A self-issued reference cannot be accepted in public procurement. The Public Procurement Office (ÚVO) confirmed this in accordance with General Methodological Guideline No. 4/2026.
The fundamental problem arises when a legal entity carries out a contract on its own behalf and subsequently issues a certificate of successful completion to itself. Such a procedure amounts to a de facto evaluation of its own activities, which is contrary to the spirit and purpose of the reference.
References in public procurement do not serve merely as formal proof of prior experience. Their primary purpose is to demonstrate that the bidder or prospective bidder has the necessary material and personnel resources, technical competence, and sufficient experience to carry out the required scope of the contract. At the same time, they are intended to confirm that the bidder has, in the past, been able to fulfill its obligations to the client properly and satisfactorily.
An essential prerequisite is therefore the existence of an independent purchaser. This must be a person other than the bidder or prospective bidder in the public procurement process.
It follows from the above that, for example, construction work carried out on the company’s own development project cannot subsequently be reported as a reference project. The mere fact that the company successfully completed the project is not sufficient—if the company performed the work for itself, there is no independent customer who could objectively confirm that the work was properly carried out.
