Check suitability: can my business participate?
Check licences, experience, capacity and partners properly, including as a young or small business.
After this guide, you can …
- Check each suitability criterion
- Map genuine evidence to requirements
- Distinguish real partner support from unsupported claims
1. Read the actual criteria
Suitability is assessed against criteria set for the procedure. These can concern professional authorisation, financial standing and technical or professional capacity. Also check declarations about exclusion grounds, including relevant misconduct or obligations. Complete them truthfully. General registration or confidence does not replace requested evidence. The procurement documents determine which document is required at which stage.
2. Young businesses should assess the details carefully
Different tenders ask for different turnover, references or certificates. Within the VgV’s scope, the circumstances of young businesses and SMEs must be considered appropriately when choosing criteria. This does not grant automatic admission. Read the exact wording and raise unclear or potentially disproportionate requirements in good time. Investigate whether relevant experience can be recognised without presenting a former employer’s project as your company’s own delivery.
3. Partners may add genuine capacity
A consortium, subcontract and reliance on another entity’s capacity are different models. For capacity reliance, naming a partner is insufficient: the necessary resources must actually be available and required commitments supplied. Certain professional capabilities require that supporting business to perform the relevant work itself. Check duties, authority, responsibility and liability before committing. Obtain suitable advice for complex arrangements.
4. Evidence every statement
Create a suitability matrix: criterion, minimum requirement, available evidence, validity and outstanding action. Check names, dates and relevance. A general marketing document proves a specific qualification only if its content genuinely supports the required statement. Vergabezone’s evidence library can organise files and responsibilities. Your business must still verify that every item is current, correct and suitable for this procedure.
You do not have to provide every capability alone, but every capability you claim must be genuinely supportable.
Your next action
0/5Ticks stay in this browser. They are not an eligibility assessment or a tender submission.
Reading progress stays in this browser.
Go to the original source
Editorially checked on 27 October 2026. The current original documents of your procedure govern.
- GWB § 122 — EignungBundesamt für Justiz / Gesetze im Internet
- VgV § 42 — Auswahl geeigneter UnternehmenBundesamt für Justiz / Gesetze im Internet
- VgV § 48 — EignungsnachweiseBundesamt für Justiz / Gesetze im Internet
- VgV — insbesondere §§ 29 und 47: Unterlagen und EignungsleiheBundesamt für Justiz / Gesetze im Internet