility into contractor foreign relationships tied to national-security procurements.
Who Bears the Cost
- Consulting firms and professional-services groups with existing ties to covered foreign entities — they must choose between maintaining foreign contracts and eligibility for U.S. government consulting work or pursue waivers under a narrow, time-limited regime.
- Prime contractors that rely on global affiliates — they may lose access to specialized affiliates or face restructuring pressure to segregate foreign-facing units from U.S.-facing contracting teams.
- Federal acquisition offices and procurement compliance teams — they absorb implementation burdens (new FAR clauses, vetting processes, waiver administration, reporting review) without additional funding, increasing workload and potential contracting delays.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is straightforward and acute: protect national security by excluding consultants with ties to hostile or sanctioned foreign actors, or preserve access to scarce expertise housed in globally integrated firms. Tight exclusion reduces perceived conflict but can deny agencies needed capabilities; wide toleration preserves capability but risks inadvertent assistance to adversaries. The bill leans toward exclusion but relies on complex, resource-intensive waiver and oversight mechanisms to manage the trade-off.
The bill attempts a bright-line solution to a knotty problem, but the mechanics raise practical questions. First, enforcement rests largely on self-certification and post-award verification tied to existing administrative lists.
Self-certifications are cheap to submit but costly to audit; agencies without sufficient acquisition-security capacity may either award contracts without detecting concealed foreign ties or overuse waivers to avoid capability gaps.
Second, the definition of covered foreign entities pulls from multiple dynamic lists (Commerce entity lists, OFAC lists, DOD identifications, and state-sponsor designations). That linkage helps capture a range of risks but invites complexity: firms with innocuous commercial ties can be swept up when lists change, and procurement officers will need up-to-date, legally defensible assessments of who is covered.
The lack of additional appropriations amplifies this tension because accurate, timely vetting requires staff time and technical systems.
Third, the waiver regime is rigorous on paper but may become the de facto safety valve that undermines the ban if agencies lean on it to preserve urgent capabilities. The single-waiver-per-entity cap and time limits constrain overreliance, but the bill relies on interagency consultations (DoD, DNI, OMB) and classified briefings — processes that can be opaque and inconsistent.
Finally, linking deliberate misstatements to the False Claims Act raises high penalties, which will likely shift behavior toward cautious disclosure and more litigation over what constitutes knowledge or concealment in multinational corporate structures.
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