The short answer
Construction tenders usually run in two stages: prequalification, where the buyer checks you can safely and financially carry the job, then the tender, where your method statements, programme and price get scored. Prequalification asks for financial statements, bonding capacity, insurance certificates, licences, past projects and a safety record such as three years of OSHA 300A summaries and your experience modification rate. Keep that evidence in a dated pack with expiry tracking, because a lapsed certificate fails you before anyone reads your method statement.
Key takeaways
- Prequalification is pass or fail: the AIA’s A305-2020 form asks for licences, safety citations, three years of OSHA 300A summaries, an EMR verification letter, insurance certificates and total and available bonding capacity.
- Federal bonding has hard numbers: the FAR requires performance and payment bonds above $150,000, and bid guarantees of at least 20 percent of the bid price, capped at $3 million.
- UK buyers moved off PAS 91: BSI withdrew it, and government guidance points works buyers to Build UK’s Common Assessment Standard, certified once a year.
- The Procurement Act 2023 limits what UK buyers can demand: they can’t require contract insurance to be in place before award, or audited accounts from firms not legally required to have them.
- Expiry dates are the real risk: a tracker with a 90-day refresh rule catches lapsed certificates before a deadline does.
- Limitations: general RFP software helps with the narrative and questionnaire answers, not takeoffs, estimating, bid boards or bonding. Those need construction tools and a good surety relationship.
Prequalification and the tender are two different tests
Prequalification answers one question: can this firm do the job without hurting someone, going broke or leaving subcontractors unpaid? It’s mostly evidence, scored pass or fail or against minimum thresholds. The tender answers a different one: how will you build this particular project, when, and for what price? That part is scored.
Treat them as separate deliverables with separate owners. Prequalification belongs to whoever owns compliance records (often the bid coordinator with finance, safety and insurance feeding in). The tender belongs to the estimator and the project lead. Mixing them is how a strong method statement ends up attached to a two-month-old insurance certificate.
What prequalification questionnaires ask for
The AIA’s summary of A305-2020 describes it as the form owners use to check a contractor’s background, references and financial stability, and notes that subcontractors and suppliers can use it too. It replaced A305-1986 and has a main document plus five optional exhibits: general information, financial and performance information, project-specific information, and two pages of past project experience.
The Exhibit C sample is the most useful checklist in US construction bidding. Paraphrased, it asks for:
| Area | What the form asks | Evidence you keep | Refresh trigger |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licensing | Business and contractor licence or registration numbers for the project office | Licence copies with expiry dates | Each renewal |
| People | Key personnel with role, office, experience and similar projects | Current CVs or résumés, one page each | Every bid (tailor) |
| Delivery | Work you’ll self-perform and the subcontractors for major portions | Self-perform scope list, subcontractor list | Every bid |
| Capacity | Work under contract, the unfinished amount, average annual volume over five years, largest contract in five years | Backlog report from finance | Quarterly |
| Safety | Written safety program, safety citations and penalties for three years, OSHA 300A summaries for three years | Program document, citation log, 300A forms | Each February |
| EMR | A verification letter from your insurance representative with current and prior three years’ rates | Letter on carrier or broker letterhead | Each policy year |
| Insurance | Certificates for general liability, umbrella and professional liability, deductibles, builder’s risk capability | Certificates of insurance (COIs) | Each policy renewal |
| Surety | Ability to provide performance and payment bonds, surety and contact, total and available bonding capacity | Surety capacity letter | Before each bid |
| Experience | Up to four relevant projects from the project office (Exhibit D) | Project sheets with owner contact and value | After each completion |
Private owners and general contractors write their own forms, but they rarely stray far from this list. Write your evidence pack to A305’s shape and most questionnaires become a copy and adapt job.
US safety numbers: OSHA logs, incidence rates and EMR
OSHA logs. OSHA says many employers with more than 10 employees must keep injury and illness records on Forms 300, 300A and 301. Under 29 CFR 1904.32, you post the annual 300A summary no later than February 1 of the following year and keep it up until April 30. Under 1904.33, you keep the 300 Log, the 300A summary and the 301 reports for five years after the year they cover. That five-year retention is why “send us three years of 300As” is always answerable.
Incidence rates. Many questionnaires ask for a total recordable incident rate (TRIR) by year. An OSHA interpretation letter dated August 23, 2016 gives the formula: number of injuries and illnesses times 200,000, divided by employee hours worked. The 200,000 represents 100 employees working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks. Your 300A already carries the case count and total hours worked, so compute it from there and show your inputs.
Experience modification rate. Texas Mutual Insurance Company explains that an experience mod compares your actual losses with the expected losses for your industry: 1.00 is average, below 1.00 is a credit mod that lowers premium, above 1.00 a debit mod that raises it. Owners often set a maximum EMR in the questionnaire. If yours is above it, don’t hide it: explain the claim that drove it, what changed, and the trend.
Federal construction bonding: Miller Act and FAR Part 28
The statute and the FAR use different numbers, and both are correct. 40 U.S.C. 3131 requires performance and payment bonds before any federal construction contract of more than $100,000 is awarded. The FAR at 28.102-1 (FAC 2026-01) applies the inflation-adjusted threshold of $150,000, and the Part 28 overhaul deviation, issued August 28, 2025, keeps it.
What the Part 28 deviation text says, in practice:
- Above $150,000: performance and payment bonds, each normally 100 percent of the original contract price, with additional coverage if the price goes up.
- From $35,000 to $150,000: the contracting officer selects two or more payment protections (payment bond, irrevocable letter of credit, tripartite escrow, certificates of deposit and similar) and you furnish one.
- Bid guarantees: required whenever performance or payment bonds are, unless waived, and only separate bid guarantees are acceptable for construction. The amount must be at least 20 percent of the bid price but not more than $3 million.
- Missing bid guarantee: in sealed bidding, noncompliance generally means your bid is rejected.
Part 28 is also in the FAR Council’s second batch of proposed rules (FAR Case 2026-010), published September 18, 2026, so read the bond clauses in each solicitation rather than trusting a cheat sheet. State and local public works follow their own bonding statutes and thresholds.
Small contractors short on bonding capacity should know the SBA surety bond guarantee program, which covers contracts up to $9 million for non-federal work and $14 million for federal work. Federal past performance also follows you longer in construction: the Part 42 deviation lets agencies use CPARS evaluations within 6 years of completion for construction and architect-engineer contracts, versus 3 years for other work. For the federal proposal mechanics around all this, see how to respond to a government RFP.
UK: The Procurement Act 2023, PAS 91 and the Common Assessment Standard
The regime changed. GOV.UK confirms the Procurement Act 2023 came into force on February 24, 2025, and that procurements started under the old rules continue under the old legislation. So a framework tendered in 2024 may still run on the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
PAS 91 is gone from government use. PPN 03/24, published March 27, 2024, updated the standard selection questionnaire and removed references to PAS 91, “which has now been withdrawn by the BSI.” Its Annex A guidance tells contracting authorities to use the Common Assessment Standard (CAS) for works contracts in place of the standard questionnaire. That PPN applies to procurements under the 2015 regulations.
Under the new Act, CAS can stay, with limits. The government’s conditions of participation guidance (updated August 17, 2026) says:
- Section 22 lets buyers test legal and financial capacity and technical ability, but conditions must be proportionate to the contract’s nature, cost and complexity.
- Buyers can keep using industry questionnaires such as CAS for works contracts if they meet the Act’s requirements.
- Buyers can’t require insurance relating to the contract to be in place before award, so “will you obtain it” replaces “attach the certificate” for project-specific cover.
- Buyers can’t demand audited accounts from suppliers that the Companies Act 2006 doesn’t require to be audited.
- Core supplier information (basic details, exclusion grounds, economic and financial standing, connected persons) lives on the central digital platform, and you’ll confirm it’s current and shared.
What CAS itself is. Build UK describes CAS as an industry-agreed question set and assessment standard for supplier prequalification, including a building safety section, with desktop and site-based certification levels. Firms are certified once a year by one of seven recognised assessment bodies, and Build UK says version 6 of the question set will be published November 1, 2026. Check which version your buyer specifies.
For UK safety records, expect questions on reportable incidents under RIDDOR (the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations) in place of OSHA logs.
The tender package: What gets scored
Once you’re through the gate, the tender documents decide the job. The usual parts, and how evaluators read them:
| Document | What the evaluator checks | Owner | Common failure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Method statements | Site-specific sequence, named roles, risks and controls | Project lead | Generic text pasted from the last job |
| Programme | Logic, critical path, realistic durations, key dates met | Planner | Programme contradicts the method statement |
| Pricing schedule or bill of quantities | Every line priced, arithmetic, no qualifications hidden in rates | Estimator | Blank lines, unbalanced rates |
| CVs | The people named in the method statement, with relevant projects | Bid coordinator | CVs for people not available on the start date |
| Health and safety plan | Project-specific hazards and controls | Safety lead | Company policy instead of a project plan |
| Subcontractor and supplier inputs | Quotes, scopes and commitments behind your price | Estimator | Subcontractor quote expires before award |
The pricing schedule is its own discipline (see the pricing spreadsheet guide), and so is gathering trade quotes and partner content on time. Ask clarification questions early when drawings conflict with the specification; the clarification questions guide covers wording.
Worked example: An illustrative evidence pack expiry tracker
Say you’re a mid-size contractor checking your pack on October 7, 2026, before a run of autumn bids. Every row below is illustrative. The rule: green above 90 days, amber at 31 to 90, red at 30 or less or already expired.
| Evidence item | Issued by | Expires or refresh due | Days left | Status | Action owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Surety capacity letter (buyers here want under 90 days old) | Surety | June 30, 2026 | -99 | Red | Finance director |
| Umbrella liability certificate | Broker | October 31, 2026 | 24 | Red | Insurance lead |
| General liability certificate | Broker | November 30, 2026 | 54 | Amber | Insurance lead |
| EMR verification letter | Broker | January 15, 2027 | 100 | Green | Insurance lead |
| OSHA 300A summary for 2026 | Internal | February 1, 2027 | 117 | Green | Safety lead |
| CAS certification (UK work) | Assessment body | March 2, 2027 | 146 | Green | Bid coordinator |
| State contractor licence | Licensing board | June 30, 2027 | 266 | Green | Office manager |
The arithmetic for one row: from October 7 to October 31 is 24 days, plus 30 days of November gives 54 for the general liability certificate. The surety letter dated April 1 went past a 90-day freshness rule on June 30, which is 99 days ago. That’s the row that would have failed a bid next week.
Add a second table for safety statistics by year, because every questionnaire asks for three years and you don’t want to recompute under pressure. Using the OSHA formula with illustrative inputs:
| Year | Recordable cases | Hours worked | TRIR (cases x 200,000 / hours) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 3 | 410,000 | 1.46 |
| 2024 | 2 | 455,000 | 0.88 |
| 2025 | 4 | 520,000 | 1.54 |
Store the 300A that each number came from next to the row. When a buyer asks why 2025 rose, have a two-sentence answer ready about the incidents and the corrective action. Stale content is a known problem in every library. The security questionnaire guide covers saving approved answers and watching which ones go stale.
Worked example: Writing a method statement that scores
Say an illustrative tender for a hospital car park extension weights quality 60 percent and price 40 percent. One quality question, worth 20 percent of the quality score and marked 0 to 5, asks how you’ll keep emergency vehicle access open during works, in 1,000 words.
The scoring math explains why this answer deserves your best writer. A 3 earns 3/5 of 20, which is 12 quality points; a 4 earns 16. Those 4 extra quality points are worth 4 x 0.6 = 2.4 points overall, and on a tight tender that can be the margin between first and second.
A weak opening: “We have extensive experience of working in live hospital environments and take access very seriously.” Nothing an evaluator can mark.
A stronger structure:
- Answer first. “Blue-light access to the emergency department stays open on its current route for the whole programme; we never close more than one lane, and never during the hospital’s peak ambulance hours you gave us at the site visit.”
- Sequence. Phase by phase, tied to programme activity IDs, with the temporary route drawing referenced by number.
- Named roles. Who controls the gate, who briefs the hospital’s estates team weekly, and who can stop work.
- Risks and controls. A short table: risk, control, trigger, responsible person.
- Evidence. One past project with a similar constraint, its owner and a measurable outcome you can verify.
- Mirror the question. Reuse its key words so the evaluator can tick the marking criteria.
Generic material (your traffic management policy, your standard site induction) belongs in an appendix if the tender allows one. The scored answer should be about this site.
Where software helps (and where it doesn’t)
Construction bidding has its own software stack, and this directory doesn’t cover it. Bid boards for finding invitations to tender, takeoff and estimating tools, and subcontractor bid management are a different job from writing answers, and none of the published vendors here is a construction-bid specialist. If your pain is quantities, trade coverage or bid-day pricing, start there, not with a response tool.
General response tools help with the narrative and questionnaire parts: the safety program summary you paste into every PQQ, company history, quality and environmental statements, CV blurbs and past project write-ups.
- Loopio keeps an answer library with tagging, versioning and review workflows, which suits a firm reusing prequalification answers across many buyers.
- Responsive runs one content library across RFPs, RFIs and questionnaires, with an intake-to-submission workflow for larger bid teams.
- AutoRFP.ai imports Excel, Word and PDF questionnaires and exports back into the original file with formatting intact, handy when a main contractor sends its own spreadsheet PQQ.
- Tenderbolt fills Excel questionnaires automatically, in their original format, and keeps data in the EU, for European bid teams.
- VisibleThread connects to UK Find a Tender and flags long sentences and passive voice, which helps on long method statements.
What none of them does: hold your insurance certificates’ real expiry dates for you, negotiate bonding capacity, price a bill of quantities, or write a site-specific method statement. A shared spreadsheet with the tracker above, owned by one named person, solves the expiry problem for free. The RFP response software hub compares the general tools if the narrative side is your bottleneck.
Sources
- Summary: A305-2020, Contractor’s Qualification Statement, AIA Contract Documents, accessed October 2026 (purpose, replaces A305-1986, five exhibits)
- AIA Document A305-2020 Exhibit C, Project Specific Information (sample), AIA Contract Documents, accessed October 2026 (licensing, personnel, capacity, safety, EMR, insurance and surety questions)
- Recordkeeping, OSHA, accessed October 2026 (Forms 300, 300A and 301; employers with more than 10 employees)
- 29 CFR 1904.32, Annual summary, eCFR, accessed October 2026 (post by February 1, keep posted until April 30)
- 29 CFR 1904.33, Retention and updating, eCFR, accessed October 2026 (five-year retention)
- Clarification on how the formula is used by OSHA to calculate incident rates, OSHA, August 23, 2016, accessed October 2026 (incidence rate formula and the 200,000 base)
- Experience rating changes, Texas Mutual Insurance Company, October 24, 2023, accessed October 2026 (meaning of an EMR of 1.00, credit and debit mods)
- 40 U.S. Code 3131, Bonds of contractors of public buildings or works, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, accessed October 2026 ($100,000 statutory threshold)
- FAR 28.102-1 General (FAC 2026-01), Acquisition.gov, accessed October 2026 ($150,000 threshold)
- FAR Overhaul: Part 28, Acquisition.gov, accessed October 2026 (bond amounts, $35,000 to $150,000 payment protections, bid guarantee of 20 percent capped at $3 million)
- FAR Overhaul: Part 42, Acquisition.gov, accessed October 2026 (6-year CPARS window for construction)
- FAR Council releases second round of FAR overhaul proposed rules, Nixon Peabody, September 25, 2026, accessed October 2026 (FAR Case 2026-010 covers Part 28)
- Surety bonds, U.S. Small Business Administration, accessed October 2026 ($9 million and $14 million guarantee limits)
- Transforming Public Procurement, GOV.UK, accessed October 2026 (Procurement Act 2023 in force February 24, 2025)
- PPN 03/24: Standard Selection Questionnaire (SQ), GOV.UK, March 27, 2024, accessed October 2026 (PAS 91 withdrawn by BSI, references removed)
- Annex A: Guidance on the selection stage process (PCR 2015), GOV.UK, accessed October 2026 (use CAS for works contracts)
- Guidance: Conditions of Participation, GOV.UK, updated August 17, 2026, accessed October 2026 (section 22, CAS use, insurance and audited accounts limits, central digital platform)
- Common Assessment Standard, Build UK, accessed October 2026 (question set, certification levels, annual certification, version 6 date)
- RIDDOR, Health and Safety Executive, accessed October 2026 (regulation name)