Federal prompt payment: 14 days, and only for a proper invoice

Fourteen days is a remarkable payment term. It is also entirely conditional. On a federal construction contract, FAR 52.232-27(a)(1)(i)(A) is unambiguous:

"The due date for making such payments is 14 days after the designated billing office receives a proper payment request."

Every word after "14 days" is doing work. Designated billing office — not the contracting officer, not the project engineer, not the inbox you have been using. Proper payment request — an invoice that contains a list of specific elements. Get either wrong and the clock has not started; you are simply waiting.

This is the difference between a contractor who is paid on day fourteen and one who is paid on day fifty-one and cannot explain why — and it often sits on the very jobs that also trigger prevailing wages: Davis-Bacon: federal work over $2,000, weekly certified payroll.

The three deadlines that govern a federal construction job

The seven-day flow-down is the provision every subcontractor on a federal job should know by heart. FAR 52.232-27(c)(1) requires the prime contract to contain:

"A payment clause that obligates the Contractor to pay the subcontractor for satisfactory performance under its subcontract not later than 7 days from receipt of payment out of such amounts as are paid to the Contractor under this contract."

Note the trigger: receipt of payment, not the sub's invoice date and not the end of a billing cycle. Once the prime has the government's money for your work, you have seven days coming, not thirty.

What "proper invoice" means, element by element

FAR 32.905(b)(1) is the general list. It is worth reproducing because most invoicing templates in the trades are missing three or four of these — the private-sector equivalent, built around a schedule of values rather than a contract line item number, is in invoicing for contractors: the billing run, in order:

1. "Name and address of the contractor."
2. "Invoice date and invoice number."
3. "Contract number or other authorization for supplies delivered or services performed."
4. "Description, quantity, unit of measure, unit price, and extended price of supplies delivered or services performed."
5. "Shipping and payment terms" plus bill of lading information where applicable.
6. "Name and address of contractor official to whom payment is to be sent."
7. "Name (where practicable), title, phone number, and mailing address of person to notify in the event of a defective invoice."
8. "Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN)" where required by agency procedures.
9. "Electronic funds transfer (EFT) banking information" where required.
10. "Any other information or documentation required by the contract."

For construction specifically, FAR 52.232-27(a)(2) adds substantiation and certification for progress payments.

Three of these are the usual failures:

• Element 3, the contract or order number. An invoice that says "Building 14 roof" and not the contract line item number is a problem for the payment office, not for you — until it becomes a problem for you.
• Element 4, the unit breakdown. Description, quantity, unit of measure, unit price, and extended price. A single lump total does not satisfy this, and it is the most common shape of a small contractor's invoice.
• Element 7, the defective-invoice contact. It exists so that a payment office can tell you the invoice is wrong instead of silently holding it. Omit it and you lose the mechanism designed to protect you.

What a late payment is worth

When a federal agency pays late, it owes interest at the Prompt Payment rate set by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The rate is fixed for six-month periods:

"The Prompt Payment interest rate for July 1– December 31, 2026 is 4.75%."

Because the rate changes twice a year, the applicable figure depends on when the payment became late, not on when you calculate it.

Private and state jobs run on entirely different numbers

FAR binds federal contracts. It does not reach your commercial and residential work, and it does not reach state-funded projects. Those are governed by state prompt payment statutes, and the deadlines are not similar.

Texas is a useful contrast because its statute is short and specific, and it sits alongside California's and New York's very different rules: state prompt payment laws, the same 7 days, three penalties. Under Property Code § 28.002(a), an owner must pay "not later than the 35th day after the date the owner receives the request." Under § 28.002(b), the contractor's payment down the chain "must be made not later than the seventh day after the date the contractor receives the owner's payment."

And § 28.004 puts a price on lateness that is far above the federal one:

"An unpaid amount bears interest at the rate of 1-1/2 percent each month." (§ 28.004(b))

Interest begins "on the day after the date on which the payment becomes due" (§ 28.004(a)). Eighteen percent a year is not a nuisance charge — it is a reason for an owner's controller to move your invoice.

The practical takeaway

The seven-day flow-down and the 35-day owner deadline share one feature: they are triggered by an event you can document. Receipt of payment. Receipt of a request. That is the whole game.

So the invoice discipline that pays for itself on federal work is not elaborate:

1. Send to the designated billing office named in the contract. Not to the person you talk to on site.
2. Include every element of FAR 32.905(b)(1), especially the contract number and the per-position breakdown.
3. Record the date the invoice was sent and received. Both deadlines above are counted from receipt, and an argument about lateness is an argument about that date.
4. On the sub side, record the date the prime was paid, where you can learn it. Your seven days start there.

None of that requires software. It requires an invoice that already contains what the rule asks for, every time, instead of being assembled to order.

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Current as of August 29, 2026. This article describes the FAR prompt payment clause for construction contracts and, by contrast, the Texas private prompt payment statute. It is not legal advice. It does not cover agency-specific supplements, the Prompt Payment Act regulations at 5 CFR Part 1315 in detail, contract disputes procedures, retainage on federal jobs, or the prompt payment statutes of the other states, which differ substantially. Deadlines and rates change; the provisions above are quoted from the sources linked, with the date they were checked.

What Zirko does: it produces documents with individual positions carrying description, quantity, unit and unit price, and it records what was sent and when. Zirko does not submit invoices to federal payment systems, does not check an invoice against FAR requirements, does not calculate prompt payment interest and does not track payment deadlines for you. In the United States the business enters its own tax rates, and an invoice can be issued with no tax line at all. Issued documents are immutable; a correction is a separate document.