In this guide 7 sections
Every public tender has a gate before the evaluation: is this company allowed to hold a public contract at all? The gate is the list of exclusion grounds in Article 57 of Directive 2014/24/EU. Some close automatically. Some are opened or closed by the buyer. And almost all of them can be reopened by the bidder, through a procedure the directive calls self-cleaning.
Most bidders meet the exclusion grounds only as tick-boxes in the ESPD. This guide explains what the boxes mean.
The mandatory grounds
A buyer must exclude a company whose managers or representatives have been convicted by final judgment of:
- participation in a criminal organisation,
- corruption,
- fraud affecting the EU's financial interests,
- terrorist offences,
- money laundering or terrorist financing,
- child labour or trafficking in human beings.
"Managers or representatives" is broad: members of the administrative, management or supervisory body, and anyone with powers of representation, decision or control. A conviction of one board member excludes the company.
The buyer must also exclude a company that has breached its obligations to pay taxes or social security contributions, when the breach is established by a final judicial or administrative decision. Where there is no final decision but the buyer can show the breach by other means, exclusion is allowed but not required. And the exclusion ends the moment the debt is paid or a binding payment arrangement is in place.
Mandatory exclusion lasts up to five years from the date of the conviction, unless the judgment itself set a period.
The discretionary grounds
A buyer may exclude a company, or national law may require it to, in seven situations:
- Breach of environmental, social or labour law obligations that the buyer can demonstrate.
- Insolvency: bankruptcy, winding up, administration, an arrangement with creditors, or any similar situation. National law may allow a company under a rescue arrangement to keep bidding if it can perform.
- Grave professional misconduct that makes the company's integrity questionable. This is the widest ground and the most litigated.
- Distortion of competition: sufficiently plausible indications of an agreement with other companies to distort competition, for example bid-rigging.
- A conflict of interest that cannot be remedied by less intrusive means.
- Prior involvement in preparing the procedure that gives the company an advantage which cannot be remedied.
- Significant or persistent deficiencies in performing a previous public contract, which led to early termination, damages or comparable sanctions.
Two more: serious misrepresentation in the information supplied for the exclusion and selection checks, or withholding it; and undue influence on the buyer's decision-making, including attempts to obtain confidential information.
Discretionary exclusion lasts up to three years from the relevant event.
Number seven deserves attention. A terminated public contract, or one that ended with penalties, is a ground the buyer can invoke in every tender for three years. Contract performance is not only a delivery matter; it is a qualification matter for the next bid.
When the check happens
The ESPD is a self-declaration that none of the grounds apply. Only the bidder about to be awarded the contract is normally asked for the evidence: criminal record extracts, tax and social security certificates, insolvency register extracts. But the buyer may ask any bidder at any time during the procedure if that is necessary to conduct it properly, and the buyer must exclude a company that is found, at any stage, to fall under a mandatory ground.
The point in time matters. The grounds are assessed both when the tender is submitted and during the procedure; a company that becomes insolvent between bid and award can be excluded then.
Self-cleaning: bidding again after a failure
Article 57(6) is the part of the rule that bidders rarely know. A company that falls under an exclusion ground, mandatory or discretionary, may provide evidence that it has taken measures sufficient to demonstrate its reliability despite the ground. If the buyer considers the evidence sufficient, the company is not excluded.
The directive names the measures:
- Compensation: the company has paid, or undertaken to pay, compensation for any damage caused by the offence or misconduct.
- Cooperation: it has clarified the facts comprehensively by actively collaborating with the investigating authorities.
- Prevention: it has taken concrete technical, organisational and personnel measures to prevent further offences or misconduct.
The buyer evaluates the measures against the gravity and circumstances of the offence. A refusal must be reasoned. Self-cleaning is not available while an exclusion period fixed by a final judgment is still running in the country where the judgment is enforceable.
In practice, a self-cleaning file contains: the facts, stated plainly; what was paid to whom; proof of cooperation with authorities; the compliance programme adopted afterwards, with dates and names; the people who left and the people who now hold responsibility; and any independent certification of the new arrangements. Companies that treat this as a paragraph in the ESPD The European Single Procurement Document: a self-declaration that replaces certificates at the bidding stage. Full entry fail. Companies that treat it as a dossier, prepared once and updated, recover their access to public contracts.
What a bidder should do now
- Know your own record. Pull the criminal record extracts for every board member and representative, the tax and social security certificates, and the list of public contracts that ended badly in the last three years. Do it before the tender, not when the buyer asks with a ten-day deadline.
- Keep the certificates current. Many are valid for three or six months. A lapsed certificate at award stage is a delay at best and a lost contract at worst.
- Check your partners. In a consortium, every member is tested; a relied-upon entity is tested; named subcontractors are tested. One partner's unpaid social security can exclude the whole group.
- Prepare the self-cleaning dossier the day something goes wrong, not the day you need it.
The standing file
Most exclusion problems are logistics: a document that exists but is not to hand, or that expired last month. Keep one folder, in the local language of each market you bid in, with:
| Document | Typical validity | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| Criminal record extract, company and each manager | 3 to 6 months | the mandatory grounds |
| Tax compliance certificate | 3 to 12 months | tax obligations |
| Social security certificate | 1 to 6 months | social contributions |
| Insolvency register extract | 3 to 6 months | bankruptcy and similar |
| Professional or trade register extract | 3 to 12 months | authorisation to trade |
| Declaration on conflicts of interest and prior involvement | per tender | discretionary grounds |
| List of public contracts ended early in the last 3 years, with explanation | rolling | prior performance |
Put a renewal date on each and refresh it a month before. In a tender with a ten-day deadline for evidence, the company that already has the folder wins the days that the others spend queueing at registries. And when a certificate cannot be issued in your country, most buyers accept a sworn declaration before a notary or authority in its place; know in advance which of your documents needs that route.
How buyers actually use the grounds
Most exclusions in practice are for the two boring reasons: unpaid taxes or social contributions, and missing certificates. Convictions are rare; grave misconduct and poor past performance are argued more than applied, because buyers must document them and expect a challenge. A bidder with clean certificates and a tidy file passes the gate without noticing it is there. That is the goal.
Sources
The figures and rules in this guide were checked against these sources on October 2, 2026.