GAO finds unreliable records for $31 billion in F-35 parts

The Defense Department’s records and physical inventories do not reliably account for an estimated 26 million F-35 parts worth about $31 billion, the Government Accountability Office found. The parts were held at more than 700 government- and contractor-managed facilities, according to GAO’s Nov. 9 report, which said the records were not reliable for property accountability or financial reporting.

The estimate is as of March 2026. About 70% of the parts were at government-managed facilities and 30% at contractor-managed facilities; that split describes where parts were held, not differences in accountability or loss rates.

Does the report mean the parts are missing? No. GAO found gaps in records, inventory checks and loss tracking, but did not establish that the inventory as a whole—or the parts absent from the logistics system—was physically lost.

Gaps in records and data i

As of March 2026, about 17,000 parts listed as being in maintenance or repair had not been entered into the Enterprise Logistics Management System. Their recorded value was about $1.3 billion. Defense Department officials told GAO the value could reach $2.5 billion when acquisition, transportation and overhead costs are included. These are unrecorded parts, not a count of confirmed physical losses.

Contractor submissions also showed data-quality problems. In records submitted in December 2025, serial numbers appeared in 29% of entries, National Stock Numbers in 43%, and nearly 6% listed acquisition costs of one cent or less. GAO described those figures as indicators of possible errors, not proof that every affected record was wrong.

GAO said the logistics system did not connect to either of the two prime contractors’ property systems. For joint spares, the F-35 Joint Program Office relied on contractor data submitted quarterly, meaning some records could be more than three months old. GAO also said record-timeliness and data-quality problems it identified in 2022 continued as of August 2026.

Inventories and loss reports remain incomplete i

GAO found that fiscal-year 2025 physical inventories did not fully verify whether parts existed or whether records covered all parts. The Joint Program Office had spent at least $17 million on physical inventories since fiscal year 2020, but had not completed a full inventory. Officials cited limited resources and the difficulty of visiting more than 700 facilities while warehouse operations continued.

The report also describes unresolved loss reporting. As of March 2026, the office did not know the status of losses valued at more than $85 million that GAO had reported in 2023. Separately, a prime contractor submitted about $28 million in losses dating from 2012 through 2025; the Defense Contract Management Agency had determined that about $6 million should be charged financially to the contractor. The office could not determine whether the $28 million included any of the earlier losses, so the figures should not be added together.

An office spreadsheet held 57 reported loss cases as of April 2026. Seven lacked unit-cost information, and 24—worth almost $400,000 combined—were reported more than a year after discovery, despite office guidance calling for reports within 30 days.

GAO made four recommendations covering loss monitoring and analysis, procedures and training for accountable property officers, and a documented plan for the officers’ numbers, locations and time commitments. The Defense Department concurred with all four and said it was taking action; GAO’s report did not set a completion deadline. Officials had also told GAO that the Defense Contract Audit Agency was developing an inventory plan, with a first full inventory targeted for March 2027. That target was reported as of June 2026.

The parts pool serves the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, as well as seven international program partners and other foreign military sales customers. GAO said unreliable records make it harder for the department to know parts’ locations, quantities and values and to report them reliably. The report identifies readiness risks but does not document a specific readiness failure caused by the accounting problems.