REA vs. Claim — How to Ask the Government for More Money (In Writing)

By Sean & Doug Reitmeyer — GCExperts. Written from real contractor conversations, calls, and workshops.

The job changed, and it cost you money. Now you need the government to make you whole. In federal contracting, there are two formal ways to ask: the Request for Equitable Adjustment — the REA — and the claim. They sound like the same thing. They are not, and picking the wrong one changes everything about how your request gets handled.

The REA is the polite one. It's what you file when the government directed a change, or a government act or omission pushed your costs up, and everyone basically agrees the change happened — the question is just how much it costs. The REA says: here's what changed, here's what it cost, here's my math, let's negotiate. It lives inside the contract's changes clause, it doesn't need a lawyer, and it keeps things collegial. Most disputes should start here, because most disputes are really just pricing conversations the government hasn't gotten around to having.

The claim is the formal one. It's what you file when negotiation has failed, when the government says the change never happened, when you're facing termination, or when the money is big enough to fight over. A claim has legal teeth: it must be certified above certain dollar thresholds, it triggers formal review timelines, and if the government denies it, it opens the door to the boards of contract appeals and the courts. I've been down that road — I filed 95 claims against the government in my career and took five of them to trial. Here's what those five trials taught me: claims are a weapon, and weapons should be drawn deliberately.

The difference in one sentence: an REA asks the government to fix the price of a change you both agree happened. A claim demands the government pay you under the contract's dispute machinery, because you can't agree on anything.

Practical rules. First, document like everything will become a claim, even when you're filing a friendly REA — the same paper trail serves both. Second, mind the clock: the Contract Disputes Act has a six-year statute of limitations on claims, but your contract may have shorter notice requirements, and late notice has killed more requests than bad math. Third, use the escalation ladder: talk, then email the CO, then REA, then claim. Each rung shows the government you tried to be reasonable, and someday a judge will read that ladder.

And the one word that decides a lot of it, which I'll never stop repeating: you never assumed anything. You interpreted the contract, reasonably, and the government had the pen. That's the sentence that turns a denied request into an adjustment.