# DHS Excludes DeepSeek From Civilian Procurement

The Department of Homeland Security issued Exclusion and Removal Order #2026-01 on July 24, 2026, under the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018. Published October 20, the order excludes DeepSeek, its defined affiliates, and covered products or services—including certain third-party implementations—from federal civilian-agency procurement and requires covered deployments to be removed from agency IT systems. The removal directive took effect October 16. The order is not a general restriction on private or consumer use; national security systems are governed separately. Its 60-day exception-request period, measured from issuance, had elapsed by October 20.

- Federal contractors and suppliers should inventory software, hosted services, subcontractor offerings, and embedded models for DeepSeek implementations; assess whether affected products or ongoing services are used in civilian-agency work.
- Agencies and contractors may need replacement, removal, remediation, and cybersecurity support. Companies should document model provenance and review data flows and supply-chain dependencies when evaluating products for federal civilian customers.
- The order describes a formal exception process for mission-critical needs. Because the stated 60-day request window ran from July 24, procurement teams should not assume that window remains open on October 20.

**Jurisdictions:** federal
**Industries:** Information Technology
**Topics:** Cybersecurity, Regulatory Compliance
**Published:** October 20, 2026

### Government Entities
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
- Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
- Federal civilian executive-branch agencies
- Department of Defense (DoD)
- Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)

### Vendors
- DeepSeek (Supplier excluded from covered federal civilian procurement)

### Sources
- [DHS ordered DeepSeek out of US federal civilian agency IT and procurement. Third-party products built using DeepSeek implementations are in the removal scope too. Worth a check before picking a base model for anything that sells to the US government. https://t.co/M8qt3fNfDc https](https://x.com/jimmy_longbow_/status/2112223940294930570) - twitter-agency
- [US Orders DeepSeek Removed From Federal Government Systems – The Epoch Times - Prescott eNews](https://prescottenews.com/2026/10/19/us-orders-deepseek-removed-from-federal-government-systems-the-epoch-times) - Prescott eNews
- [US Orders DeepSeek Removed From Federal Government Systems | NTD](https://www.ntd.com/us-orders-deepseek-removed-from-federal-government-systems_1179977.html) - NTD News