Never let your public works contractor qualification go out of date

Decree 105/2025 repealed Article 13 of Law 13,064, which had created the National Register of Public Works Contractors, and Law 22,460 (Articles 1 and 3), and provided that contracting with the National Administration requires registration in the database designed and run by the governing body (Article 4). Until its implementing rules take effect, the previous registration regimes remain in force (Article 7). Decree 206/2025 entrusted the National Procurement Office (ONC) with the Contractor Information System (SICO) (Article 1), including the Public Works Contractors category (SICO-COP) for those taking part in procedures governed by Law 13,064 (Article 2(b)). SICO-COP records contractors' financial capacity and track record and classifies and qualifies them, setting a reference execution capacity without weighing works commitments already taken on, thereby removing the reference contracting capacity (Article 7). Only those registered in SICO-COP may take part in Law 13,064 procedures (Article 10). Until the ONC sets the date on which SICO is fully operational, the previous registration regimes remain in force (Article 19).

ONC Disposition 24/2025, published on 26 May 2025 and in force from the next working day (Article 4), repealed Articles 11, 12 and 13 of the Register's rules approved by ONC Disposition 16/2019 (Article 1) and approved the Methodology for Calculating and the Validity of the Qualification of Public Works Contractors (Article 2). Under its Annex I, the Reference Financial Execution Capacity is the product of the Basic Capacity (the average of the three closed financial years with the highest output, chosen from the last five) and the Enabling Factor, which adds up liquidity, solvency, equity and indebtedness ratios; public and private works, in Argentina or abroad, as contractor or subcontractor, all count, and builders with no track record use the net worth of the last financial year as their base (Article 1). The qualification lasts thirty-six months from the closing date of the last balance sheet filed; the company may file an update whenever it sees fit to increase its capacity and, once verified, the period runs again; once the period has passed without an update, the qualification automatically becomes outdated (Article 2).

ONC General Communication 8/2025 clarifies that the former National Register of Public Works Contractors is replaced by SICO-COP, that the new calculation methodology has applied since 27 May 2025, and that, until SICO is fully operational, the National Register of Contractors and Consulting Firms residually keeps its operation and validity. The rules in ONC Disposition 16/2019 still govern pre-registration on CONTRAT.AR (Annex, Article 3), digital filing of documents through Remote Procedures (Article 5) and the duty to keep the electronic file permanently up to date (Article 7); ONC Disposition 24/2025 replaced the annex listing the documents to file for registration or update (Article 3).