Are you tender-ready?
Answer 7 quick questions. We'll show where your business stands against the universal SA government-bid requirements — free, no signup. (Readiness scoring, not tender-specific thresholds.)
What being tender-ready actually means
Every organ of state runs the same administrative gate before anyone reads your price. Miss one item and the bid is set aside as non-responsive — not scored badly, not read at all. These are the items the check above looks at, and what each one means in practice.
Central Supplier Database registration
National Treasury’s Central Supplier Database is the single register organs of state buy from. Registration is free and self-service, and it issues you a supplier number. Without an active registration your bid cannot be evaluated, whatever the price.
The CSD also pulls your tax and company status through automatically, which is why a problem at SARS or CIPC usually surfaces here first.
SARS tax compliance status
The tax clearance certificate is gone. SARS issues a Tax Compliance Status PIN instead, and the buyer uses it to check your standing in real time.
The date that matters is the day they look, not the day you submitted. A PIN that lapses between submission and evaluation reads as non-compliant, and that is one of the quietest ways a strong bid dies.
CIPC registration in good standing
Your company must be registered and its annual returns filed. CIPC deregisters companies for unfiled returns, and it does so without telling whoever is preparing your bids.
A contractor who has traded steadily for years can be technically deregistered and only find out when a tender is set aside.
B-BBEE status, and the construction exception
Under the Preferential Procurement Regulations, 2022, price carries 80 or 90 points and the remaining 20 or 10 go to specific goals the organ of state names in that tender document. The 80/20 split applies at or below R50 million and 90/10 above it. Specific goals are no longer automatically B-BBEE, so read each tender document rather than assuming.
Construction carries its own rule, and it catches people out. Under the general Codes an exempted micro enterprise turning over under R10 million can prove its status with a sworn affidavit. Under the Construction Sector Codes, only contractors under R3 million in annual revenue may use an affidavit — above that you need a SANAS-accredited verification certificate. If you have been submitting an affidavit on the R10 million understanding, check it before your next bid.
CIDB grading
Public-sector construction works require CIDB registration, and your grade caps the value of work you may tender for. Bidding above your grade is a standard and immediate disqualification.
Grade is also class-specific. A general building grade does not carry across to civil or electrical work, so a contractor can be correctly graded and still be ineligible for the tender in front of them.
VAT registration
Some tenders require a VAT number, and pricing schedules generally assume one.
The compulsory threshold rose from R1 million to R2.3 million on 1 April 2026, and voluntary registration from R50,000 to R120,000 — the first change since 2009. If you registered voluntarily to look tender-ready under the old numbers, the calculation has moved.
Why bids that should win still get thrown out
Compliance is checked before capability. A bid is first tested for responsiveness — every required form present, signed, initialled and current. Only the bids that pass are read and scored.
That is how an experienced contractor with the best price loses to a smaller one: not on merit, but on an unsigned page or a certificate that expired three weeks earlier.
What this check does not do
The check above scores what you hold against the requirements common to South African government bids. It is readiness scoring, not a tender-specific assessment: it does not know the thresholds a particular tender sets, and it does not verify anything with SARS, CIDB, CIPC or the CSD on your behalf.
Treat a clean result as nothing obvious being missing, then confirm each item at source before you submit.