By James Leggate, ENR, October 28, 2025
Any disadvantaged business enterprises that are not recertified as DBE firms under the U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s new standards can be terminated from projects for good cause, DOT officials said in an FAQ on its new interim final rule, which eliminated race and sex presumptions as qualifying factors for the DBE program because they consider that standard to be unconstitutional.
The “frequently asked questions” document provides clarification around some of the points of confusion for prime contractors, DBE firms, project owners and Unified Certification Programs since DOT published the rule in the Federal Register Oct. 3 to take effect immediately. The rule requires the certifying programs to reevaluate all DBE firms they have previously certified, which DOT officials estimate at 41,000 contractors nationally.
Project owners who receive DOT funding for projects and have DBE goals for their contracts that they have advertised but not yet let, should issue amendments removing the DBE goals, the FAQ states.
If bidding has been opened but the contract not yet awarded, owners must “zero out” the DBE goal. DOT says owners only need to re-advertise those contracts if required by their respective state. And contracts that were executed before Oct. 3 do not need to be modified, but DBE participation cannot be counted until the relevant certification program has completed its revaluation. If any DBE firms on a contract are not recertified, the owner will need to “discontinue the effect of the unconstitutional certification” or lose DOT funding for the contract.
During the reevaluation period, regulatory DBE termination provisions remain in effect, the FAQ notes, and prime contractors need the owner’s written consent for good cause to terminate a DBE firm’s contract. Owners are still required to implement and document compliance with prompt payment requirements during the reevaluation period, too.
As part of the reevaluations, certifying programs will need to review DBE firms for which they are the original certification jurisdiction, but not DBEs certified through interstate certification procedures, according to the FAQ. DBE firms that are recertified will need to again apply for interstate certification.
DOT reiterated that there is no deadline for reevaluations to be complete, just that the reviews should be done “as quickly as practicable.”
There is also no deadline for DBE firms to submit their documentation to demonstrate their eligibility under the revised standards, but firms that have not submitted the necessary information will remain ineligible for the program. Any firms that are decertified as part of the reevaluations can appeal to DOT, officials wrote in the FAQ.
While the rule has already taken effect, DOT is accepting public comments through Nov. 3.
