The DBE list you bid from in 2024 is not the list you have today. Every certified firm has been through, or is still inside, a reevaluation of its owners’ disadvantage, and some firms you have used for years will come out the other side disqualified. Before you put a sub on a commitment form, and again before you sign the subcontract, run the check below. It takes fifteen minutes. Skipping it can cost you the credit for the whole scope.
The verification procedure
- Pull the listing from the directory of the state where the contract is let. Counting follows the recipient’s UCP, so that is the directory that governs. Search by legal name, then by certification number. Capture the legal name as listed, the certification number, the NAICS or work codes, the status field, and the date you looked. Save the page as a PDF, not a bookmark. The UCP directory page links each state’s search.
- For an out-of-state firm, get the home-state proof too. The firm’s Jurisdiction of Original Certification runs the reevaluation. The final rule says other states accept that outcome on “simple notification,” which the preamble describes as a letter, or else a screenshot of the firm’s listing in the JOC’s updated directory, and the receiving UCP records it. Ask the sub for that letter or screenshot. Then confirm your state’s directory reflects it. One catch from the preamble: a firm that does not reaffirm in your state within one year of its home-state decision has to go through the § 26.85 interstate process again from the start.
- Ask for the reevaluation decision letter. Under § 26.111(a)(4) the UCP issues each firm a written decision “stating either that it has been retained as a DBE or has been disqualified.” A retained firm has this letter. Ask for a copy and file it with the quote. If the firm says it has submitted and is waiting, ask for the submission confirmation and a date; if it says it has not been asked yet, treat that as a flag and go to the second branch below.
- Match the certification to the scope. The work codes on the listing have to cover the work you are counting, and the firm has to perform a commercially useful function under § 26.55(c): it must be “responsible for execution of the work of the contract” and carry that out “by performing, managing, and supervising the work involved.” A certified firm on the wrong code, or one that will broker the work, earns no credit.
- Date the check, then repeat it. Section 26.55(f) looks at whether the firm is “currently certified” when the contract is executed, so check at bid, again at subcontract signing, and at each pay estimate on a long job. Put every check in a log (a template is below). A dated screenshot from bid day is what protects you if the status changes later.
What to do if
Retained
- File the decision letter and the dated directory PDF with the quote and the 26.53 confirmation.
- Confirm the confirmation letter names the same UCP and certification number the directory shows.
- Note the firm’s certification anniversary; the yearly Declaration of Eligibility still applies after reevaluation.
Notice of nonresponse pending
- The firm has not sent its narrative and PNW statement. Its cutoff is March 24, 2027, pushed out 90 days if the UCP got an extension.
- Ask the recipient, in writing, whether it will count the firm on this contract before the decision issues. Section 26.55 does not answer that for you.
- Tell the sub what is at stake and give it a date. A firm in this position can still submit and be retained.
Disqualified
- Do not terminate or substitute on your own. Section 26.53(f)(1) requires the recipient’s prior written consent before you drop a listed DBE or any of its work.
- Once consent issues, 26.53(g) requires good faith efforts to replace the participation, with your documentation due in 7 days (extendable by 7 more).
- Ask the recipient how it will count the work already performed and the work remaining. Get that answer in writing.
Reading this as the sub? If your UCP has asked for a narrative and you have not sent one, your prime will find out the way this article describes. The narrative interview drafts it against § 26.67 as amended, and the DBE Compliance Membership keeps the retention letter, the yearly declaration, and the prime-facing documents in one place.
Start the narrativeCounting participation: what the rule says
Four paragraphs of § 26.55 do the work here, and none of them mentions reevaluation except the last. Paragraph (f): if a firm is not currently certified “at the time of the execution of the contract, do not count the firm’s participation toward any DBE goals, except as provided for in § 26.87(j).” Paragraph (g): “Do not count the dollar value of work performed under a contract with a firm after it has ceased to be certified toward your overall goal.” Paragraph (h): participation counts toward a contractor’s final compliance only once “the contractor has paid the DBE the amount being counted.” Paragraph (i): “Effective October 3, 2025, you may not count any DBE participation toward DBE goals until the UCP that covers you has completed the reevaluation process described in § 26.111.”
Notice what is missing. Paragraph (f) points to § 26.87(j), the decertification section, for the exception that lets a prime keep credit on a subcontract signed before the firm lost eligibility. But the final rule’s preamble says a § 26.111 disqualification “is not a decertification” and that the § 26.87 procedures do not apply to it. Whether a recipient will treat a mid-contract disqualification the way it treats a decertification for counting purposes is therefore not settled by the rule text. The preamble points recipients to DOT’s FAQ page for how counting and termination “operate in practice.” Read it, then ask your recipient’s DBE liaison officer for its position in writing, on this contract, and keep the answer with your log.
Your verification log
| Date | Firm / cert no. | Source checked | Result | Filed as |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [bid day] | [firm], [no.] | State directory | Certified, codes match | PDF + log entry |
| [bid day] | [firm], [no.] | Decision letter from sub | Retained, [date] | Copy with quote |
| [signing] | [firm], [no.] | State directory | Unchanged | PDF + log entry |
Five columns, one row per check, kept in the project file. When goals come back and a reviewer asks how you knew your listed firms were certified, this is the answer you hand over.
Sources: 49 CFR 26.55 · 49 CFR 26.53 · DOT final rule (FR Doc. 2026-19688) · Related: good faith efforts documentation · interstate certification · the final rule explained. Not legal advice.