Biden-era program has reduced FedRAMP processing times to just five weeks from previous year or more

The US Government's process for certifying cloud services safe for official use has long been slow, but that's no longer the case. Approvals so far this fiscal year are more than double the total for all of FY 2024.

The General Services Administration has approved 114 cloud services for government use through its Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) in FY 2025, and the GSA is crediting this year's success to a Biden-era program, known as FedRAMP 20x, designed to transform the government's cloud software approval process. 

FedRAMP is a government-wide initiative that standardizes the security assessment and authorization of cloud services for government use. The program has been around since 2011, and a 2024 memo called for modernizing it to reduce the approval timeline and simplify the process. FedRAMP 20x is that initiative, which the GSA described as designed around "cutting documentation, enabling automation ...