Treasury Launches Redesigned CFIUS Website with New Pre-Filing and Filing Resources

The US Department of the Treasury’s redesigned CFIUS website provides deal teams and interested parties with new tools to engage with the committee earlier, prepare more complete filings, and consider potential national security concerns. Although the redesign does not change CFIUS jurisdiction or filing requirements, the new pre-filing portal, risk matrix, and filing guidance may help parties anticipate questions and reduce avoidable delays.

On July 29, 2026, Treasury launched a dedicated CFIUS.gov website. The redesign is more than cosmetic: the site adds a formal pre-filing consultation portal, a high-level risk matrix, more candid filing guidance, and visual examples for organizational charts. The launch does not amend Section 721 of the Defense Production Act or the regulations in 31 CFR Parts 800 and 802. Rather, the practical value of the site is narrower and more useful than a new statement of CFIUS authority.

Infrequent participants in the CFIUS process, including non-US parties and their local counsel, may welcome the consolidation of existing materials on filing mechanics, confidentiality, enforcement, non-notified transactions, and several developing CFIUS initiatives. Frequent filers will appreciate a clearer route for early engagement and a more detailed checklist to prepare and submit a complete, review-ready filing for unique transactions.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Pre-filing engagement. Provide CFIUS with process questions and transaction context to facilitate more productive engagements, but not to obtain an advisory opinion or binding view on jurisdiction, mandatory filing, or national security risk. Material submitted to CFIUS in a consultation is treated as confidential under Section 721(c).
• Risk screening and weighting. Use the risk matrix to organize diligence and test possible controls, but do not treat its sample mitigation measures as a prediction or safe harbor for what to expect in a given transaction.
• Filing readiness. Treat the filing guidance as two checklists: one for regulatory completeness and another for information that is not formally required but frequently requested.
• Broader signals. Consult the redesigned enforcement, non-notified, and initiatives pages as useful indicators of process and institutional priorities, but note that they do not create new filing rights or shortcuts.
• Cross-border preparation. Ensure that any foreign-language issues are addressed in the filing schedule along with other key documents. Certified English translations must be provided with foreign-language documents, and CFIUS may also ask about any foreign corporate laws referenced in the foreign person’s governance documents. Both belong in the filing schedule from the start.

WHAT IS NEW AND WHY IT MATTERS

The website’s new features are directed at two recurring sources of friction. First, parties often have procedural questions or transaction-specific context that would be useful to raise before filing, but there has not been a prominent, standardized public intake channel. Second, parties can satisfy the regulatory filing requirements and still encounter extensive follow-up questions because the initial submission does not include documents or explanations that CFIUS commonly seeks. The redesigned site addresses both problems without changing the governing legal standards.

Pre-Filing Consultations: A Formal Channel, Not an Advisory-Opinion Process

The new pre-filing consultations portal encourages parties or their representatives to ask questions, discuss a specific transaction, preview a future filing, and provide relevant materials before submitting a declaration or draft notice. CFIUS encourages outreach particularly where parties have focused questions about the process or believe the Committee would benefit from additional context. Consultations may occur while the transaction and filing are being prepared, but CFIUS states that they should take place at least five business days before a declaration or draft notice is filed. As with other submissions to CFIUS, materials submitted through the process receive the confidentiality protection applicable under Section 721(c).

The portal formalizes outreach that practitioners have often handled through informal email exchanges and telephone calls, which may reduce practical barriers to contacting CFIUS and create a more consistent intake process. Its limits, however, are notable. CFIUS continues to be unable to issue an advisory opinion on whether a transaction is covered, whether a mandatory filing is required, or whether the transaction raises national security concerns. Any staff feedback is nonbinding, and response timing may depend on available resources and the priority assigned to the request. The portal also is not the channel for third-party tips or voluntary self-disclosures.

A useful request should not ask CFIUS to decide the legal analysis for the parties. It should identify the transaction, the contemplated filing path and timing, the specific procedural questions, and any additional facts that may provide necessary or even helpful context. Depending on the issue, that may include concise pre- and post-closing ownership charts; the identity and nationality of relevant investors; a short description of sensitive technology, data, infrastructure, government contracts, or real estate; and a limited set of supporting documents. The portal is most likely to add value when the question is narrow enough for (1) CFIUS staff to answer and (2) parties to reflect CFIUS’s response in the filing materials.

Filing Guidance: Separate Completeness from Process Efficiency

One of the most helpful additions to the site is the expanded filing guidance, which distinguishes between information required for a filing to be complete and information that CFIUS frequently requests even though the regulations do not currently require it.

For completeness, CFIUS identifies recurring problems such as filing fees that have not cleared, defective certifications, incomplete ownership charts, vague descriptions of the businesses or transaction, incomplete US government contract information, missing personal-identifier information, omitted side letters, stale or missing financial statements, unreported material changes, and missing certified translations. These are not drafting preferences. Depending on the defect, they can prevent acceptance, require refiling, or consume time before the statutory review clock starts. For notice filing fees, the guidance also recommends submitting payment during CFIUS’s review of the draft. Certified English translations are mandatory for foreign-language documents under 31 CFR § 800.801(b) and § 802.801(b), and the lead time to prepare these materials can easily be overlooked in the filing schedule.

The separate list of frequently requested materials is designed to reduce avoidable question sets after acceptance. It includes pro forma capitalization tables, transaction step plans, current foreign-acquirer governance documents, pre- and post-closing governance documents for the US business, investor pitch decks or other marketing materials, a chronology of how the transaction originated, detailed information regarding indirect foreign investors and limited partners, and current financial statements. Parties should not reflexively attach every item in every case. They should identify which materials clarify ownership, governance, funding, access, transaction rationale, or investor relationships and have those materials ready before filing. CFIUS also notes that it may ask questions about the foreign corporate law referenced in a foreign acquirer’s governance documents and that personal-identifier information must be complete for directors, officers, and shareholders of 5% or more. A foreign investor should confirm early that this material can be provided in the required format.

The declaration-versus-notice comparison is also useful for planning. A declaration has an abbreviated record and a 30-day assessment period, while a notice has broader information requirements, a 45-day review period, and a possible 45-day investigation. Unless an extension is granted, follow-up responses generally are due within two business days for a declaration and three business days for a notice. The site reports that, from 2022 through 2024, CFIUS concluded action on 70% of declarations, requested a full notice in 23% of declaration submissions, and was unable to conclude action in 7% of filed declarations.

CFIUS concluded action on 95% of notices, including 13% with mitigation. These figures are not predictive, but they underscore that the shorter form is not necessarily the faster path for a complex transaction. These figures reflect three-year averages. By comparison, the 2025 annual report shows that, in calendar year 2025, 66% of declarations were cleared and a notice was requested in 26% of cases.

Organizational Chart Examples and Other Process Aids

In a CFIUS filing, the chart is part of the factual record, not a decorative exhibit. The new organizational chart visual examples include separate pre-transaction structures for the foreign investor and the US business and a combined post-transaction structure. The examples reinforce several practical points: use full legal names; show each individual’s nationality; identify each entity’s jurisdiction of organization and principal place of business; distinguish economic and voting interests; account for 100% of nonpublic ownership; explain residual public ownership; define acronyms, colors, shapes, and line types; and make the direction of ownership easy to follow.

The site also consolidates submission instructions, filing timelines, certification templates, fee information, CMS manuals, and form screenshots. Parties should use these materials to create an internal filing calendar and ensure various responsibilities are appropriately delegated. CFIUS will not review a draft declaration, while parties are encouraged to submit a draft notice at least five business days before the formal notice. Parties also should agree on CMS roles, document-access controls, fee responsibility, and record retention before the first upload.

Risk Matrix: A Diligence Framework, Not a Prediction

Notably, the redesign introduces a risk matrix that organizes CFIUS’s threat-vulnerability-consequence framework around eight recurring categories of risk: critical infrastructure, cybersecurity, information security, personal data security, product integrity, proximity concerns, supply assurance, and technology transfer. It also lists illustrative mitigation tools, including access restrictions, segregation measures, governance controls, security plans, source-code review, vendor vetting, supply commitments, third-party audits, reporting, and inspection rights.

The matrix can be a useful screening device to assign areas of diligence across different areas of CFIUS focus, including legal, cybersecurity, data, engineering, government-contracts, supply-chain, and real-estate issues. For each applicable category, parties can identify the relevant asset or function, the foreign person’s potential access or influence, the plausible consequence, existing controls, and additional measures that would or could be operationally feasible. That work can then inform valuation, negotiations among the parties, transaction documents, board materials, a pre-filing consultation, and even the filing itself.

That said, the matrix does not purport to provide any meaningful certainty about how CFIUS will approach or resolve a specific case. It is deliberately high-level and the listed measures are conditioned as illustrative, nonexclusive, and nonexhaustive. CFIUS may require materially different terms, determine that no mitigation is needed, or conclude that mitigation cannot resolve the identified risk. In sum, the matrix should be used to ask better questions, not to forecast clearance or any related requirements.

OTHER PAGES WORTH BOOKMARKING

Monitoring, enforcement, and non-notified transactions

The redesigned site makes existing materials on enforcement and non-notified transactions easier to locate. As with the other sections, these pages do not announce a new legal standard, but instead reinforce several current priorities: accurate and complete submissions, timely mandatory filings, prompt reporting of material changes or possible violations, functioning mitigation controls, and proactive consideration of voluntary filings.

As previously announced, CFIUS continues to leverage public tips, agency and congressional referrals, media, commercial databases, and classified reporting to screen thousands of transactions each year. The practical lesson is that a decision not to file should be contemporaneously documented as carefully as a decision to file. Two points are worth drawing out. Exposure persists because safe harbor does not attach until after a filing is made and CFIUS grants it. Separately, CFIUS encourages parties to retain contemporaneous records, including any follow-up responses, to help justify a no-file analysis years later.

Initiatives: efficiency, technical capability, and domestic supply chains

The new Initiatives section collects high-level descriptions of the Known Investor Program, the Investment Security Technology Initiative, and the Strategic Vendor Program:

• The Known Investor Program is intended to collect information about participating foreign investors before a transaction filing so that CFIUS can perform investor due diligence more efficiently, but the current pilot is not a generally available fast track and does not change CFIUS jurisdiction or the statutory review process. The pilot has engaged a sample of the most frequent repeat filers from a range of countries of origin, so participation to date reflects filing frequency rather than nationality alone.
• The Investment Security Technology Initiative is designed to deepen CFIUS’s access to technical and scientific expertise.
• The Strategic Vendor Program seeks to connect companies whose transactions have cleared with a resilient US supplier and vendor base.

The site indicates that the initiatives will continue to evolve, so parties that file frequently or operate in sensitive technology and supply-chain sectors should monitor these pages for participation criteria, new guidance, or additional public engagement.

PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR DEAL TEAMS

Add CFIUS to the deal intake. Consider CFIUS issues at the outset of transactions rather than after the transaction agreement is substantially negotiated.

Be realistic about what filing form is appropriate. Select a declaration or notice based on complexity, deal timing, sensitivity, anticipated mitigation, and the need for outcome certainty—not simply the shorter statutory period.

Build and verify the ownership record early. Prepare reusable investor ownership, governance, nationality, funding, and limited-partner information, and build pre- and post-closing organizational charts before drafting begins.

Engage narrowly and early. Use the consultation portal for a defined process issue or transaction context and submit the request early enough to influence the filing. Do not treat silence or informal feedback as a clearance position.

Prepare for rapid questions. Create a filing data room that includes both required documents and relevant frequently requested materials, with a team capable of meeting two- or three-business-day follow-up deadlines.

Plan for operational consequences. Test possible information-access, cybersecurity, governance, supply, and monitoring controls against the business model and the transaction agreement before offering to or accepting mitigation from CFIUS. Ensure that the operational and business teams are brought in to pressure test any proposed measures. Since mitigation commonly restricts a foreign parent’s own access to the US business, internal approvals may be needed before those terms can be accepted.

Prepare the foreign-acquirer record. For a foreign acquirer, prepare certified translations of governance and constitutional documents early in the process and be ready to explain or discuss any foreign statute referenced in those documents.

LOOKING AHEAD

CFIUS.gov is best understood as an operational upgrade. It lowers the friction of finding guidance, makes early engagement more visible, and provides clearer indicators of what CFIUS expects to see in a well-prepared filing. Its practical effect will depend on how consistently CFIUS responds through the portal and how the new initiatives develop.

For transaction parties, the immediate opportunity is straightforward: use the site to improve issue spotting, assemble a more complete record, and build realistic time into the deal process. The new tools may make the mechanics more efficient, but they do not replace transaction-specific legal analysis or reduce the importance of a persuasive factual record.

16 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

The following questions may be useful for deal teams, boards, investors, lenders, and compliance personnel using the redesigned site.

1. Did the redesigned website change CFIUS law or regulations?

No. The launch did not change CFIUS jurisdiction, mandatory-filing triggers, review periods, filing fees, or substantive national security standards. It reorganizes existing information and adds practical tools and guidance.

2. Which features are genuinely new?

The principal additions are the direction to the pre-filing consultation portal, the public risk matrix, more detailed filing guidance on declarations versus notices and common delay sources, a list of frequently requested information not required by the regulations, and visual organizational-chart examples. The dedicated initiatives pages also make developing programs easier to track.

3. What is new about the consultation portal?

Parties have long contacted CFIUS staff informally, often by email or telephone. The portal provides a visible, standardized channel for those communications and invites parties to provide transaction context before filing. It does not create a new adjudicatory process or require CFIUS to provide a definitive answer.

4. Can CFIUS confirm through the portal that a transaction is not covered or that no mandatory filing is required?

No. CFIUS expressly states that it does not issue advisory opinions on coverage, mandatory filing, or national security concerns. Any staff feedback is nonbinding. Parties remain responsible for their own legal analysis and should frame portal requests around focused procedural questions or useful context.

5. So when should parties use the portal?

Use it when an unusual structure, compressed timetable, novel filing issue, or sensitive factual context would benefit from early engagement. CFIUS says consultation should occur at least five business days before a declaration or draft notice is filed, but a materially complex issue should be raised earlier.

6. What should a consultation request include?

Depending on the issues presented, parties should consider including a concise transaction description, expected signing and closing timeline, contemplated filing path, pre- and post-closing ownership diagrams, relevant foreign investor information (including any co-investors), the sensitive features of the US business, and a short list of specific questions. Only provide information and materials that help CFIUS understand the issue being presented.

7. Are materials submitted for a pre-filing consultation confidential?

Yes. CFIUS states that information and documentary material provided in a pre-filing consultation receive the confidentiality protection applicable under Section 721(c). Parties should still identify information that is confidential to one side and use appropriate access controls for formal CMS submissions.

8. Does Section 721(c) confidentiality address restrictions in the investor’s home jurisdiction on providing documents or data?

No. Section 721(c) restricts what CFIUS may disclose publicly and exempts filed material from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA); it does not address whether a party is permitted to transfer documents or personal data to CFIUS. CFIUS also notes that Section 721(c) does not prevent the parties themselves from disclosing what they filed. A foreign investor should confirm the transfer question with local counsel and build any consent or approval step into the filing schedule.

9. Does the new guidance make a declaration the preferred route?

No. A declaration can be efficient for a relatively straightforward transaction with limited national security sensitivity, but it can result in a request for a full notice or a determination that CFIUS cannot conclude action. A notice requires a filing fee, personal identifier and biography information, as well as more preparation, but can provide greater outcome certainty.

10. Which filing defects are most likely to delay acceptance or lead to rejection or refiling?

The guidance highlights uncleared fees, missing or defective certifications, incomplete ownership charts, vague business or transaction descriptions, incomplete US government contract information, missing personal-identifier information, omitted side agreements, missing financial statements, unreported material changes, and missing certified translations.

11. What materials should parties consider preparing even though the regulations do not require them?

Depending on the transaction, consider pro forma capitalization tables, transaction step plans, current foreign-acquirer governance documents, pre- and post-closing US business governance documents, investor pitch materials, a transaction chronology, detailed indirect-investor and limited-partner information, and current financial statements.

12. What do the organizational-chart examples add?

They show the level of precision CFIUS expects. Charts should use full legal names, identify nationalities and entity jurisdictions, distinguish economic and voting interests, account for ownership totals, explain public-company residual ownership, define symbols, and clarify and emphasize the change in rights from pre-closing to post-closing.

13. How should the risk matrix be used?

Use its eight categories to consider areas to focus on in diligence. Identify the asset or function at risk, the foreign person’s possible access or influence, the potential consequence, existing controls, and any additional measure that would be workable. The result can support transaction drafting, board analysis, pre-filing engagement, and the CFIUS filing.

14. Does the risk matrix predict what mitigation CFIUS will accept?

No. The categories and sample measures are high-level, illustrative, and nonexclusive. CFIUS conducts an individualized assessment and may require different terms, conclude that mitigation is unnecessary, or determine that mitigation cannot resolve the risk.

15. What do the enforcement, non-notified, and initiatives pages suggest about CFIUS’s areas of focus?

They reinforce the importance of accurate submissions, timely filing, post-closing compliance, data and technology controls, supply-chain resilience, repeat-investor diligence, and the ability to identify transactions that were not filed. These pages are informative signals; they do not independently expand or otherwise modify CFIUS’s authorities.

16. What should companies do now?

Companies and other interested parties should consider the following:

• Ensure due diligence protocols incorporate the new filing and risk checklists.
• Involve CFIUS lawyers in crafting the transactional clauses that address the CFIUS filing process, closing conditions, and breakup fees to reflect the agreed strategy for approval and allocation of risk.
• Agreement clauses generally should not be treated as “plug-and-play” provisions and copied from prior deals without careful consideration of the unique features of the current transaction.
• Standardize investor and ownership materials.
• Identify when a focused pre-filing consultation would be useful.
• Prepare frequently requested documents before submission.
• Set internal CMS and response procedures for filings and for instances when CFIUS reaches out about a transaction.
• Monitor the initiatives pages for future developments.
• For a foreign acquirer, arrange certified translations and confirm what may be provided in response to requests for personal-identifier and limited-partner information before assembling the filing.

Our CFIUS and national security team will continue to monitor developments related to CFIUS.gov and the initiatives described above.