Construction Procurement in Nigeria

Works is its own category, with its own rules

The Public Procurement Act 2007 treats Works as a distinct procurement category from Goods and Services, and BPP's contractor database reflects that: 65 separate categories under Works, compared with 98 under Services and 49 under Goods, as covered in our BPP Registration and NOCOPO guide. Everything in our Procurement Compliance Checklist, CAC, tax clearance, PenCom, ITF, NSITF, and BPP registration, still applies to a construction bid. What's different is a second layer of professional registration requirements specific to who is legally allowed to produce and sign construction documents.

The professionals the National Building Code requires by name

Section 2.62 of the Nigerian National Building Code specifies exactly which registered professional must prepare which contract document. This isn't a general best-practice recommendation, it's a named requirement, and it means your bid's technical documentation has to be attributable to the correctly registered professional or it can be challenged on that basis alone:

Contract drawings and specifications.
Must be prepared by a Registered Architect, regulated by the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria (ARCON), or a Registered Engineer, regulated by the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN). COREN was established by the Engineers (Registration, etc.) Act, most recently amended in 2018, and engineering practice on a government contract requires COREN registration.
Priced Bills of Quantities.
Must be prepared by a Registered Quantity Surveyor, regulated by the Quantity Surveyors Registration Board of Nigeria (QSRBN).
The Construction Programme, Project Quality Management Plan, Project Health and Safety Plan, and Construction Methodology.
Must be prepared by a Registered Builder, regulated by the Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria (CORBON), established under the Builders (Registration, etc.) Act.

Site supervision has its own named requirement too

Section 13.12.4 of the National Building Code separately requires that the management of the execution of building works, including the supervision of artisans and tradesmen, be carried out by a registered builder. This is distinct from the document-preparation requirements above: it's about who is legally responsible for running the actual site.

CORBON company registration is a tightening requirement, not a settled one

This is worth flagging explicitly because it's changing under your feet if you bid on construction works right now. As of CORBON's own published figures, only 88 building contracting companies and 63 consulting firms were registered on its company register, against a stated expectation that over 150 companies would need to register to meet BPP's requirements by the end of 2025. If you're a construction firm and you haven't checked whether CORBON company registration, separate from individual builder registration, now applies to your bids, that's worth confirming directly with CORBON before your next works tender, not assuming your existing CAC and BPP registration covers it.

Financial security instruments common in works contracts

Construction contracts typically layer additional financial guarantees on top of the bid security already covered in our compliance checklist guide, structured around the project's timeline rather than the bid itself:

Advance payment guarantee.
If the contract includes an upfront advance payment to help mobilize the contractor, the procuring entity commonly requires a bond guaranteeing that advance is repaid if the contractor doesn't perform.
Performance bond.
A guarantee covering the contractor's performance obligations, typically expected to remain valid not just through construction but through the defects liability period that follows, since the contractor's obligations continue through that period.
Retention.
The employer withholds a percentage of the contract sum through a defects liability period, released only once the contractor has remedied any defects identified during that period, giving the employer financial leverage to get outstanding snags actually fixed rather than abandoned.

Exact percentages and durations for these instruments are set in the individual contract, not by a fixed national standard, so treat the mechanisms above as what to expect structurally rather than specific numbers to plan around before you see the actual contract terms.

How CoreTender helps

Beyond the standard compliance tracking covered elsewhere, CoreTender can track professional registration status (COREN, ARCON, QSRBN, CORBON) for the individuals and firms on your project team, alongside your CAC, tax, and BPP documentation, so a works bid doesn't get challenged over a technical document that wasn't prepared by the correctly registered professional.

Related guides

Read the Procurement Compliance Checklist for the general CAC, tax, and BPP requirements that still apply to works contracts, and the pillar guide, How Government Tenders Work in Nigeria, for the four procurement methods works tenders can use.

For definitions of any term used here, see our Procurement Glossary for Nigeria.

References

This guide summarizes publicly available information from CORBON and COREN's own published materials and the National Building Code, as of August 2026, for general orientation purposes. Professional registration requirements, company registration thresholds, and financial security terms are set and revised by the relevant regulatory bodies and by individual procuring entities. It is not legal advice. Confirm current requirements directly with CORBON, COREN, ARCON, QSRBN, and BPP before submitting a works bid.