Consultant Contracting

Sign Up in the City’s Procurement Portal

Consultants interested in doing business with the City of Seattle must “Sign up” their business using the City's procurement portal, powered by OpenGov. Consultants must click the “Subscribe” button on the City’s procurement portal page to receive notifications about City opportunities and to ensure their business is visible to City departments.

See also our Doing Business with the City booklet.

 Each City department awards and executes its own consultant contracts. However, there are general Citywide standard procedures issued by Purchasing and Contracting that each department must follow. Different solicitation requirements apply depending on the type of consultant project. See policies and templates below.

Departments are not required to advertise contracts under $71,000 and may select any consultant for these projects. City departments may also use the City's Consultant Roster to select a consultant for projects valued at $420,000 or less.

Consultant Roster

Qualified consultants can apply to be added to one or more of the City’s 96 rosters. These citywide rosters allow City departments to select a consultant for projects valued at $420,000 or less without having to conduct a formal, advertised competitive solicitation process.

Applications for the 96 roster categories have been combined into 13 solicitations organized by specialization. Click here to view the Consultant Roster Service Categories to Solicitations Map  which lists which roster service categories are available under each solicitation. The City has only one sanctioned Consultant Roster program, administered by Finance and Administrative Services through the City’s Procurement Portal. After subscribing to the City, Consultants may apply to one or more of the City's official consultant rosters in the portal.

To apply to a consultant roster, click here to view all of the Citywide Consultant Roster solicitations. Navigate to the solicitation for your specialization and click on the Draft Response button to begin the application process. Consultants will be eligible for approval if they have completed 3 or more projects within the scope of the roster category for which they are applying.

Per City ordinance, individual roster categories will close to large businesses after 15 or more small businesses have been added to the roster category. Any previously approved large businesses will be removed from the roster categories with a small business priority in effect.

You can check to see if you qualify as a Small Business as defined by the Small Business Administration (SBA), by the State of Washington or by King County before applying for the Consultant Roster.

Competitive Solicitations

City departments may conduct a request for proposals (RFP) or request for qualifications (RFQ) process for projects of any dollar size but formal competition is required for projects valued above $71,000 when the Roster is not being used. These solicitations will be advertised and managed by the department. You may learn of these opportunities by searching OpenGov, theDaily Journal of Commerce and/or City department websites.

Consultant contracting policies and templates

Purchasing and Contracting issues policies, guidelines and boilerplates to City departments for all City bid and contract responsibilities. These are internal documents; they benefit and instruct departments about expected approaches, responsibilities and decision points. These are subject to change at any time.