Can Federal Contractors Still Ask About Disability Status?
Original Webinar Air Date: September 16, 2026
OFCCP's Section 503 final rule, effective September 21, 2026, removes the requirement to invite applicants and employees to self-identify as individuals with disabilities, but it does not prohibit contractors from asking. In the preamble, OFCCP said that where a contractor, exercising its own legal and business judgment, believes there is a legal basis to collect the information under the ADA and its implementing regulations, the final rule does not prohibit the contractor from doing so.
That leaves the decision with each contractor, and it carries consequences on both sides. Rosemary Cox and Victoria Ungvary cover what the rule rescinds, what stays in place, and the questions to work through with your legal counsel before changing anything in an applicant tracking system.
What Employers Need to Know
- Stop using Form CC-305 on September 21, 2026, but do not destroy data already collected. Record-keeping obligations still apply, and the existing data helps while you complete this year's assessments.
- Plans with a start date before September 21, 2026, follow the regulations in effect on that plan date, including data collection analysis and utilization goals. Plan years beginning after that date follow the new rules.
- The 7% utilization goal, the data collection analysis, and the problem area identification and action-oriented programs that depended on them are rescinded. The audit and reporting system is not.
- The core program obligations are untouched, from the written policy statement and outreach and recruitment through the audit and reporting system and training.
- VEVRAA is unchanged. Keep providing veteran self-identification forms pre-offer and post-offer, keep tracking applicants and hires, and keep applying the hiring benchmark.
- Contractors are not required to use quantitative data when assessing outreach effectiveness or in the audit and reporting system. They are not barred from using it either.
- OFCCP updated the coverage thresholds throughout to reference $20,000, reflecting the inflationary adjustment. Check that your contract clauses are being included in the appropriate contracts given that change.
- Check state and local contracting requirements before removing a question from your applicant tracking system, and document the decision and who made it.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Can federal contractors still ask about disability status after September 21, 2026?
Perhaps. Section 503 no longer requires the invitation to self-identify, and OFCCP did not prohibit contractors from asking. OFCCP removed the obligation and left the decision to each contractor's own legal and business judgment under the ADA.
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What does the Section 503 final rule rescind?
The obligation to invite applicants and employees to self-identify, the applicant and hire data collection analysis that depended on it, the 7% utilization goal, and the problem area identification and action-oriented programs tied to the goal. The option to use self-identification data to identify participants for voluntary training and employment programs is also gone, though contractors remain free to run those programs.
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What Section 503 obligations remain in place?
A written policy statement covering individuals with disabilities, review of personnel processes, review of physical and mental job qualification standards, reasonable accommodation, procedures against disability-based harassment, internal and external dissemination of the EEO policy, positive outreach and recruitment, an audit and reporting system, assigned responsibility for implementation, and training for staff involved in recruitment, screening and selection.
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How can contractors measure outreach effectiveness without disability self-identification data?
Contractors are still required to determine whether outreach and recruitment over the past 12 months succeeded in identifying and recruiting qualified individuals with disabilities. Without self-identification data, look to other data points: candidate volume from disability-focused job boards and organizations, year-over-year comparisons against overall hire rates for those sources, tagging applications received at disability career events, and accommodation requests.
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What safeguards does a voluntary disability self-identification form need?
State clearly why the information is being requested, that responding is voluntary, that it will be kept confidential and used in accordance with the ADA, that refusing will not result in adverse treatment, and that the form is kept separate from the application. Those safeguards were built into Form CC-305 and they still matter on whatever form replaces it.
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Does the rule change VEVRAA self-identification?
No. The corresponding VEVRAA provisions were not modified. Contractors still provide veteran self-identification forms pre-offer and post-offer, track applicants and hires who identify as protected veterans along with total hires, job openings and jobs filled, and apply the veteran hiring benchmark. Take care that process changes on the Section 503 side do not touch the VEVRAA program.