Prequalification (Präqualifikation)
also: prequalification · official list of approved economic operators · Präqualifikation
Prequalification is the contract-independent, advance verification of a company's suitability by a body authorised to carry it out. The company submits its evidence centrally once and, if the check succeeds, is entered in a register; in individual procedures a reference to that entry then replaces the renewed submission of every certificate. Germany operates separate systems for construction works and for supplies and services; entry is voluntary and must be renewed periodically.
7,529 open German procedures concern construction works — the field for which the German construction prequalification register is maintained.
What it means for a bidder
The benefit is less legal than temporal. Legally, the entry creates a presumption of suitability that the contracting authority must in principle accept — it may ask for supplementary evidence but may not doubt the registered particulars without cause. Practically, every bid stops requiring you to assemble clearance certificates, register extracts and insurance confirmations again. For a company that bids often and at short notice, that is the difference between "we can make the deadline" and "we will skip this one".
The limits are worth knowing. Prequalification replaces neither contract-specific references nor the management-system certificates a notice may require. It is national: a German entry has no direct effect in another member state, where above the thresholds the European Single Procurement Document takes its place. And it costs recurring fees and upkeep, which only pays off above a certain number of procedures per year.
Related terms
DEFINITION · a description of the law with a citation, not legal advice · FIGURE · from nightly-built aggregates of our own corpus · all terms: friedrich-clement.com/en/glossar