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March 25, 2024U.S. DOT Updates DBE Program: Removal of Race- and Sex-Based Eligibility and Other Key Changes
October 8, 2025On April 9, 2024 the USDOT announced various changes and much needed modernization to the DBE Program. GCAP prepared the below table summarizing key changes.
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January 26, 2026
The Interim Final Rule (IFR) effective October 3, 2025, triggered a pause of DBE contract goals on new solicitations as well as not to enforce goal-related bid conditions or good faith effort requirements on U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) contracts advertised or awarded after October 3, 2025 until each state’s unified certification program (UCP) completes its recertification process.
November 11, 2025
By now you may have heard that the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has enacted a major change to its Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program that affects approximately 41,000 minority- and women-owned businesses in the transportation industry. On October 3, 2025, an Interim Final Rule (IFR) took effect, eliminating the long-standing practice of presuming certain groups to be socially disadvantaged and instead requiring every DBE to prove social and economic disadvantage on an individual basis. The IFR also triggers a nationwide “reevaluation” of all currently certified DBE firms, effectively making them reapply under stricter criteria.
October 8, 2025
On September 30, 2025, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued an Interim Final Rule (IFR) removing the race- and sex-based rebuttable presumptions for social disadvantage status in the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program. In effect, this eliminates race- and sex-based eligibility from the DBE Program. The IFR has a limited public comment period of 30 days required by the Rulemaking process and went into effect on October 3, 2025 when it was published in the federal register.
