Montgomery County is Maryland's most populous county, and its Office of Procurement buys goods, services and construction for County departments. The County publishes two numbers that tell you how open the door is: in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2026, 36% of its new contract awards went to vendors it had never contracted with before, and $306 million went to minority-, female- and disabled-owned firms.
The County does not issue a minority- or women-owned certificate of its own. It runs on registrations and certifications from other places, and it treats local small businesses as a separate program. Get these in the right order.
Step 1: Register in CVRS and on BidNet
Two registrations, two jobs:
- County Vendor Registration System (CVRS). The County's own vendor record, launched September 2, 2024, free. CVRS is where you apply for the County's local programs, where you upload outside certifications, and where you pick the commodity codes the County uses to notify vendors. You can bid on most solicitations without it, but you must be registered before the County will issue a contract or pay you, and you must be registered and certified to bid on anything reserved for local small businesses.
- BidNet Direct, Maryland Purchasing Group. The County says all of its solicitations are issued through BidNet, at bidnetdirect.com/maryland/montgomerycounty, and it accepts electronic responses there. The free "Limited Access" option sends email alerts when a solicitation matches your profile.
Montgomery County Public Schools buys separately, through its Department of Materials Management and its own supplier portal. The County's FAQ describes CVRS as built with Montgomery College, MCPS and the Housing Opportunities Commission, but each of those agencies runs its own bids, so check each one before you assume a County alert covers it.
Step 2: Decide whether you are a local small business
This is the program with the most money behind it for small firms. The Local Small Business Reserve Program (LSBRP) requires County departments to award 25% of their procurements, with specified exceptions, to certified local small businesses, and since April 1, 2021 every informal solicitation has been reserved for LSBRP firms. Nonprofits can qualify.
To be eligible, the business must be independently owned (brokers and subsidiaries are not eligible), have a federal tax number in its name, and have its principal place of business in Montgomery County. That means either all your locations are in the County, or your County locations account for more than half of your employees or more than half of your gross sales.
The size limits, as the County publishes them:
| Business type | Employees | Or prior three years' average sales |
|---|---|---|
| Retail | 30 | $5,000,000 |
| Wholesale | 30 | $5,000,000 |
| Services | 100 | $10,000,000 |
| Construction | 50 | $14,000,000 |
| Manufacturing | 40 | $14,000,000 |
Apply for LSBRP certification inside CVRS. A local firm that outgrows those limits still has two programs:
- Local Business Preference Program. On an Invitation for Bid, a certified local business's price is reduced by 10% for evaluation, capped at $200,000. On an RFP, local preference is an evaluation factor worth 10% of the total points. It does not apply to LSBRP solicitations, to awards by discount or line item, or where state or federal funding prohibits it, and you must be certified before award.
- Local Business Subcontracting Program. On any contract with an initial award estimated over $10 million, the goal is that at least 10% of the dollars go to local businesses. If you are local, the primes winning those contracts need you.
Step 3: Bring an outside certification for the MFD program
The Minority, Female and Disabled-Owned Business (MFD) Program sets subcontracting goals for the life of each contract:
| Purchasing category | MFD goal |
|---|---|
| Construction | 22% |
| Professional services | 25% |
| Non-professional services | 24% |
| Goods | 10% |
The County accepts seven certification pathways instead of certifying firms itself:
- Maryland Department of Social and Economic Mobility (DoSEM) MBE certification. See our Maryland MBE certification guide.
- SBA 8(a)
- SBA service-disabled veteran-owned small business certification, which the County counts in the "disabled" category
- SBA WOSB and EDWOSB, accepted since July 1, 2026. See our Maryland WOSB guide.
- WBENC women's business enterprise
- Capital Region Minority Supplier Development Council MBE
- Baltimore City Minority and Women's Business Opportunity Office (MWBOO)
Upload the certificate in CVRS. The County defines an MFD business as at least 51% owned, controlled and managed by African American, Hispanic American, Asian American or Native American persons, disabled persons, or women, and says certifications for groups outside those categories are not accepted. The County reports about 800 active MFD-certified businesses and nearly $274 million in eligible contracts awarded to them in fiscal 2025.
If your federal work is transportation, note that DBE is a separate federal certification and not on the County's list. Our Maryland DBE guide covers where it stands after USDOT's 2026 final rule.
Veteran-owned firms: points, not a set-aside
The Veteran-Owned Business Preference Program started January 2, 2025. A local veteran-owned business that holds both LSBRP and VBPP certification gets extra evaluation points worth 5% of the total on LSBRP proposals. The County accepts SBA veteran-owned and service-disabled veteran-owned certificates, and since July 1, 2026 it also accepts Maryland's Veteran-Owned Small Business Enterprise (VSBE) certification. Our Maryland SDVOSB guide covers the SBA side.
The thresholds, and where small firms start
| Purchase size | Process |
|---|---|
| $10,000 and below | Department heads can buy directly with a purchase order |
| Above $10,000, below $100,000 | Informal solicitation, reserved for LSBRP firms, typically posted five business days |
| $100,000 and up | Competitive sealed bid, proposal or request for expressions of interest |
For a certified local small business, the informal tier is the realistic first contract: the competition is limited to firms like yours and the posting window is short, so check the County's informal solicitations list often. Below $10,000, departments buy directly, which is why the County runs a Vendor Innovation Portal for introducing your company to the departments that buy what you sell.
The County also uses open solicitations, which accept applications on a continuing basis and award a contract to every applicant that meets the stated qualifications. In February 2026 it opened one (Solicitation 1193175) for organizations to run business training cohorts. If your service fits an open solicitation, there is no deadline to miss.
Forecast with PROJections and the contract data
The Office of Procurement posts PROJections, a forecast of upcoming solicitations by department. The County warns it may be incomplete and can change with the budget. When you find a match, check that the listed commodity code is on your CVRS profile, because that code drives the notifications.
Then look up the current contract on the County's contract search or its open contracts dataset on dataMontgomery. The existing contract tells you who holds the work, when it ends and what the County paid, which is most of what you need to price a competitive bid. After an opening, bid tabulations stay posted for 30 days. The County generally has up to 120 days after an opening to award, longer for complex RFPs, and late bids are rejected.
Two compliance rules that catch service firms
- Wage Requirements Law. County service contracts carry a living-wage requirement. The current rate is $18.55 an hour, effective July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027. Price it into your bid.
- Prevailing Wage Law. County-financed construction contracts require prevailing wages.
Contacts
- Office of Procurement: 27 Courthouse Square, Suite 330, Rockville, MD 20850. 240-777-9900, procure@montgomerycountymd.gov
- MFD Program: 240-777-9912, mfd@montgomerycountymd.gov
- Local Business Programs (LBPP and LBSP): 240-777-9913
Where this fits
Montgomery County sits between Washington, DC and Baltimore, and firms here often register in all three. Our Washington, DC vendor guide, Prince George's County vendor guide and City of Baltimore vendor guide cover the neighbors, and the Maryland vendor guide covers eMaryland Marketplace Advantage for state contracts.
