On 20 October 2026 the US Department of Homeland Security published notice of an order that keeps DeepSeek products out of federal civilian agency procurement and removes them from civilian agency IT. The order also reaches products built by other companies on DeepSeek.
What the Order Says
The Federal Register notice (FR Doc. 2026-21447, docket DHS-2026-0628) says the Secretary of Homeland Security acted under the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018, after reviewing a Federal Acquisition Security Council recommendation. The order has two parts:
- exclusion of information technology products and services developed by Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd, including affiliated entities, from federal civilian agency procurements;
- removal of "all DeepSeek and DeepSeek-affiliate products, and third-party products and services developed using DeepSeek implementations, from civilian agency information technology."
The notice names the FASCSA Order Implementation Team in CISA's Cybersecurity Division as the contact. The signed order is reproduced as images in the notice's appendix and is also on regulations.gov under the docket number.
What It Means For Companies Running Agents
The second part covers third-party products "developed using DeepSeek implementations", so a company that sells to federal civilian agencies is affected if a DeepSeek model sits anywhere under its product, even when the company never dealt with DeepSeek. The notice text does not distinguish hosted use from open-weight use.
Companies that route tasks across several models often do not track which model served a given product. For this group of buyers, a current list of the models under each product, checked before every model change, is what lets a seller answer the question.
What This Does Not Settle
- The notice text does not define "developed using DeepSeek implementations".
- The notice covers federal civilian agencies. It says nothing about state governments or private buyers.