How to register as a vendor with Miami-Dade County

What to have ready before you start

Gather the legal basics first: your business's legal name exactly as registered, EIN, W-9, Florida business registration, any trade licenses your category requires (contractor licensing runs through the state and county), and certificates of insurance. If your firm qualifies as a small business, look at the county's Small Business Enterprise (SBE) certification in parallel — SBE-reserved and SBE-measure solicitations are a meaningful share of county service work.

Register in the Supplier Portal

Create your vendor account through the Miami-Dade County Supplier Portal linked from the county's Strategic Procurement pages. You'll build a company profile, add contacts, and — the step that decides what you hear about — select the commodity codes that match your work. Choose every code you would genuinely bid: the portal alerts you based on those selections, and a missing code means a silent miss. Keep contact emails current; a solicitation alert landing in a departed employee's inbox is the same as no alert.

Where solicitations show up

Current county solicitations are publicly listed on the SPD solicitation pages — solicitation number, title, posted date, and opening (deadline) date — and each has a public detail page with the scope and documents. You can browse them without any login; responding happens through the portal. BidPelican's patrol reads that same public list twice a day and matches it against your trades, so your morning email and the county's own board never disagree.

After registration: the habits that win work

Turn on alerts, then verify the system by finding your codes' current solicitations on the public list. Attend pre-bid conferences when they're offered — for construction-pool (MCC) work especially, the county explains expectations face to face. And mind the county's Cone of Silence: once a solicitation is out, communications about it go only through the named contact, in writing. It's a fairness rule with real consequences, and it's printed on the solicitations themselves.

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