Why this list exists
Most Nigerian federal tenders reject a share of bidders before anyone looks at price or technical merit, purely on documentation. A real, published example makes the pattern clear: a 2019 Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) tender for office equipment listed fifteen separate eligibility items, seven of them regulatory compliance certificates, before a bidder's actual proposal was considered at all. The specific tender is historical, but the document structure it used, CAC, three years of tax clearance, PenCom, ITF, NSITF, BPP registration, and a sworn affidavit, is the same structure used across federal MDA tenders today.
This guide walks through each requirement, what it proves, who needs it, and roughly how long it takes to get, so you can build the file before a live bid deadline forces you to rush it.
The core sequence
These six requirements build on each other. CAC registration comes first because every other certificate asks for your CAC number and TIN. From there, the tax, pension, and labour certificates can mostly be pursued in parallel, since none of them depend on each other, only on CAC and TIN. BPP registration comes last because it asks for several of the others as part of its own application.
1CAC registration
Every requirement on this list assumes your company is already registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) under the Companies and Allied Matters Act. You'll need your Certificate of Incorporation and certified true copies of your CAC forms (Status Report, and CAC 2A, 2.1, 7A or 1.1, depending on your company's history), since these get requested repeatedly across the rest of this checklist. Keep them in your registry, not just on file with whoever incorporated the company.
2Tax Clearance Certificate (TCC)
Issued by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), a Tax Clearance Certificate covering the three years immediately before your bid is a standard requirement, valid until 31 December of the current year. To apply, you'll need a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) from FIRS first. Newer companies (under six months old) submit a taxpayer registration form, the FIRS questionnaire, Certificate of Incorporation, and VAT registration form. Companies older than six months add a statement of affairs or audited accounts and a bank statement.
3PenCom Compliance Certificate
The Pension Compliance Certificate (PCC) confirms your company complies with the Pension Reform Act 2014, and it is explicitly described by practitioners as a gatekeeping document: without it, a bid does not move forward regardless of technical strength. To qualify, you need at least three employees registered with a Pension Fund Administrator (PFA), monthly pension contributions of at least 18% split 10% employer and 8% employee, and a current Group Life Insurance policy covering at least three times an employee's annual emolument. As of April 2026, PenCom requires PCC applications to go through its online portal rather than in person.
4ITF Compliance Certificate
The Industrial Training Fund (ITF) Act requires employers with five or more employees, or fewer than five employees but ₦50 million or more in annual turnover, to contribute 1% of total annual payroll to the Fund. Registration uses ITF Form 7A, submitted with your Certificate of Incorporation, audited accounts, and TCC to the nearest ITF area office, with the assessed contribution paid via Remita. Some sources cite a one-time ₦100,000 compliance certificate processing cost in addition to the 1% payroll contribution, though this figure comes from third-party consultancy sources rather than ITF's own published fee schedule, so confirm the current cost directly with ITF before budgeting for it.
5NSITF Compliance Certificate
The Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) administers the Employees' Compensation Scheme under the Employees' Compensation Act 2010. Per NSITF's own published rates, the employer contribution is 1% of total monthly payroll, the registration and certification fee is approximately ₦50,000, and late filing carries a 5 to 10% monthly penalty on unremitted contributions. NSITF states compliance certificates are typically issued within 5 working days of a complete, verified submission. Registration uses Form ECS RE01 (employer registration) and Form ECS RE03 (payroll schedule), with payment through Remita and the certificate issued on submission of a request letter, your Certificate of Incorporation, the completed forms, and proof of payment.
6BPP registration
Covered in full in our BPP Registration and NOCOPO guide: federal tenders require registration on BPP's National Database of Contractors, Consultants and Service Providers, evidenced by an Interim Registration Report (IRR) or a full BPP certificate. This step asks for your CAC number, company type, TIN, and address, information you'll already have assembled from the steps above.
The sworn affidavit
Alongside the certificates, Nigerian federal tenders consistently require a sworn affidavit as part of the bid package. Based on the pattern across multiple published federal tender documents, the affidavit typically must disclose whether any officer of the procuring entity's tender committees, or of BPP itself, is a current or former director, shareholder, or otherwise has a pecuniary interest in your company, confirm that all information in your bid is true and correct, state that no director has been convicted of fraud or criminal misrepresentation in any country, and confirm your company is not in receivership or subject to insolvency or winding-up proceedings.
Exact wording varies by procuring entity and is usually specified in that tender's Standard Bidding Document, but the substance is consistent enough that you can prepare a template in advance and adapt it per bid.
What else typically gets requested
Beyond the six core certificates and the affidavit, published federal tenders commonly ask for:
- Audited accounts for the last three years, to demonstrate financial standing.
- A bank reference letter from a reputable commercial bank confirming willingness to extend credit for the project if awarded, as evidence of financial capacity.
- A detailed company profile, including CVs of the key staff who would work on the contract, with copies of relevant professional qualifications for regulated fields (engineering, architecture, quantity surveying, and similar).
- Evidence of comparable past work, typically at least three similar jobs completed in the last five years, with letters of award, valuation certificates, and completion certificates.
- For works or equipment-heavy tenders, a list of plant and equipment with proof of ownership or lease.
If you're bidding as a joint venture
This is worth stating plainly because it trips people up: a joint venture does not get its own single set of certificates. Every JV partner needs its own CAC registration, TCC, PenCom certificate, ITF certificate, NSITF certificate, and BPP IRR, plus the sworn affidavit, individually. The JV itself is typically represented by a Memorandum of Understanding between the partners, not a separate registration. If you're assembling a JV bid, start the certificate collection process for every partner in parallel, not just the lead firm, since any one partner's missing document can disqualify the whole bid.
Building the file before you need it
The practical failure mode isn't not knowing these requirements exist, it's starting to assemble them after a tender is already advertised, when some certificates take days to weeks to process and TCCs and compliance certificates have hard validity windows tied to the calendar year. Building and maintaining this file continuously, with renewal dates tracked, is the difference between bidding on a tender the week it opens and watching qualified opportunities pass because a certificate lapsed in March and nobody noticed until the tender's submission deadline in June.
How CoreTender helps
This is the exact problem CoreTender's compliance tracking is built around: CAC, TCC, PenCom, ITF, NSITF, and BPP registration status and renewal dates in one place, checked against what a specific tender's eligibility requirements actually ask for, so a bid doesn't get eliminated at the examination stage over a document that expired without anyone noticing.
Related guides
Read the pillar guide for how the tender lifecycle works end to end: How Government Tenders Work in Nigeria (2026 Complete Guide), and the BPP and NOCOPO guide for the registration step in more depth: BPP Registration and NOCOPO: A Practical Guide for Nigerian Suppliers.
For definitions of any term used here, see our Procurement Glossary for Nigeria.
References
- Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund: Compensation and compliance rates
- NDIC: Invitation to Tender for the Supply of Goods and Works at NDIC Head Office, Abuja (published eligibility requirements, illustrative example)
- SOW Professional Services: Mandatory Documentation for Government Contracts in Nigeria
- Bureau of Public Procurement: Contractor Registration System
- Public Procurement Act 2007, No. 14, Federal Republic of Nigeria
This guide summarizes publicly available regulatory information and a real published federal tender example, as of August 2026, for general orientation purposes. Specific fees, thresholds, and required forms are set by FIRS, PenCom, ITF, NSITF, and BPP directly and are revised periodically. Exact eligibility requirements vary by procuring entity and tender. It is not legal advice. Verify current requirements directly with the relevant agency before submitting a bid.