The State of Delaware buys commodities, services, and construction from outside vendors every year, and the front door is the same whether you run a two-person cleaning company or a regional engineering firm. There are three moves, and all three are free.
Register as a vendor so the state can find you and pay you. Get certified through the Office of Supplier Diversity so your status as a diverse or small business is documented. Then watch the bid directory so you actually see the work when it comes up.
The order matters less than doing all three. Here's how each one works in Delaware specifically.
Who runs procurement in DelawareStatewide purchasing runs through Government Support Services (GSS), a unit inside the Office of Management and Budget. GSS manages central and statewide contracts that agencies, school districts, and other public bodies buy from. Individual agencies still run their own solicitations too, but GSS sets the rules and hosts the portal everyone uses.
That portal is MyMarketplace (mymarketplace.delaware.gov). It's the state's procurement hub: vendor registration, bid notifications, the bid directory, and awarded-contract records all live there.
Step 1: Register as a vendor on MyMarketplaceBefore Delaware can pay you, you have to be in the state's vendor system. Registration is free.
MyMarketplace also offers a free vendor subscription. You pick the commodity and service categories that match what you sell, and when a solicitation posts in one of those categories, the state emails you. This is the single best thing you can do early: a lot of vendors miss bids simply because they never knew they opened.
Online bid submission for Delaware runs through Bonfire, the state's e-bidding provider. If you hit a technical wall submitting a bid, the support line is Support@GoBonfire.com, not the agency buyer.
Have your basics ready when you register: legal business name and address exactly as they appear on your tax records, your EIN, your banking details for payment, and a short list of the categories you want to track.
Step 2: Get certified through the Office of Supplier DiversityThis is the Delaware-specific piece, and it's where being a diverse, minority, women, veteran, or small-business owner starts to count.
The Office of Supplier Diversity (OSD), part of the Division of Small Business, certifies Delaware businesses through one combined application that covers two tracks:
- Diverse Business certification, for firms that are at least 51% owned and controlled by minorities, women, veterans, service-disabled veterans, or individuals with disabilities. The sub-designations are MBE (minority), WBE (women), VOBE (veteran), SDVOBE (service-disabled veteran), and IWDBE (individuals with disabilities). For minority status, the recognized groups are African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, Native American, and Subcontinent Asian American.
- Small Business Focus certification, for firms that meet Delaware's size limits based on full-time-equivalent employees and gross revenue averaged over three years, in fields like construction, manufacturing, architecture and engineering, service, retail, and wholesale.
A few specifics worth knowing before you apply:
- It's free. Delaware does not charge for OSD certification or for the resulting directory listing.
- The application has to be notarized. Plan for that step so it doesn't stall you at the end.
- It runs about four to six weeks. Incomplete applications are the main cause of delay, so send everything the first time.
- Certification lasts three years, then you renew with updated documentation, unless your ownership or eligibility changes sooner.
As of March 2025, OSD moved to an online application portal, reachable at de.gov/osd, which replaced the older paper-and-email process. Apply there.
What certification actually unlocks in DelawareBe clear-eyed about this, because Delaware works differently from some states. There is no statewide percentage set-aside that reserves a fixed share of contracts for certified diverse businesses. If you've read about federal set-asides, where whole contracts are restricted to certified firms, Delaware's program is not that.
What OSD certification does is make you visible and verified. Certified firms appear in the state's certified-vendor data, which agency buyers and prime contractors use when they look for diverse suppliers. Certification documents your status so you don't have to re-prove it on every bid. And it plugs you into OSD's outreach: the email list for networking events and workshops, the "Open for Business" county events, and the informal "Contracts to Watch" sessions where buyers preview work that's coming up.
Delaware has been candid that its numbers have room to grow. Independent reporting has put the share of state contract dollars going to women- and minority-owned firms in Delaware at just under 9%, below neighboring states. For a vendor, that's a reason to get certified and stay visible, not a reason to skip it. The state is actively working to widen access, and certified firms are the ones positioned to benefit.
Step 3: Find the bidsOnce you're registered and certified, watch where the work posts:
- The MyMarketplace bid directory lists open formal solicitations across all three branches of state government: Requests for Information (RFI), Invitations to Bid (ITB), and Requests for Proposals (RFP). The vendor-notification subscription you set up in Step 1 pushes the relevant ones to your inbox.
- bids.delaware.gov is the sign-up point for industry-specific bid notifications.
- contracts.delaware.gov lets you search current and awarded state contracts, useful for seeing what the state actually buys, at what volume, and who's winning.
Understanding the dollar thresholds helps you target the right opportunities. For materiel and non-professional services, Delaware's GSS process runs roughly like this: purchases under $50,000 are open-market and don't have to be publicly advertised, purchases from $50,000 to $99,999.99 require three written quotes, and purchases of $100,000 and up go to formal advertised bid. Those figures are set by the Purchasing and Advisory Council and treated as yearly cumulative limits, so confirm the current numbers before you rely on them.
The takeaway: smaller, sub-$50,000 work often moves through direct buyer relationships rather than public advertising. That's exactly why showing up in the certified-vendor directory and at OSD outreach events matters. You want buyers to find you for the work that never hits the formal bid board.
A realistic first 60 days- Week 1. Register on MyMarketplace and turn on category-based bid notifications. Gather your certification documents: ownership records, financials, EIN, and proof of any veteran or disability status.
- Weeks 1 to 2. Submit your OSD application through de.gov/osd. Get it notarized and send complete documentation so the four-to-six-week clock starts clean.
- Weeks 2 to 6. While certification processes, study contracts.delaware.gov to learn what the state buys in your category, and sharpen your capability statement so a buyer who finds you reads you as a serious vendor.
- Week 6 and on. Certification in hand, join the OSD list and start showing up at "Open for Business" and "Contracts to Watch" events. Respond to your first solicitations.
Don't sell only to the central agencies, either. Delaware schools, fire companies, and municipalities aren't required to buy off state contracts, which means a certified vendor can market to them directly.
Where this fits beyond DelawareDelaware's OSD certification is the credential that opens doors at home. If your customers reach across state lines or into the corporate and federal market, the certifications stack: a state diverse-business certification, a federal one, and corporate certifications like NMSDC or WBENC each unlock different buyers.
That's the part that eats most owners' time, since each program has its own application, documents, and portal. CertifyAll captures your business information once and handles the filing across agencies, so you're not rebuilding the same paperwork for every program. Once you're certified, listing your business in our supplier directory puts you in front of corporate buyers actively searching for diverse suppliers. And if you're weighing other states, our state-by-state certification guides cover the same ground for the rest of the country.
Start with the three Delaware moves. They're free, and they're the foundation everything else builds on.
