A Facility Clearance (FCL) is the U.S. government's determination that your company can access classified information. Five gates decide whether it can even start: a government or prime sponsor against a bona fide classified contract, a clean SF-328 / FOCI picture, eligible Key Management Personnel, and the corporate basics for the DD-441. Answer them below and watch a 0 to 100 readiness score build. Salian Defense sponsors and walks clients through the whole process. This is guidance, not a clearance determination. DCSA alone makes that call.
The first hard truth: a contractor cannot self-sponsor for an FCL. A government contracting activity or a cleared prime must sponsor your facility, and the clearance only matters paired with active classified work. If you have no sponsor yet, that is fixable. It is where Salian Defense starts.
No CUI here. This self-check captures business and program metadata only: no facility drawings, no security plans, no personnel names. Nothing classified, and nothing stored beyond your contact details and your answers.
A Facility Clearance is the U.S. government's determination that a company is eligible to access classified information. Five conditions gate whether the process can begin at all. Failing any one of them stops the application before it is reviewed on the merits, which is why it is worth checking them before spending months preparing. The self-check above scores all five.
A contractor cannot self-sponsor. Sponsorship comes from a government contracting activity or from a cleared prime that needs you on classified work. This is the gate that stops most first-time entrants, and it is fixable: it is where Salian Defense starts.
The clearance has to be tied to an actual classified contract or a specific pending award. An FCL is not granted on the expectation of future work, and a sponsor will not initiate one without a requirement it can name.
The SF-328 discloses foreign ownership, control, or influence. Foreign interest does not automatically disqualify a company, but it does determine whether mitigation is required and which instrument applies. Answering it inaccurately is far more damaging than answering it honestly.
Senior officials with authority over classified operations, typically the senior management official, the FSO, and the ITPSO, must be U.S. citizens eligible for personnel clearances. Officials who do not need access can sometimes be formally excluded, but the roles that remain must be cleanable.
A U.S. legal entity in good standing, an active SAM registration, a CAGE code, and governing documents that match what the SF-328 says. These are the least interesting requirements and a common source of avoidable delay.
No prior cleared posture is required to work with Salian. We sponsor and walk the process from the SF-328 through the DCSA review. For a step-by-step path through your specific situation, use the FCL Navigator; to scope the facility itself, start with a scoping intake.