Delivering Significant Change
February 26, 2026
Wide Release of Significant Change Notifications
One of the largest historical incentives for the creation of government-specific versions of cloud services is being removed this month: cloud service providers will no longer be required to ask the government for permission to improve their own service just because they have a government customer. Instead of relying on the Significant Change Request (SCR) process, cloud services may adopt the new optional Significant Change Notifications (SCN) process.
The FedRAMP Board has voted to support wide-scale adoption of the Significant Change Notifications process within the government and to help ensure consistency and transparency between agencies and cloud service providers that are adopting this process. This will be a priority for FedRAMP over the next two months, with the Program Management Office sharing materials and playbooks for agencies while OMB and the Board connect with the CIO and CISO Councils to spread the word. Our goal is for a majority of Rev5 cloud service providers to adopt this Balance Improvement Release by the end of 2026 to lower the burden for agencies and ensure the government can access the latest capabilities without undue delay.
The Significant Change Notifications process still requires strict change management, careful communication, and effective risk management—it doesn’t just open the door for random change. Cloud service providers that are interested in adopting the process should start with the documentation and work from there; folks at agencies with questions about the process should connect with their agency FedRAMP liaison or email info@fedramp.gov to learn more about how to align agency policies with M-24-15.
Consolidated Rules for 2026
A clean set of Consolidated Rules for 2026 are being transparently developed by FedRAMP for publishing by the end of June 2026. These rules will be valid until the end of 2028 to provide consistency and predictability for all stakeholders. Requests For Comment on major policy changes were the focus of the last month, but you can expect a torrent of smaller technical Requests For Comment in March. If you’re wondering about FedRAMP 20x - yes, the Consolidated Rules for 2026 will cover everything you need to know.
If you are not following the January batch of FedRAMP’s RFCs, you should still dig in–even if you miss the public comment period we are posting initial outcomes from closed RFCs fast!
Introducing FedRAMP Public Notices
It used to be hard to keep up with changes that were fairly important but not big enough for a blog post or an email notification campaign, so FedRAMP introduced a Public Notices system in February. It’s a simple spot where we will share key updates that don’t fit well in our other communication channels, things like initial outcomes from reviewing public comment of RFCs or notifications about big changes to rules or other emergency notifications in general. And there’s an RSS feed to make it easy to integrate into your own workflow.
Read the introductory notice then jump into the full list of FedRAMP Public Notices to catch up and follow along.
A New Director for FedRAMP
Last week GSA announced that Greg Barbaccia, currently the Federal Chief Information Officer for the United States Government at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would also join GSA as Acting Director for Technology Transformation Services (TTS). For folks who don’t follow esoteric government organization charts, the FedRAMP Director reports to the TTS Director, so this is a fantastic opportunity for FedRAMP to accelerate the work we are doing while continuing our extremely close partnership with the Office of the Federal CIO at OMB.
Greg has been a driving force behind FedRAMP 20x since the beginning. We’re stoked about the future with Greg as the TTS Director because we can continue our laser focus on delivery (and didn’t even have to prepare a briefing for him!).
A Sneak Peak at March
We have a lot of cool stuff planned in March so make sure to keep an eye on the FedRAMP Events page and follow us across all of our social media channels (LinkedIn | YouTube | X). Earlier this month we dropped short videos in support of the RFCs on YouTube and the goods will keep coming with a long form video about the Significant Change Notifications process dropping soon.
