Field guide · Selling to government

Your first 90 days selling to government, planned

If you have zero government revenue and want a concrete place to start, here is the honest version. Registering is the easy week. It is fast, it is free, and a sole proprietor can do it. This plan is about what you do with the other 83 days, when the slow clocks that actually decide your first win are already ticking.

Built from the official CanadaBuys and Public Services and Procurement Canada getting-started pages. Reviewed July 2026.

$0Cost to register your business
2bus. daysBefore you follow up on a Procurement Business Number
3Thirty-day phases in this plan
30work daysHard window to file a procurement complaint
The reality of the timeline

Registration is fast. Trust and visibility are slow.

Most getting-started guides make registration sound like the hard part. It is not. Getting a Canada Revenue Agency business number is usually instant online, and registering to sell to the government is free and typically done in well under a week. That is genuinely the easy part.

The long poles are elsewhere. Getting your profile tagged so buyers can actually find you, learning to read and answer real tender documents, waiting through a pre-qualification cycle that runs on a quarterly rhythm, and, if your work touches sensitive information, starting a security clearance that has no published turnaround time. None of those are fast, and most of them are best started early and left to run in the background. That is what a 90-day plan is really for.

So this plan front-loads the paperwork into week one and spends the rest of the time on the things that take real calendar time. Here is the shape of it.

The three phases at a glance

  • Days 1 to 30: get registered and oriented. Business number, SAP Business Network, Procurement Business Number, the right commodity codes, a free seminar, and a daily habit of watching your market.
  • Days 31 to 60: find your buyers and start the slow clocks. Research who buys what you sell, understand how departments buy small, begin any security clearance conversation, and enter a pre-qualification like ProServices.
  • Days 61 to 90: place your first bids, done right. Choose tenders with discipline, write something compliant, and, win or lose, use the recourse the process gives you.

New to the whole idea? Read how to sell to government in Canada for the big picture first, then come back here for the sequence.

Before day one, gather these. The official SAP Business Network registration checklist asks for your legal business name and head-office address, a main contact with email and phone, your CRA business number and ownership type, your Canadian or non-Canadian supplier status, banking details with a voided cheque or bank confirmation letter, the product and service categories you supply, your ship-to or service locations, and your number of employees. Having these ready turns registration into an afternoon instead of a scavenger hunt.
Days 1 to 30

Get registered, get oriented

Everything in this phase is free and most of it is same-day. Treat it as one focused week of setup, then a daily 20-minute habit of watching your market for the rest of the month.

  1. Get your CRA business number

    A business number is the nine-digit identifier the Canada Revenue Agency assigns to your business. Register online through Business Registration Online, which usually issues the number instantly with online confirmation. In many cases you already have one from incorporating. Businesses of every size and legal form need it to sell to the government.

    Legal form is not a gate. The registration form itself accepts sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, or other. Incorporating is a decision about liability and tax, not a requirement to bid, so a sole proprietor can start today.

  2. Register on SAP Business Network and get a PBN

    Register on SAP Business Network first. It is the primary tool the government uses to source suppliers and receive bids. You will also need a Procurement Business Number, issued through the Supplier Registration Information system, which is currently required for bids and payments handled outside SAP Ariba. Public Services and Procurement Canada has signalled that the Supplier Registration Information system is being consolidated into SAP Business Network, and the stated changeover has already passed, so if that flow is still live when you register it still works. Confirm the current step on the official CanadaBuys registration pages before you start.

    Both registrations are free. When you submit a Procurement Business Number request, validation can take a few minutes. If no confirmation email arrives within two business days, that is the point to follow up with the registration service desk, not before.

  3. Tag your profile with the right codes

    Government buyers classify what they buy with UNSPSC codes, an eight-digit system, and the older GSIN codes still run alongside them during the transition. Adding the right codes to your profile is optional but strongly recommended, because it is how buyers and their systems discover you as a possible supplier. Use the CanadaBuys code-mapping tool to find the codes that match what you sell, and add them while your profile is fresh.

  4. Book a free seminar and know who to ask

    Procurement Assistance Canada runs free seminars and webinars that walk you through federal procurement. Find one on their event calendar and book it. For registration questions, CanadaBuys offers a 24/7 chatbot and a service desk you can reach by phone, email, or chat.

    One thing older guides get wrong: Procurement Assistance Canada stopped accepting new one-on-one coaching applications as of April 10, 2026, and its national phone info line closed after May 29, 2026. Do not plan around a coaching appointment. Lean on the free seminars and the CanadaBuys service desk instead, and confirm the current options on the official page.

  5. Start watching your market, daily

    You do not have to pay to see a federal tender. Spend 20 minutes a week, or a few minutes a day, browsing what is open in your space. It costs nothing, it teaches you how buyers describe your work, and it is where your first realistic target eventually appears. Our live tender browser pulls open CanadaBuys notices into one filterable place. If you want the wider map of where tenders live, see where to find government contracts in Canada and the full directory of Canadian tender portals.

Days 31 to 60

Find your buyers, start the slow clocks

Now that you are registered and watching the market, this phase is about intelligence and patience. You research who actually buys what you sell, and you start the two clocks, pre-qualification and security clearance, that run for months whether or not you are watching them.

  1. Research who buys what you sell

    The same search that shows open tenders also lists award notices, so you can see who has already won work like yours and which departments keep buying it. Read a season of history in your commodity codes. Buyer concentration tells you where to aim, and a repeat buyer is a warmer target than a one-time one. Our page on the numbers behind federal contracting shows the who-buys and who-wins picture in aggregate, and if you sell into Ontario, the Ontario tenders feed narrows it to your province.

  2. Understand how departments buy small

    Not every purchase is an open tender. The government treats buys below $25,000 for goods and below $40,000 for services and construction, taxes included, as low dollar value procurements, and these are often direct purchases rather than public competitions. Buyers find suppliers for them through source lists and their own networks, and purchases under roughly $10,000 are frequently paid by acquisition card. The way to get found for this quieter channel is not a separate application: it is a complete registration profile with the right commodity codes, plus the ability to invoice or take a card, plus relationships you build over time.

    This is why phase one insists on a fully tagged profile. Below-threshold work is the payoff for doing registration thoroughly.

  3. Start the security clearance conversation now, if your space needs it

    If the work you are targeting touches protected or classified information, security clearance is the genuine wildcard in your 90 days. The government publishes no standard end-to-end turnaround for organization screening, and its own guidance says to start the sponsorship conversation as early as possible rather than waiting for the perfect moment. You cannot self-apply. You are sponsored, usually by the contracting officer on a tender. If clearance is even a possibility in your space, read how security clearances for government contracts work now and get the conversation started, so the clock is running while you do everything else.

  4. Enter a pre-qualification like ProServices

    For a services business, ProServices is the realistic early target. It is a mandatory method of supply for professional services below the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement threshold, spanning 15 streams and 185 service categories. You pre-qualify by responding to a Request for Supply Arrangement through the Centralized Professional Services System. The reason this belongs in month two is timing: qualification opportunities come around on a rolling few-month cycle, and then Public Services and Procurement Canada takes time to evaluate every submission, so the sooner you are in the queue, the sooner you are actually eligible to be considered for task calls.

    You may submit a ProServices bid without holding a security clearance yet. You will not be awarded the supply arrangement until clearance is granted, which is exactly why the clearance conversation and this step run in parallel. Larger and IT-specific arrangements like TSPS and TBIPS exist too, though TBIPS is under a consolidation review, so treat it as a later, know-it-exists option rather than a pillar of your first plan.

Days 61 to 90

First bids, done right

With research behind you and the slow clocks running, the last month is about actually bidding. Chase the right opportunities, not every opportunity, respond to exactly what is asked, and treat a loss as information rather than a dead end.

  1. Choose tenders with a bid or no-bid decision

    Your scarcest resource is the time it takes to write a good bid, so spend it only where you can genuinely win. Before you commit, run each opportunity through an honest bid or no-bid decision: do you meet every mandatory requirement, can you deliver in the region and timeframe asked, and is the fit real or a stretch? Our bid or no-bid checker walks you through that call, and understanding the difference between an RFP, an RFQ, and a standing offer helps you read what kind of response each notice actually wants.

  2. Write a compliant, complete response

    Government evaluation is rules-first. A brilliant proposal that misses a single mandatory requirement gets set aside before its quality is ever judged. Read the notice for its exact delivery method and closing date, answer every mandatory criterion in the order asked, and give yourself margin, since you can request an extension to a closing date from the contracting officer, but only before it passes. Our guide to writing a winning government bid covers the compliance discipline in depth.

  3. Lose well, and use your recourse

    Most first bids do not win, and that is normal. What matters is what you do next. You have the right to request a debriefing after an award, where the contracting officer explains why your bid was not successful, references the evaluation criteria, and shares the winning value and score. Ask for it every time: it is the fastest way to get better. If you believe the process was unfair, raise it with the contracting authority first, and where it qualifies you can bring a complaint to the Office of the Procurement Ombud.

    The Ombud can review contract-award complaints for goods under $34,700 and services under $139,000, and contract-administration complaints at any value. There is a hard limit: a complaint must be filed within 30 working days of the public award notice. Miss that window and the option is gone, so decide quickly.

An honest word

What 90 days can and cannot do

This plan gets you positioned. In 90 days a focused founder can be fully registered, discoverable to buyers, educated on their market, entered into a pre-qualification, moving on any security clearance they need, and mid-way through their first real bids. That is a lot of ground, and every step of it is under your control.

What 90 days cannot promise is a signed contract. There is no published figure for how long a first government win takes, and anyone who gives you a confident number is guessing. Government buying runs on its own calendar: quarterly qualification cycles, unpredictable clearance timelines, and evaluation periods measured in months. Selling to government is a patience game. The winners are the businesses that got positioned early and kept showing up, not the ones that expected a fast payout.

So judge these 90 days by whether you are in the game, not by whether you have been paid. If you finish this plan registered, researched, pre-qualified, and bidding, you have done exactly what this window is for.

Common questions

Getting-started questions, answered

How do I register to sell to the Government of Canada?
Start with a CRA business number, which Business Registration Online usually issues instantly. Then register on SAP Business Network, the primary tool the government uses to source and receive bids, and get a Procurement Business Number through the Supplier Registration Information system, which is currently required for bids and payments handled outside SAP Ariba. Public Services and Procurement Canada has signalled that the Supplier Registration Information system is being consolidated into SAP Business Network, and the stated changeover has already passed, so if that flow is still live when you register it still works. Confirm the current step on the official CanadaBuys registration pages before you start. Registration is free.
How much does it cost to register to sell to the government?
Nothing. The official pages describe no fee to get a CRA business number, to create a SAP Business Network account, or to get a Procurement Business Number. Registration cost is zero. You may spend money later on the work itself, such as security screening documents or a competitive bid, but getting registered and discoverable is free.
Do I need to be incorporated to bid on government contracts?
No. Official guidance and the registration forms accommodate sole proprietorships, partnerships, and corporations. Proof of legal capacity can be articles of incorporation or the registration of a sole proprietor's or partnership's business name. Incorporation is a business decision about liability and tax, not a requirement to be eligible to bid. A sole proprietor can register and bid.
How long does it take to win a first government contract?
There is no published figure for this, and any specific number you see elsewhere is a guess. Registration is fast, days at most. What takes time is different: tagging your profile so buyers can find you, learning to read and answer tender documents, waiting through a pre-qualification like ProServices whose qualify-then-evaluate cycle runs quarterly, and, where it applies, security clearance, for which the government publishes no standard turnaround. Ninety days is enough to get registered, researched, and bidding. It is not a guaranteed path to a signed contract, and honest planning treats it as a patience game.
Can I bid on a government contract before I have security clearance?
Often yes. For many one-off tenders, clearance has to be in place by contract award rather than at bid submission, and for ProServices specifically a supplier may submit a bid without holding a clearance but will not be awarded the supply arrangement until it is granted. Because the timeline to get cleared is unpredictable, official guidance says to request sponsorship as soon as possible, in parallel with your first bid, not after. Standing offers and supply arrangements can be stricter and may require clearance to already be in place.
What is a low dollar value purchase, and can a new supplier win one?
The government treats purchases below $25,000 for goods and below $40,000 for services and construction, taxes included, as low dollar value procurements. These are often direct purchases from vendors rather than openly tendered, and buyers find suppliers through source lists and their own networks. Purchases under roughly $10,000 are frequently paid by acquisition card. The way a new supplier gets found for this work is to complete your registration profile fully, including the right commodity codes, and to be able to invoice or accept card payment.
What is ProServices and why start it in month two?
ProServices is a mandatory method of supply for professional services valued below the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement threshold, spanning 15 streams and 185 service categories. You pre-qualify by responding to a Request for Supply Arrangement through the Centralized Professional Services System. It runs on a rolling cycle: opportunities to qualify come around every few months, then Public Services and Procurement Canada takes time to evaluate the submissions. Because that clock is slow and continuous, a services business starts it early rather than waiting, and you can submit without holding security clearance yet, since clearance is only required before award.
Day one starts here

Start with the market you are selling into

The single best day-one habit is watching what is actually open. It is free, it needs no account, and it is where your first target eventually shows up. Everything else in this plan builds on it.

Watch every open federal tender

Search, filter, and shortlist live CanadaBuys notices in one place. Start the 20-minute-a-week habit today, and come back to this plan as each phase comes due.

Open the tender browser Free · no account needed

Keep building the picture: read how to sell to government in Canada, learn where to find government contracts, browse every Canadian tender portal or the Ontario tenders feed, understand the RFP, RFQ, and standing offer distinction, and check which small-business procurement programs you may qualify for. When you are ready, run a target through the bid or no-bid checker and study the numbers on who buys and who wins.

Fund the runway

Getting bid-ready costs money before any contract pays

These first 90 days ask for real hours and, often, real spending: the people, systems, and capacity that make you a credible bidder, all before a single contract pays out. Canadian business grants and funding programs exist to cover exactly that kind of growth. Take our free two-minute quiz to see which programs you may qualify for, or find grants for your business and browse the full funding catalog. If you are a smaller supplier, the small-business procurement programs are worth a look too.

Sources

All facts on this page are drawn from the following official Government of Canada pages, reviewed July 2026. Government registration systems are mid-transition, so always confirm the current step on the official pages before you act.

Preparing to sell to government (CanadaBuys) · How to register your business · Register in the Supplier Registration Information system · Checklist to register in SAP Business Network · Finding and using UNSPSC codes · Procurement Assistance Canada: get assistance · Low dollar value procurements · About ProServices · Security screening sponsorship process · Following up after a bid: debriefs · Office of the Procurement Ombud